Comments by Sera Davidow

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  • I’m sorry my ‘magic solution’ comment landed that way for you. I agree with you that adopting systems language isn’t helpful, and can often be harmful. I don’t think of it as systems language – at least not language I’ve heard from the system – but I hear you that that’s what it taps into for you.

    For me, why I was trying to get at was this idea – from both the system and within our communities largely out of desperation – we shuffle people around as if some geographical land will have all the pieces to make a change in someone’s life… But the bottom line is that our entire system is a problem and no under funded, under resourced place with tons less power than these systems is likely to be able to make all the difference… It was less a comment *at* you then in response to you but at the systems that do all the shuffling as if that will ever solve anything at all if their main push continues to be sustaining those systems.

    Anyway, like I said, I’m sorry my comment brought up those brush offs for you.

    -Sera

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  • I don’t think anyone is arguing that privilege didn’t play a role here. I’m white. I was able to pull out some easy proof that I do the job I claimed I do. I know the system well enough to think quick and come up with something to say that was protective. I know attorneys I could check in with to see how much trouble I could get myself in by writing this piece. Sure. None of it is 100% protective, but it made a difference.

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  • Pretty sure I already addressed these points above, but let’s try again:

    1. I do regret my 11-year-old getting distressed. That wasn’t the intent. I didn’t call from home. I called from work when I was not with my child. That the police went to my home nearly two hours later was actually rather unexpected. That said, my child was just fine – not at all traumatized – once they were clear that the police weren’t there for them and everything was okay.

    2. I’m not trying to ‘trap’ #988. I’m letting them demonstrate exactly who they are.

    3. Researching #988 so I can share the results with my community and help people make informed decisions about whether or not they want to call isn’t a waste.

    4. You better believe I’m going to protect myself if the police inappropriately show up at my door. Did you know that police are legally allowed to lie to you? I’m not going to feel bad about giving that right back when it comes down to protecting myself.

    5. Ultimately, it is #988 who wasted police time, not me!

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Thanks, Nijinsky.

    You remind me of how many times I’ve talked with people about how weird this assumption is that therapy is universally, uniformly helpful. Yet so many folks assume denial, or just not having found the ‘right’ therapist, or whatever else if someone says therapy isn’t a help.

    Some of the problem starts with nonsense like that, and then gets closer and closer to force as it rolls on forward.

    -Sera

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  • It wasn’t exactly surprising… Though on some level it still was for no good reason at all. And yes, I also regretted it for my 11-year-old’s sake. (They got over it quite quickly once they realized it had nothing to do with them, tho!)

    Regardless, it feels important to do this work. Saying we believe something is dangerous from past experience isn’t the same as having concrete proof. It’s just not.

    I’m going to be taking this article to a conference where all kinds of Vibrant folks will be present next week… If nothing else, it’ll be a bit gratifying to irritate them with it… But I do think there’s LOTS of people out there who just don’t get how dangerous this stuff is who might be open to hearing it and maybe not calling on their family member or what have you…

    So, yeah, demonstrating is different than talk!

    -Sera

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  • Thanks so much for saying this, Derek. I’m feeling pretty baffled by Robert’s appearing to claim the importance of peer respite and preserving it while also appearing to suggest we need to compromise our values to preserve it… which really isn’t preserving it at all.

    But more than anything, I was stunned into some degree of paralysis at the comparison with John Herold. As a survivor of rape and sexual abuse – and as someone who knows people that were harmed directly by John – I am extremely unsettled by this.

    I was trying to come up with a response when I noticed you’d already made one. Thanks for that!

    That said, I’m sorry that the piece Ira wrote here and the work of the Stabbin Wagon team has been taken over by all this. I know all too well how a messy comments section can overshadow something important. I hope people are still reading the piece itself and disregarding most of this.

    -Sera

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  • Hi Yvonne,

    I’m sorry I didn’t see this when you first wrote! I wish I could say that something being peer support made it magically somehow immune from any ugliness, bias, etc.. But of course, that’s just not the way it goes.

    I also worry about when people move to a particular place for a singular resource, because nothing is as magical close up up as it may seem at a distance. Sometimes it absolutely works, and sometimes people just find themselves uprooted from all that’s familiar and still not quite finding what they want.

    It’s so hard. Whether you and your son move or stay where you are, I hope you find the connection you’re both seeking!

    We do have some virtual family groups if you’re interested (though they’re focused more on hearing voices and related experiences) if you might be interested. Feel free to e-mail me if you are. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • (Just to clarify, when I say “we” above… I’m talking about Wildflower Alliance where I serve as Director. I actually write independently and not as an employee of anyone, but my writing is deeply informed by my work so it would be disingenuous to say they are entirely separate. I do also sometimes try to help with some of the training stuff when its piling up… I’ve been helping with Australia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania contracts recently. But I have to intentionally steer clear of most of it and leave it to our direct or of training and admin manager or I’d drown so I do so happily! Just wanted to clarify the “we” part!)

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  • Nick,

    There’s a key difference here re: the ‘conflict of interest’ you’re referencing. Lund has repeatedly quoted Kevin across several articles without citing his relationship that was clearly known to Lund. It’s also an issue that’s more that goes to more than just naming the relationship. To sit on the advisory board and be such a sole source (at least from what I saw) itself is a problem, too. It begins to look tokenizing when one person is repeatedly used to represent the voice of a marginalized group. I’m concerned that Lund doesn’t appear to better understand that point given their mission and values.

    Re: my so-called ‘conflict of interest’: I have no issue with it being named here. HOWEVER, it’s important to note that I was not aware of that ‘relationship’ until folks at Mad in America were notified about it. The letter was signed by our Director of Training, and amounts to promise of a 24 hour training for which they would pay $7400, most of which would be eaten up by doing the training itself.

    While perhaps some would think I “would or should” know about that, we have an entire training arm that is facilitating trainings everywhere from Australia to California to Maryland and so on. Additionally, about 75% of people who ask us to say we’ll offer a training if they can get funding for it don’t end up getting the funding, and the training isn’t offered. So, I guess we can call that a ‘conflict of interest,’ but given I wasn’t aware of it at the time I wrote this piece, I think it’s not an accurate comparison at all.

    I think you are still missing the point of what I’m saying regarding both Lund and Kevin, and both are somewhat different points. My point re: not speaking publicly about concerns is specifically for Kevin, not Lund. From an anti-oppression perspective, to have someone internal to a movement speaking to the *media* about their concerns is a HUGE problem. It’s not about keeping secrets. It’s about not giving a whole media system that has scapegoated, stigmatized, discriminated against, and painted our entire community as dangerous villains, incompetent, and so on unnecessary ammo. There are other ways to address those concerns than giving a public that already has such a skewed view of who we are unnecessary fodder to further stereotypes.

    I am aware of your more recent coverage of Stabbin Wagon which is good. I continue to feel that your organization lacks some of the fundamental understanding of dynamics related to systemic oppression that would better inform how you approach some of these issues. I continue to maintain that – much like the Boston Globe – you’ve spent too much time villainizing folks who are multiply marginalized without putting it in the proper context of systemic oppression.

    In that way, I continue to maintain that you failed. That doesn’t mean you have to keep failing.

    Thanks for your response.

    Sera

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  • Robert,

    I’m not sure how you are comparing Laysha’s work to others. Laysha doesn’t claim to be doing peer support. She’s a researcher. If she suddenly claimed to be doing peer support, that would in fact be a problem. She still gets to claim her psychiatric history and the value of people with psych histories being in charge of the research, but it’s worlds apart from claiming she’s doing peer support.

    I don’t know anything about the org or person you’re defending, but what I do know is this: Even if one group can somehow magically overcome the fact that they’re really not a peer support org and do something fabulous with peer respite, it opens up the door for allllllllll the other orgs around the country that aren’t looking to do the work as carefully and are just looking for an excuse to basically justify being a clinical org that is co-opting peer support… Given that, I’m just not sure its worth debating whether or not a single org can overcome the fact that it’s a clinical org (albeit one by folks who have psychiatric and other relevant histories) to offer peer support with true fidelity to the model. There’s a bigger picture issue here…

    As to Kevin et al, Honestly, I’ve heard far, far more feedback suggesting I’m right to question why this path was chosen – including other examples of concerns etc – then I’ve heard your perspective. I think it’s a complicated situation, but I continue to think it was unacceptable to air ‘dirty laundry’ in a media forum of that nature!

    I know I’m not answering all that you raised… I’m a bit out of time at the moment! Thanks again for all the context you are offering!

    -Sera

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  • Steve,

    We talk about this point in our Alternatives to Suicide trainings. To illustrate the ‘why,’ I like to quote Joseph Franklin:

    Joseph Franklin, a psychologist working and teaching at Harvard University was quoted as follows:

    Quote#1:

    “Our analyses showed that science could only predict future suicidal thoughts and behaviors about as well as random guessing. In other words, a suicide expert who conducted an in-depth assessment of risk factors would predict a patient’s future suicidal thoughts and behaviors with the same degree of accuracy as someone with no knowledge of the patient who predicted based on a coin flip…This was extremely humbling — after decades of research, science had produced no meaningful advances in suicide prediction.” (American Psychological Association, 2016)

    Quote #2, Same article, next paragraph:

    “As most of these guidelines were produced by expert consensus, there is reason to believe that they may be useful and effective.” (American Psychological Association, 2016)

    In other words, Joseph contradicted himself, and basically said ‘we know these things don’t work, but do them anyway because important people said they were good.’

    It’s a similar phenomenon to what you’re referencing… Because it’s easier, because people in power said so, because people are overwhelmed with what it would take to truly do things differently… Just do it the same and pretend its right.

    -S

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  • Kate,

    Not sure what you mean. There’s nothing wrong with turning to the media to advocate for funds, etc. There is, however, something deeply wrong with turning to the media as a member of a marginalized group to become complicit in further marginalizing other members of that group.

    I just don’t think there’s any excuse for it. It doesn’t actually solve the problem, and certainly contributes to those in power gaining more ammo while members of our community lose credibility. It’s harmful.

    -Sera

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  • The differences are pretty vast. Clubhouses can look substantially different from one another, but overall, they are about the “work ordered day,” do not have an overnight component, and are not centered around peer support. Most people who visit most clubhouses will find that there are different ‘units’ they can volunteer and work in, assistance finding jobs, as well as social components. They are not the same as day programs, but are much closer to day programs than they are to peer respites. Although some Clubhouses have a real ‘peer support’ component, most employees of Clubhouses are not required to have psychiatric histories or similar.

    Peer respites, on the other hand, operate largely as alternatives to staying on an inpatient psychiatric unit or other more restrictive environment. Stays at peer respites range from a few nights to up to a couple of weeks depending on the respite and its particular way of operating. In order to qualify as a peer respite, all employees working at the respite must identify as having a psychiatric history or similar life-disrupting challenge that they’ve navigated. Although this can vary a bit, most peer respites focus on creating options for how to spend one’s day but are very much not highly structured or organized around work, etc.

    Hope that helps,

    Sera

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  • Thanks, Mary. Power and money are certainly both big issue, you’re right about that! Unfortunately, one of the massive downsides of peer support is that when so many psychiatric survivors started taking system-funded jobs, they stopped approaching things with so much fight because their livelihoods became dependent on the systems they were trying to change because those systems employ them. It also encourages some folks to get deep into self-promotion over collective and community goals and voices, and is very related to at least some of the ‘in-fighting’ you reference. I wish it were easier to unpack all that and make it be different!

    -Sera

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  • Robert,

    I don’t think we’re going to get very far here. I would agree with the State that Bay Area is not peer-run. We seem to be operating on very different definitions of ‘peer.’

    I understand (I think?) that you are saying they are ‘peer run’ because the org is run by people who have struggled with related issues themself. I believe that to be an extremely problematic definition of ‘peer’ that turns it into an ‘identity’ that is synonymous with consumer, client, patient/ex-patient and so on.

    On the contrary, I understand ‘peer’ to be about a way of working and being with one another that is rooted in common experiences, yes, but *ALSO* in minimizing power imbalances, not ‘fixing’, and so on.

    ‘Peer’ as an identity is a part of what is co-opting our work. It’s allowing people in peer roles to be pushed into doing whatever the systems want them to do because it’s simply about that role and not the way the work is done. No ‘peer’ can stand alone so there can’t ever be ‘a peer’ because ‘peer’ only exists in relationship with someone else.

    What it sounds to me from what I’ve seen on their website is that Bay Area is deeply rooted in employing only people in *clinical roles* that have relevant personal histories and are willing to disclose them and use the wisdom they’ve gained in their *clinical work*. By their own report, they’re doing assessments, using cognitive behavioral approaches. They use ‘client’ language, etc. etc. etc.

    That’s not peer-run, and I think we’re pretty doomed if we allow that to become the definition. (Honestly, I think we’re pretty doomed anyway for a number of reasons, but I’m not going to stop fighting to maintain as much integrity as I can…)

    I *DO* think there is great value in clinical services as provided by folks with their own histories and willingness to disclose. It’s not about them being bad.

    But it doesn’t make them peer run because they’re doing *clinical* work. I would have ruled them out, too.

    I hear you that there are legitimate concerns in some instances. I don’t agree with how Kevin handled it at all, and I don’t agree with knocking these orgs down in any public way especially until effort has been made to really build them up and give them a fighting chance.

    -Sera

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  • Robert,

    There are certainly things you’ll know far more about than I. However, in looking at the websites of the places you mentioned, only one (Miracle Club) appears to be led largely by non-white folks. Perhaps they would have been a great choice, I don’t know anything about them, although their website looks entirely substance focused and that isn’t always a great mix because the 12-step world is a very different sort of peer support than what the peer respite world offers! (This isn’t a universally impossible melding, but even ‘Recovery Coaching’ training tends to be awful and oppressive on issues related to suicide, etc so it would certainly be a question for me.) The issues that show up in conflict between the world of recovery from problems with substances to the peer support world related to suicide, voices, etc actually tends to not be of issue when it comes to orgs focused deeply on harm reduction around substances because harm reduction (when done right) is inherently rooted in liberation, self-determination, etc. must like good peer support at a peer respite is…

    Additionally, I think Bay Area First Step would have been *hugely* problematic. I realize they’re saying they’re ‘peer-led’ but it is a version of ‘peer-led’ that is not consistent with peer respite as their identity appears to be largely clinical and they explicitly state that they provide clinical services, refer to people as ‘clients,’ etc. That doesn’t make them inherently bad, but you can’t both be a ‘peer-run’ organization and so definitively clinical, at least not by the definition of ‘peer-run’ that applies here. There’s a *huge* difference between serving as a clinician who is informed by, open about, and using their own personal experience in their work and peer support… Both have value, but in order to not become problematic we need to be clear about which is happening.

    All that is to say there may very well have been some other good candidates, but it’s not so simple because for sure at least one and possibly two of your suggestions wouldn’t have lined up as being good candidates.

    All I can say about the rest of what you offer here is:

    1. It’s a very tricky balance. We can argue against taking risks with rewards forever, but if risks are never taken and proper support given to navigate those risks, then nothing ever substantively changes and the underfunded/multiply marginalized folks are forever relegated to the fringes. But you’re also right that if funders take risks, don’t properly support them, and then let them fail that can ALSO serve to lead to a “See, we told you there wasn’t value in this approach” response that also leaves us forever on the fringes, too. I still maintain that the right decision is to take some risks and then truly support them. Oregon certainly took some risks. And I think even better, they gave one award to a much more established org *AND* chose two less established more marginalized groups which allows for some additional balance to test the approach itself… But the support has been totally lacking, and that is what I’m largely speaking to here.

    2. Going to the media – the majority of which already paints people with psych histories as incompetent, dangerous, needing supervision, etc – and giving them more ammo against us will never be the right choice. That was such a problematic thing to do… One needn’t go to the media to call out concerns. Talk with the orgs, talk with local advocacy groups about how to support, whatever it needs to be… But being quoted in multiple articles criticizing and questioning the competence of a marginalized group? I can’t ever see that as acceptable, and it certainly feels very hard to justify it as anything that would ever ‘help’ the problems you are describing either.

    The situation in Oregon is complicated, and I’ve never claimed – including in this piece – that there are no legitimate issues to be concerned about. The question is what do we DO about those concerns to move things forward toward liberation, anti-oppression, and the creation of valuable, true alternatives.

    Regardless, thank you for weighing in here and providing additional context.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks so much for this added background, Jacek. I very much appreciate it.

    Unfortunately, it goes a long way toward illustrating that the difference between change and SYSTEMIC change… Whenever change is dependent on one or a few people, it can backslide sooo quickly the moment those people change (either by being fired or just leaving for any of a number of reasons of their own accord). It can be so painful and demorailzing when good change has happened, and then its not only gone but sometimes at an even worse point than before the positive change happened!

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Laura,

    I know we’ve talked about this on social media already, but I’ll repeat a bit of what I said there here:

    I agree that getting seats on advisory boards can be a win in many instances, including Kevin’s with Lund Report potentially. However, if that power is used only to be the one who is used to check the box of ‘got a quote from this group’ (as seems like might be an issue given the prevalance of articles with quotes from him and the lack of quotes from others), then is one not becoming complicit in tokenization at times? And if one isn’t striving to use this power to bring in other voices from that same group, is one not maybe missing the point of having that power in the first place?

    I don’t know why things have played out the way they have with Kevin and Lund. I reached out to ask him if he’d share more about why he made the choices he made here before I wrote this piece, and he didn’t respond.

    I do, however, believe it will NEVER be okay for someone from a marginalized group who gains this sort of power to use that power to then contribute to the tearing down of folks in that marginalized group in a public media forum EVEN IF there are legitimate concerns. Those legitimate concerns should be dealt with in a different way that doesn’t contribute to the media’s relentless tearing down of our work and credibility that already exists. THAT is the huge historical issue and one that acts as an enormous barrier to our progress… Filing paperwork and such is a far smaller issue and one that could be dealt with by giving support, not public criticism.

    I will offer that I have been in contact both with Stabbin Wagon and Black Mental Health, and we will/would happily offer technical support. But an uncompensated organization from across the country surely isn’t the answer I’m calling for when I say robust technical support. These organizations would need to be given funding to receive such technical support in a robust way, and that includes local hands on support, too, in order to meet what I’m talking about.

    Regardless thanks for your comment. I appreciate your presence in this movement and that you hold knowledge of our history including Jeanne’s work and so on.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Hi Mary,

    Can you clarify what you mean in terms of a source to use? To you mean one that talks about some of the history of peer respite?

    Soteria – developed by Loren Mosher with the original based in California – was on a separate track and did/does include more of a collaboration between people including folks in clinical roles. Their values, ways of being with folks in the house, etc. are quite relatable to the peer respite model… But it’s definitely different both in intentional inclusion of clinical roles and for the fact that folks who stay there typically stay at least 6 months and its focus is on people having their first experience of distress related to things like hearing voices, seeing visions, unusual beliefs etc (note: not all people who hear voices or see visions experience distress, and even people who do experience distress from some of those experiences also often have positive experiences too, and some of the distress is rooted in how society responds to those experiences and teaches people to fear them).

    There is a book on Soteria, though unfortunately right now there’s only one single Soteria program that I’m aware of that is active in the US (in Vermont). There is also a book on peer respite (that I wrote in collaboration with Intentional Peer Support and a few others from Wildflower Alliance), and a short film on peer respite that we create that speaks to the history as we knew it at the time which omits things like Jennie Fulgham’s story. Jennie is written about in Vanessa Jackson’s ‘In Our own Voice,’ and appears in the blackhistorymovement.info leaders project as well (which was founded by myself, Chacku Mathai, and Dana Smith).

    In terms of seeing everyone as a ‘peer’ I get what you mean, but I think it’s dangerous. There’s layers here.

    First, I don’t think it’s helpful to see ‘peer’ as an identity. It’s a relationship and a way of being with one another that is rooted both in some common experiences with one another and minimizing power imbalances, etc. I don’t see how we minimize power imbalances when one person, say, has the power to take another’s liberty and put them in a psych ward.

    I also think we really need to play high value on the experience of loss of power and how hard it is to understand what losing your liberty is like and how much value there is in being supported people who get that (and often overlooked element of ‘peerness’ b y those who focus only, say, on having been diagnosed and having particular experiences of related distress).

    HOWEVER, I absolutely do wish our systems and our culture placed way more value on human experiences and the sharing of them across all people regardless of their roles, as well as an emphasis on being able to learn from one another through that sharing… Perhaps that’s some of what you are getting at!

    Thanks so much for your comment,

    Sera

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  • Matthew,

    Perhaps I was remiss in not including more basics about the problematic nature of IOC and its overall lack of efficacy and harms in this piece.

    A handful of things:

    1. I wonder where you got the idea that IOC is helpful? Too often in this society people take action – fight for a new law, establish a new policy, etc. – simply to feel they’re doing *something* to address a problem. However, all too often, the ‘something’ they end up doing to feel like they’ve done ‘something’ is more illusion than anything else, and may even be counterproductive. IOC fits in that category.

    2. You note that there is a ‘mental health crisis’ in the US. Yet, 47 states and territories of the US not only have IOC, but have had IOC for quite a while. I wonder where the idea comes from that – when things keep getting worse – the answer is more of the same?

    3. You refer to people being “a danger to self or others,” but in actuality there are already provisions in every single state to respond when that is the case. For example, in Massachusetts – where there is no IOC at this time (hence this piece) – there is nonetheless the Section 12 (a and b) that allows for someone to be taken in involuntarily to a facility for assessment (12a) and held for 72 hours (12b) for further observation to assess their ability to be “safely” in the community and otherwise seek further psychiatric commitment through due process if found not to be “safe.” Now, we could have a whole nother argument about how that process works and its value and efficacy, but for now, my point is that that process exists as an entirely separate thing from IOC. IOC is expressly billed as something used when people are NOT a ‘danger to self or others’. More specifically, its billed as a way to keep people from getting to the point of being a “danger to self or others” based not on what is going on right now, but on perceptions about their past and/or future risk. But:

    * Does taking away power (well demonstrated to have a negative effect including increasing risk of suicide) and pushing “treatments” that are so often ineffective (as also demonstrated by research) really *keep* people from getting to that point?

    * And even if that may work for a fraction of people, what if it still harms more people than it helps?

    * And even if it were helpful (I’m not saying it is, just *if*), can it be applied ethically and without being influenced by racial and other biases? (Research says no)

    And so on and so forth.

    If you are interested in learning more about IOC, I recently created an IOC info center on Wildflower Alliance’s website that may be of interest:

    https://wildfloweralliance.org/involuntary-outpatient-commitment-information-center/

    In any case, thanks for reading!

    Sera

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  • Sam,

    While you’re correct that I wasn’t watching this for quite a while, I am catching your comment now. I will add in response:

    I know it is very important to you to be seen as having a legitimate role in support of your wife, in your contributions to this movement, and so on. I don’t want to argue with you about that, and would never suggest that anything that you’ve offered in that regard is invalid, even if we do disagree in some other ways.

    That said, I think your comment here is nonetheless misplaced because the main point here was to not use ‘peer’ as an identity label that inextricably ties someone to a mental health system and boils them down to an object of sorts. We can debate about how much ‘peer’ means ‘commonality of experience’ or what have you in a different place.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Thanks so much, Irit. Absolutely to “We *are* the balance!” I actually mention Phoenix Rising in this piece. (See 5th paragraph down from the image.)

    I’m not sure I agree that 0% should be the answer we seek. I do think folks have used drugs since the beginning of time in so many different ways, and what even gets classed as a ‘drug’ (vs. a medication, vs. as neither) is hazy and often capitalistically and morally driven. I do think the actual number – if we factor in adequate supports of all other kinds – would be lower than 20%, but I don’t know about 0!

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Thanks, dogworld! Yes, the comments that became the highest rated (by a relative landslide) were pretty disappointing. And while I think you’re right that the NYT could have done more to link the main ‘characters’ of the story to their work and bios, it doesn’t really seem like a lot of people would have looked. I’m not too sure a lot of people who commented actually read the article so much as responded to the title… Thank you for reading and commenting here and trying to push back in the comments section over at NYT yourself 🙂

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  • Hey George cLoony,

    Thanks for your comment! I can’t imagine the NYT would ever consider this piece or some version of it, but it sure would be interesting if they did. I did connect with the author of the article that resulted in this comments section as I was writing this, but not folks at NYT proper. I should indeed at least send it along to them.

    And yes, they do just move the ‘goal posts’ or change the game when folks seem to ‘recover’ too much… The whole ‘oh you were just misdiagnosed’ or didn’t have ‘real mental illness’ (such as Inman and Lieberman in fact did in response to this article) response is basically a big admission even for those who pay lip service to the idea that people can ‘recover’ that they in fact don’t believe it and see any such example as nothing more than proof that those people weren’t one of the actually truly “sick” in the first place.

    And yes, the Hearing Voices movement chose intentionally to focus on one of the most scary-to-the-general-public “alien” seeming experiences and named itself for it with the intent to push on what people were most afraid of and bring it to light. It’s important to do that. But also important to find the more relatable experiences that less automatically put people in the us/them place to help hook them in to seeing some of this as *about them, too* whenever possible to build bridges and all. Of course, then we bump up against media and capitalism and what is sensational enough to sell…

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  • registeredforthissite,

    Thanks for your comment. I think there’s also a whole nother category of families that is more prevalent than those who have actual ill-intentions… Where they are so desperate to ‘help,’ but so unwilling or unable to see themselves as a part of the problem that they do far more harm than good… I know Open Dialogue is imperfect as an approach, but I love that they see the ‘problem’ as existing in the spaces in between people even if it is most visibly represented by one person in that network. That idea just isn’t even a vague thought in most families or networks within the US.

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  • Hey, cynical.nihilist. Thanks for your comment. It certainly seems to me that many family members are necessarily invested in silencing or heavily minimizing the fact that family often play such a role in someone’s distress. It’s certainly not the truth within all families, but we all know its a prominent issue for a number of people… And it would seem that acknowledging that too readily (as something more than a rare exception) feels like a direct threat and accusation for a lot of folks.

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  • I don’t disagree with any of that, Ted. I think we’ve lost a lot of our critical fight energy for the employment/peer support side of things (among other reasons, I’m sure). I’m not saying there’s not value in the ‘peer support’ side of things (where it’s not super co-opted). I do think there is value in Jim Gottstein’s Transformation Triangle lay out of how real change happens (a mix of impacting public opinion, legal action, and creating real alternatives), for example. And I’ve seen first hand how peer support can lead to people building new lives, and sometimes getting invested in pushing back on these systems. But I also think SO much has been lost by folks getting too dependent on these systems for their material survival, and their voices getting quieter as a result. I have some of the old publications of Madness Network News, etc. on my wall, and it’s always a reminder of how much more fight (of the sort you speak of) there used to be, and it’s a real problem that end of things just isn’t really audible anymore.

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  • Ted,

    I – for the most part – do not think rational argument can win this. (I think I say something to that effect in at least one spot in this piece.) That said, I do think us working to fine tune our own understanding of what’s going on with the other side, name it, find ways to pull it apart and make sense of it… is important to figuring out how we want to push back.

    I’d love to believe this piece might get through to all those people who couldn’t see the NYT article for what it was… Maybe it will be successful with a few who were already closer to the fence. I don’t think it will otherwise solve the problem on their end. It’s really more to give voice and make meaning on our end, I think.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Marie! I appreciate that perspective. In some of our trainings we’ve increasingly been talking about what if ‘By any means necessary’ meant not locking someone up against their will, etc, but getting them housing, and other basic needs met. People getting so stuck in ‘more of the same’ being the answer rather than addressing basic needs or some of the other things you mention is so damaging.

    -Sera

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  • Sam,

    I can’t help but think you may be doing essentially what I’m talking about throughout this article which is to apply your own lens and not read what’s actually there.

    I *do* acknowledge in the family section that an outside perspective (be it family or otherwise) can be useful, if they’re trusted and not too caught up in their own stuff. The problem is that far too many family members aren’t that either because they were a part of causing the trauma and/or too caught up in their own stuff in trying to respond to the other person’s distress… And yet, most of society typically does see the family member as having NOT *some* input worth hearing, NOT equal insight into what’s happening, but MORE, BETTER, etc.

    That’s my point there after reading so many people who wanted to know what Caroline’s family had to say, suggested in ways that honestly came across as suggesting the family would be able to overrule Caroline’s take and correct for the distortions they believe she’s offering…

    If you aren’t that family member whose insisting that your voice is MORE important and more accurate that your wife’s, etc. then that section really isn’t about you.

    I’ve never argued that family members are useless and have nothing to offer, and I’m fully aware they need their own support and can play a critical role in things.. Hence why I do fairly frequently talk about Open Dialogue, an why we do offer two Hearing Voices groups specifically for family/friends at my work…

    I don’t know you or your wife beyond this community so I can’t say anything definitive one way or another, but from most of what you’ve said, I just don’t think that section is really about you.

    Either way, thanks for reading.

    -Sera

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  • Daiphanous,

    At least at first glance, the only thing I would clearly disagree with here is that all people with schizophrenia diagnoses know the potential problems with psych drugs. Unfortunately, that information is so intentionally withheld so much of the time that many people actually do NOT have accurate information either on the dangers or the lack of consistent efficacy.

    But in any case, just to reiterate… I’m still confused about your comments here… It’s not that they are bad comments. I just don’t see anyone saying that the drugs are uniformly bad and everyone should get off of them.. I’m certainly not saying that.

    Sera

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  • Hi Daiphanous Weeping,

    I’m a little confused by your comment. My piece has nothing to do with who should and shouldn’t attempt to withdraw from psychiatric drugs, or how easy it will be if they try… The reality is that many people with privilege fail, and many people with little privilege succeed… But privilege (especially when one doesn’t need to work, raise kids, etc.) certainly does open up a world of possibilities that increase one’s chances. Neither I nor the NY Times piece would or do disagree with those points…

    -Sera

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  • I truly do not want to be disrespectful, but I find myself confused by this piece.

    If people hired as peer supporters are being plunked down into case manager or receptionist roles (etc) then… They aren’t actually in peer roles at all. And I worry about any writing that suggests that that is even vaguely acceptable..

    And as much as I appreciate Intentional Peer Support, its not seen as the “general model” for peer support, although wed probably be way better off if it was rather than some of the persistenty medicalized and co-opted nonsense that is…

    I guess I’m just not quite following where you are heading here, or what you are arguing for and I worry that some of it will confuse or appear to be validating discriminatory or otherwise problematic practices…

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  • Well, here’s the thing… You can’t decide what it is for me, and I can’t decide what it is for you. What it is for me is decidedly not about me giving power to anyone else… and that’s fact, not opinion.

    One of the greatest harms perpetuated by the system is putting one person’s beliefs onto another as if the former holds all the rights to the truth even for another person. Hopefully we can not perpetuate that here! 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Rebel, You can for sure hold this view *for you.* However, it is not a global truth, and we need only look at the words of so many others who self-injure or have in the past to know that.

    As I said in my longer comment here, so much of what drives so many people’s pain in this world is loss of power and control in all its forms. And having other people step in and make meaning of one’s own experiences and actions is a profound example of that loss. For some of us, maybe we *want* someone else to take that power – at least temporarily – because we are too tired or scared or overwhelmed to feel like we can hold it all or make sense of it ourselves. But many if not most of us will want or benefit from taking that meaning making power back at some point even if we don’t hang onto it right from the start.

    For you it sounds like self-injury did mean a giving up of power. If I understand you correctly – allowing other people’s words or actions to drive you to harm yourself felt like giving them control. I can understand that perspective. It is your truth. It simply isn’t truth for so many others, though. For me, self-injury has absolutely felt like taking power back.

    Not dissimilarly, for you, making a contract to not self-injure worked. I’m sure thats true for some others, too. However, for me and so many people, the contracts felt like a weird, infantalizing way to perpetuate shame and guilt. It’s an okay strategy to propose as an option, but should always be explored with the person rather than dictated.

    I am not sure I entirely follow the moralizing piece you write about at the end…. I can only say that for many folks, moralizing about our wants, needs, and choices has also been a pathway to additional shame and guilt… And that is rarely helpful.

    So, again, your truth is yours. Your experience is valid. For you. But certainly not for everyone. Surely, you are right that it can take courage to recognize something isn’t working and make real change. But it *also* can take courage to stand up against moralizing and theorizing and social norms and counter, “No matter what you say, no matter what you assume, no matter how many people may try to forcefully dissuade me, this is still my truth.”

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  • I am having a difficult time formulating a comprehensive response to this article. On the one hand, it includes bits and pieces of a deeply personal story, and I hate to try and counter that because… Well, it’s the author’s story, and their truth. It’s not my business to counter or tell them that they are wrong about them.

    However, the reality is that this piece lost me at the title: Why Do People Self-Harm, and HOW CAN WE STOP IT?

    Operating from a place of ‘we must stop this’ is a fundamentally harmful and flawed place to begin. When self-injury was most prominent in my life, the people who approached me with a ‘How can we stop this’ attitude were threats in my eyes. They were people who generally didn’t care WHY I was hurting myself in the way that I was. They simply sought to define my problem as ‘self-injury’ and the solution as ‘stopping’ it, while ignoring everything else along the way.

    In a world where I’d already lost so much power and control over my own life, they were there to take even more away. And, overall, loss of power and control (in the form of sexual and physical abuse and so many other things) was precisely what my problem was. Efforts to take more of it away only caused additional harm, even if it might have made others around me more comfortable or feel like they were somehow doing their job.

    I’m particularly puzzled – in this article so focused on the problems with medicalization of distress (a point with which I certainly align) – why there’s so little insight on the author’s part into how identifying self-injury as a “problem to be stopped” is just another form of that very same phenomenon. Along similar lines, I’m also curious as to why there continues to be so little understanding of just how many people actually self-injure in ‘socially acceptable’ sorts of ways with drugs, alcohol, food, exercise, work, and so on. As I’ve said in my own writing on this topic, I certainly posed more risk to myself with some of the ‘socially acceptable’ ways that I was hurting myself, then by a (non-socially acceptable) burn or cut on my arm.

    To that end, I’m also puzzled – and very worried – about the alarmist thread throughout this piece that suggests that so many people are spiraling toward their own inevitable demise if they continue to self-injure. While self-harm certainly can cross a line into dangerousness, the vast majority of folks who self-injure don’t do so in life threatening ways. And, in fact, one of the risk factors for self-injury moving in a more dangerous direction is precisely when someone else swoops in to take more power and control away and force them to stop (which this article may – in some ways – encourage them to try to do).

    For so very many people, self-injury is a way in which they stave off death or even urges in that direction. It can be an adaptation born of trauma and other challenges that serves so many purposes. And so this ‘how do we stop it’ focus can become even more dangerous for all that.

    In stead of asking ‘how do we stop it,’ and feeding into the idea that self-injury is among the worst or most dangerous things anyone could do, why not instead ask:

    * How is this working for you?
    * Is it something you want to change or stop?
    * How has it helped you in the past, and is it still serving that purpose?
    * Have you experienced negative consequences as a result?
    * What does self-injury mean to you/in your life?
    * If it’s something you want to continue, do you want support to explore ways to do it in the safest manner possible?

    Approaching the topic as if it’s something already understood and simply to be controlled is a mistake, and a dangerous one at that. We’ll get much further by being willing to sit in the muck with people who are struggling, and being willing to support them to explore and making meaning for themselves. Having other people tell you what is ‘wrong’ with you and what you need to do about it is a profound loss of power and control. The sitting in the muck and partnering to explore is the place where some ground can be regained in that regard, and where we can find points of collaboration in supporting people to live their lives to the fullest.

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  • I find this article troubling, and this line gets at why:

    “Peer specialists are defined as those who self-identify as having a mental illness or receiving mental health services and combine their personal experience with training to support others.”

    Defined by *who*? That’s just wildly inaccurate, and yet seems to be getting offered here not by the research, but by you, Gavin, as a factual definition.

    People in peer roles neither need self-identify as having a ‘mental illness,’ nor be receiving mental health services. To suggest otherwise is to contribute to the worst, most oppressive aspects of this work… those that involve buying into a one-size-fits-all medicalized perspective, and the idea that we all need to be put in these awful little boxes.

    There are certain elements of ‘peer support’ that are really problematic as currently (and likely ever to be) employed by the ‘system.’ But there are certain aspects of it that are also quite powerful, particularly when offered outside of a conventional clinical environment. In those spaces where there is power, people get to come with whatever experiences have interrupted their lives or led society to ‘other’ and ostracize them… They often do come with experiences with system responses (many of them – though not all – harmful), and some identify as ‘survivors’ of that system… But there is neither a requirement to be *in* services, nor to regard any current or past history with those services as a necessary thing.

    Please don’t contribute to boxing us in. Some of us are doing our very best to come at all this from an anti-oppression, rooted-in-community sort of way and this frame doesn’t help.

    -Sera

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  • Oof. I am having a really hard time with this article being posted in this space. It does not align with the ‘Science, psychiatry, social justice’ tagline at all. Well, maybe the middle (psychiatry) part… Nor does it align with my understanding of the mission of Mad in America overall.

    That aside… Max… You literally refer to people in this article as ‘V-SPMI’… And you write it out so that the acronym is OUTside of the parenthesis and the actual explanation of what it stands for IN the parenthesis. In other words, you use V-SPMI as if it is a legitimate word and thing to be boiling human beings down into.

    It is NOT a legitimate thing to boil people down into. It’s just not. It’s frightening, and unnecessary to speak about human beings as these objectified, dangerous things. Now, this isn’t to say that this is the biggest problem with what you’ve written here. But that that is your starting point is very telling, and it makes me want to talk to you about internalized oppression, and the dangers of painting a whole group of people who can be so subjectively diagnosed as ‘dangerous,’ and so much else.

    This piece is SO problematic. I hope there are people in your life who can help you unpack all of this at some point, and hopefully come to a different place. I’m not talking about trying to take away what you feel is helpful for you. That’s for you to decide… But this message you are putting out to the world is dangerous.

    -Sera

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  • rasselas,

    Eh, my point wasn’t so much how great Open Dialogue is, as it was that there are some fundamental differences in power imbalances there between Dr. and non-Dr that I think are interesting and worth exploring. I do talk about Open Dialogue a fair amount because it has good examples of a lot of principles and values… Such as seeing the problem as existing in the space *between* people even if its most visible in *one* person. I love that simply because it is about not automatically medicalizing every bit of distress and knowing that it is often a product of relationships and environments. There’s also the reality that people are available right away rather than after a wait, and that the structure of their system (which is the whole system and not just a hard-to-access alternative to the system in that particular part of Finland) engenders enough trust that many people reach out at the start of their struggles rather than trying everything to avoid it until things get worse and worse. There’s also the approach to psych drugs which leads to no automatic assumption that everyone needs to be on them at all, or that – if they do use them – that it can be just short-term (and short-term can be defined as as short as a few weeks rather than a year or two)… as well as the fact that sleep meds are among those most commonly prescribed because there is a fundamental understanding there about how much meeting basic needs (like sleep, etc.) can lead to distress in a way that is pretty absent here. There’s also the principle about having discussions *in front of someone* rather than in a back room behind their back, and that two clinicians take part in the support rather than just one to facilitate that process… And that – because its recognized that problems lie in the spaces ‘between people’ – the presence a family network (with ‘family’ defined by the person and including whoever they think makes sense including employers, neighbors, whoever) to work through things.

    In essence, it’s less a magical thing you ‘do’ to anyone, and more a process of building trust and recognizing that someone’s distress is often the product of what is going on outside of them rather than within. But I am not intensively trained… I’m mainly relaying what I’ve come to understand from other sources, and what I usually highlight when facilitating trainings myself because it represents so many fundamental shifts from how most places respond to people.

    AND I’m absolutely not someone who says ‘Open Dialogue’ is the answer to all… It has its downsides, too, and is nearly impossible to replicate in many other areas no matter how hard people try because the trust that has been built by constructing a system that holds these principles is a totally different experience than an alternative offering that represents a little pin drop within a system that runs counter to them (among other challenges around differences in liability issues and perceptions related to psych drug prescriptions and so on).

    But again, I really mainly brought it up because the massive power imbalance that exists between those called Dr. and those not isn’t true in every area, even where medical systems still exist (most of Open Dialogue is facilitated by nurses after all). And I think we’d do well to look at how to begin reducing those massive power differentials with the tools available to us as a sort of harm reduction approach. Looking at the honorific system is but one way, but I think it’s an important one because its free, and because training people every single day to call a certain set of people ‘Dr.’ absolutely and totally influences how automatically reverent they may be to them. I see this playing out all the time even where a Dr. is considered an employee of an organization that technically has more power (hire/fire, etc.) but still bends to the Dr. on a daily basis and without question even when what the Dr. is doing is blatantly abusive and/or misguided.

    -Sera

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  • rasselas.redux,

    Thanks for your post. And yes, there is a power imbalance. However, in many regards, it is a misplaced one. As I noted in the piece above, the medical doctors (and frankly, doctors of other types as well) often spend the least time with someone, and yet have the most power over them.

    I am curious if you’ve seen Daniel Mackler’s Open Dialogue film? In it, one of the things they emphasize is how the medical doctors do NOT function with such a power imbalance over others on the team. I’m actually uncertain whether or not they are referred to as Dr. Last-name while everyone else is referred to by their first name… But I’m going to find out.

    My point in bringing it up, though, is that the power imbalance needn’t be so great, and we needn’t be complicit in it. I do hear you on the added confusion of so many people getting to call themselves Dr. Last-name above and beyond medical doctors… But I think it’s an issue across the board.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Whatuser,

    I’m not sure if you’ve read any of my other writing on here. I certainly don’t expect you to necessarily have! I just wonder because I have certainly focused at length on the misplaced medicalization and oppressive nature of the psychiatric system in many different ways. That said, the honorific system and the power imbalances that it makes visible play a role in that, and so I don’t think this is irrelevant. Rather, I would say that this is one of the quickest, easiest ways we could begin to dismantle those power imbalances and show our commitment to undoing the larger problems. I would also echo what Steve has said above.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Whatuser,

    I’m honestly perplexed by how stuck on wanting to ‘honor’ the efforts of a particular sub-set of people you and others seem to be. No one – myself included – has suggested that there isn’t a lot of work involved in getting through a particular degree program. However, do you really believe that that effort is consistently greater than, say, the effort put in by so many people doing so many things? Ableist ideals about basing our worth in what we can ‘do’ aside, are there not many people working very hard in this world? Perhaps even more importantly, does the salary afforded to many people with the honorific of Dr. not suffice in terms of recognition and honor? I realize that salaries will vary among the doctorate crowd, but really… So many of them (according to research) come from money and go no to careers that earn them much higher salaries than most of us… Is that not enough?

    Let me put it this way: Let’s say I’m wrong, or at least exaggerating the impact of a system that elevates the title (not just in work but across all areas of life) of someone who has earned the honorific of Dr. in terms of power imbalances and the systemic oppression of others… What on earth harm would be doing by getting rid of that system? At worst, the action would be neutral. (No one has been able to provide an even vaguely convincing argument that the actual earning of the degree, the salary that tends to follow, and one’s ability to hold an actual doctor-related role is not enough to ‘honor’ and ‘recognize’ their efforts, with the exception of those who’ve argued its important *within the current context* for people from marginalized groups to claim their titles as an anti-racist, anti-sexist, etc. act… But again, that’s within the context of the existence of the honorific system, and not its having been dismantled…) At best, it would be a concretely attainable step toward undoing oppressive power imbalances that elevate the voices of those who’ve completed academic learning so far over and above those who actually work more directly/frequently with the humans over whom that power is most regularly wielded, etc.

    Plus all the other things I’ve said in my other comment responses…

    -Sera

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  • Jancarol,

    This isn’t a “zero sum game” as some like to say. We can care about things like hunger and housing, and *also* care about how deep the power imbalances run in some of these systems. Of course doing away with honorifics isn’t nearly so important as doing away with lack of food and housing resources. But why would that preclude us from talking about honorifics? It kind of feels like a strawman argument to me… this suggestion that that is any kind of counter argument to what I’ve offered, rather than a different argument altogether.

    Some questions for you:

    1. Is there really no other way to communicate who has completed a type of education or holds a license for a particular role beyond honorifics? This also seems like a strawman to me… I never said people should deny or hide their roles… just not be referred to in all aspects of life by that role (even when they’re not doing anything even a bit related to it!).

    2. Do you truly believe that any honorific is actually needed, and if so why? What do you think the honorifics really accomplish?

    3. Do you know of any other completely free and widely accessible way to begin to chip away at the power imbalance between ‘Dr’ and the rest of us?

    4. Maybe you think that the power imbalance the honorifics represent (both in access to education and in credibility/power in the moment)… but then, what harm would it cause to do away with them nonetheless? If they do no harm, still no harm done by not having them…

    Your stories are valid, but I’m unclear how they support an argument to continue the use of honorifics. Much of what you talk about references the inequity to access to education, and as I said in the piece above and in the comments section, within the context that currently exists it may indeed be extra important for people who overcame marginalization to get their degrees and thus represent that by use of honorifics. But would it be important to have a different title if the honorific system was not what it currently was? Because *that* is my argument. That the honorific system is a part of an oppressive system and should be done away with, which would change a lot of the other pieces. People could still get their ‘pieces of paper,’ and have and speak about their jobs… no honorifics would not change that. But it would immediately change how elevated they are above so many others who have also worked very hard in their lives.

    I said this in the comments section over on Mad in America’s Facebook page, and I’ll repeat it here:

    Oh what a world we would have if we could manage to find ways to recognize and celebrate each other’s accomplishments without needing to step on others to do so…

    -Sera

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  • Willowweed,

    “Evidence, data and logic should be the basis of an opinion not the perceived “authority of the speaker””

    I certainly agree with this… though I’d also argue that ‘evidence’ itself is so often manipulated and/or rooted in a system that privileges those with a lot of money (to pay to gather and interpret the evidence) that I feel cautious about that piece as well!

    Thanks for reading and commenting 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Bippyone,

    At least in part, I would respond by saying much of what I already wrote out to Marie… Just because it has not impacted you, does not negate the issue at a systemic level. I guess I also find myself reacting to the idea of ‘politeness’ in this context. As someone who has watched quite up close and personal hospital staff (for example) bowing to the ones with Dr. titles at the expense of some of the most vulnerable held on those units I feel really clear that the power imbalance tipping so strongly in their direction is incredibly harmful. I do not owe them any extra reverence or politeness over and above what I would offer anyone else. I would also point to the paragraph where I wrote about people with Dr. Last-name titles often being the ones who don’t show up for new learning and whose power over people is most inversely related to their knowledge of them as an example of how off kilter it all can get. And while – as I’ve said in other comments – the use of the honorific is not responsible for all that, it is a really visible symbol of it and the easiest starting point for things to change. Honestly, I find it bizarre that so many people are resistant to the idea that doctors deserve no more reverence than so many others in our world, and that it is essential that we begin to chip away at the imbalances.

    Thanks for reading and commenting!

    -Sera

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  • Rebel,

    I would certainly agree with you that the whole educational system creates a great deal of inequity. As far as I’ve understood, countries that have free ‘higher’ education have significantly less class differences throughout their culture and that seems like a good thing… but it’s certainly not where we’re at in the US.

    Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Caroline,

    It’s interesting that you bring religion into this. Honestly, what that brought up for me is this: I don’t know much about religion. I’ve pretty much always steered clear. But when ever I’ve heard from people who believe in a brand of religion that talks about ‘fearing’ their god or their god punishing them for not believing and being faithful, I find myself wondering what kind of god would be so angry toward people simply because they weren’t referent toward that god as much as that god would like? It certainly didn’t make me any more interested in being connected to at least that religion, and I surely hope – if there is a god of any kind – that that god has far more compassion and kindness than that. I guess I feel similarly about doctors. If they are so attached to their honorifics that they feel the need to be called by them or not let go of them for a greater good… Well, then, that’s not a doctor I’d want to follow, either.

    In turn, I’m also reminded by someone with whom I’ve worked a fair amount over the years. He was speaking on a stage to a room full of people who have the experience of hearing voices, as well a to clinicians and various other providers, family members, and even a commissioner of a particular state’s department of mental health when he decided to tell a joke… The joke went something like: What’s the difference between God and a psychiatrist? Answer: God knows he’s not a psychiatrist… I was a little nervous as to how some of the doctors and DMH officials in the audience might react, but people seemed to receive it well. :p

    -Sera

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  • Bill,

    Semantical arguments over words like ‘trainer’ vs. ‘educator’ may capture my or other people’s interests, but have little bearing on this particular conversation. We all have an array of roles and/or jobs in our lives, and while we could get into conversation as well about the inequities in that arena it’s not quite the same as talking about roles that are only accessible to a relative few (due to classism, ableism, racism, sexism, etc.) and that give people elevated titles like ‘Dr.’ as well as elevated reverence and credibility that is all too often unearned. Moreover, Dr. – at least in the psychiatric realm – also comes with a whole other layer of power over others beyond simple credibility. In fact – it is Dr. (both medical and non-medical) who typically also has the power to order us incarcerated in a psychiatric facility against our will. And while it is not the honorific alone that allows them that level of control, its all tied in.

    I’m not sure what to say about your question in regards to ‘aunt,’ ‘uncle,’ and so on. It honestly seems a strange direction to go in here. Regardless, thank you for reading and taking the time to comment!

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • “The last time I used the prefix https://wikidiff.com/prefix/title “Doctor” it was to exemplify how someone goes and gets a badge because they really can’t support their “teachings” without it”…

    I think you’re referring here to how credibility is sometimes much more about power and social capital than it is about being in possession of real quality information, and with that I couldn’t agree more.

    Thanks for reading! 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Marie,

    I gotta be honest that your response here seems really strange to me. One of the links I included in the article above is to research specifically about how much more frequently women are *not* called by their Dr. honorific than men. In other words, there’s a pretty solid and documented history about how this is rooted in sexism. You can deny that – even in the face of this man calling Jill ‘kiddo’ (her husband calling her ‘kiddo’ is a little odd sounding to me, but nonetheless exists within the context of an intimate relationship and is totally different than a stranger taking such a liberty) – but it doesn’t make it less a real thing.

    As to the rest… it reminds me of this: There are many people who say ‘just because the system was oppressive to you,’ doesn’t mean it was ‘oppressive to me.’ And what I say back to them pretty routinely is, ‘Just because you didn’t feel directly impacted by systemic oppression, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.’ In other words, systems either are or are not oppressive… How people are individually impacted by that doesn’t really change things.

    I also don’t really get the leftist vs. rightist argument you’re making, but that’s okay. I’ll leave my response at this for now! Regardless, thanks for taking the time to read even if it did not resonate.

    -Sera

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  • It is certainly your choice to write off this and the other NAMI articles I have written. Someone else pointed out to me that the League of Legends reference was incorrect some time ago. It is true that my Google search linked that image and LOL, and that I did not double check it because it was just a sidenote and not a central point to the article. However, I assure you, I have cross checked most everything that is a serious part of this and other articles I publish.

    I have to be honest that your inclination to write it all off for that reason strikes me as if you are looking for an excuse to remain in denial of certain very well known realities. That’s your call. But rather than write off what I’ve written *or* trust it entirely, I’d suggest you simply check out some of what I’ve said here yourself. If you were to do so, I believe you’d find it’s quite an accurate portrayal. And, really, I’m not sure how you – or anyone (except NAMI) – are served by choosing not to do that.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Thanks so much, o.o. I think for me, it’s just that I was clearly taking the ‘Can’t Breathe’ frame that became so well known after Eric Garner’s death that has been in my head as a point of unease for a long time. But, I hear you, too. So many of us are being crushed by different types of power and oppression, and they all mean something and are all worth hearing. 🙂

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • I wrote this piece about five years ago, and I have been meaning to come back and comment on it as a sort of update/clarification.

    My primary message to be added on at this time is as follows:

    I wish I hadn’t written this, at least not in the way I did… It is not something I would write today. Why? There are actually lots of this piece that I *do* like. I wish I could pull all those pieces out and reform them without the problematic parts. However, as a white woman, I really have no business appropriating ‘Can’t breathe’ for my won use or coming as close as I did to comparing what I have been through to what Eric Garner and so many others (George Floyd, and so many more) have experienced as black people in this country.

    In some ways it is true… Oppressive systems are crushing the air out of all of us. But how I approached this went too far in pulling from what is happening in the world to black and brown people and pulling it into my own frame.

    I am sorry for doing that, and will do better moving forward.

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  • Eh, many of my pieces really land with some, and really don’t with others. I’ve seen people saying I really “knocked it out of the park” with this one, and then there’s feedback like yours, as well. I can’t say which is ‘right’ because I’m not sure it’s a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ matter. This isn’t my favorite piece I’ve ever written, and yet I feel good about it nonetheless. And, perhaps most of all, I feel confident that Harvard guy doesn’t need any defenders. 😉 In any case, thanks for your comment! 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Bradford,

    I do not know that it will be helpful for me to go back and forth with you here, but I do want to offer one clarification:

    I am *for sure* not saying that I do not walk with any privilege. I experience plenty of skin color privilege, as well as socioeconomic privilege particularly in regards to where I grew up, the educational systems to which I had access as a kid, and so on. I make a point to name my privilege in these ways pretty much every time I speak publicly and share some of my story. I also have benefited from my privilege in the form of it paving the way for me to access and speak from platforms such as Mad in America. Perhaps that is some of what you mean. And, I experience other privilege, as well… linked to my being cisgender, in primarily heterosexual relationships at least at this time, and son on.

    That said, I feel like none of that is quite what you’re speaking about here, and I’m getting lost in that. I do not subscribe to concepts like ‘female privilege.’ And, as someone who can’t even claim a GED as far as degrees go, and who is out as and works basically from the framework of being someone whose job is linked closely to their own psychiatric history and needing to be very public about it, I am not quite sure where the privilege lies there? I mean, yes, I have privilege within certain contexts (for example, the community where I work and for which I serve as Director and hold the power associated with Director), but I just don’t get the suggestion that this is a position of privilege in the systemic scheme of the world.

    I hear that this all landed as very rude to you. I am not going to dispute that that is a valid interpretation, and one that you have every right to hold. And yet, I still find myself in a place of feeling that I do not owe much of any reverence to someone who uses their quite extensive power and privilege to first acknowledge the ways in which systems fail and harm us, and then encourage them to keep on going just like that.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • dfk,

    Yes, we can come up with ‘better’ approaches to support people through thoughts of killing themselves, but you’re certainly right that until we address income disparities and housing (and the impacts of capitalism overall), various forms of systemic oppression, child abuse, and so much else… We’re just going to keep facing the same problems over and over. Thank you for stating that.

    -Sera

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  • Bradford,

    That’s a great strategy to get yourself out. I wonder how often it would work!

    I’m sorry you find the ‘Harvard guy’ references problematic. I’m not sure I understand how I am using my privilege in the same way he is. He published statements saying that assessments are completely ineffective, and yet continued to promote them as standard practice without acknowledging not only their inefficacy but there actual harm as well. While certainly my response to that has a tone, I’m largely just consistently pointing out the status he holds that allows him to do that with relative impunity.

    I can appreciate that that tone doesn’t land well with you and (I’m sure) others, but I think that may be a stylistic difference rather than an issue of privilege. I am, after all, female, carry no degrees, and am writing on platforms that have significantly less reach. I’m not sure how that gives me any power over a white, conventionally attractive, man with advanced degrees and a position at an ivy league school. But maybe I’m missing something?

    -Sera

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  • John,

    Absolutely. A lot of the decision to continue to use them is a protection from legal liability. However, I’ve also had clinicians say that ‘legal liability’ is the cover for wanting to avoid ’emotional liability’ (simply *feeling* responsible and afraid of scrutiny of co-workers who may look at them as responsible). This makes sense to me, as well. It can be very painful to know you were seen as “responsible” for helping someone else who ended up killing themself. I get that pain. And it is nonetheless our own to work through and not put on others.

    Yes, so many people ask just to check off the box that they asked, so they can’t be blamed for not asking, and no one really ever bothers to then look at *how* they asked or anything like that. Asked that question? Did your job. The end. Sigh.

    Anyway, thanks for taking the time to comment and share your experience!

    -Sera

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  • dengster,

    Thank you for your comment!! I agree, that so many in the general public have a much different imagined idea of what is happening behind all those psychiatric walls than what is actually going on. Not only do they have a much different idea, but I think many of them really want to *retain* that different idea, because it is of comfort to them to think the “wise” people behind the wall have it covered and will make things be okay.

    I wish it weren’t all such a game that required knowing the key words, etc. to get ‘in’ or ‘out,’ based on your wishes and what’s at stake in that moment.

    -Sera

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  • furies,

    Not sure what else to say about this, so I’ll bow out for now. As to ego, I do often wonder the same thing… What leads to people who receive such minimal benefit from speaking in certain ways to want to invest in writing whole articles about why they should get to even if it hurts others very often makes me wonder what is going on for them underneath that… Like, why are so many people who couldn’t care less about the confederate flag and “All Lives Matter” *really* so invested in making the arguments about why they should get to say/show both? What’s really behind that? I think you and I might come to different conclusions, but I do agree that ego is in there for some of them. Anyway, like I said, I’m going to bow out. 🙂

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Ah, okay. That makes more sense, as I otherwise found your comment a little confusing given the overall nature of the site. When I get these notifications on my phone, it just looks like a sea of links, so I hadn’t actually realized there was a link to something specific at all. I started to watch that video on my own, but decided after the first few seconds that it probably wasn’t of interest so didn’t pursue it. Just went in and watched the whole thing at your urging… And yeah, it is that very typical “progressive” perspective that the problem isn’t the medical model, it’s the “stigma” preventing people from feeling okay about accessing it… Totally agree that it is super problematic.

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  • Yes, certainly, Richard. I do not think they need to be mutually exclusive. The hope would be to become better versed in both directions. For example, we held an action against psychiatric oppression during COVID times in Western Mass today.

    We left presents for our Dept. of Mental Health area office 🙂 https://www.facebook.com/serad27/posts/10223134635539815

    And as part of the action, my co-worker Sean and others worked to include an organizer for a recent Black Lives Matter rally in the action today, and two of our crew also stood on the streets of Northampton handing out flyers about psychiatric oppression and our action while we drove through in a protest caravan. 🙂

    And you’ll find other articles from me both here and elsewhere (https://truthout.org/articles/amid-covid-people-involuntarily-confined-in-psych-hospitals-must-be-released/) on psychiatric oppression.

    I am not a fan of changing topics when talking about racism, because it just happens all too often… But I am absolutely a fan of trying to cross and eliminate barriers between our respective causes. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Sam,

    I guess I’m not quite sure what you mean about me seeing your situation through my experience. Honestly, I defintiely dealt with abuse and toxicity in my family, but they weren’t especially involved in my psychiatry experiences because I’d already left home, so what I described isn’t really want I have experienced much at all. Rather, what I am saying is that there are some basic principles that are driven by systemic experiences and dynamics and those rare exceptions that may exist can’t really change the overall history, and so we ask that even those people who are rare exceptions honor that? Something like that. But again, it doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be a real, strong place for family.

    But no matter what I think about all this for the most part… It sounds like you and your wife have something going that really works for you, and there is value in that.

    -Sera

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  • Sam,

    I had started a reply earlier, but I do not think it went through, so I’m starting again. If this is a duplicate, apologies!

    I do remember hearing much of this from you in the past. I think I was thinking your comment here meant going deeper in making spaces for family and friends. I’m sorry that – as much effort as you’ve put in to really, genuinely being there for your wife and her alters – that you’ve nonetheless felt othered here and in other spaces.

    I think I’ve said most of this to you before, but i think the challenge is that there are *so* many power dynamics embedded in so many familial relationships, and so many family members who’ve been a part of someone’s trauma… And then there’s also the legacy of pharmaceutical companies using the desperation of family members to get help for their loved ones as a way to market their products a la places like NAMI and similar… And leading to communities that speak for us, over us, about us as the norm.

    For those reasons, I can’t personally support the idea that family members should be centered equally as people who’ve been diagnosed, and psychiatrized. I think it’s so much less about you than it is about that broader history, and the need to hold some lines so as to have the best shot at ensuring people really get to speak for themselves, and so on.

    That said, I’m in full support of supports *for* families, especially to create an alternative to NAMI and its ilk, and because family members do certainly have valid experiences to share, and need support themselves. I know that Hearing Voices USA and the Western Mass RLC have both worked at trying to expand efforts to recognize that importance. Hearing Voices USA, for example, is currently working on amending the existing charter to include a section on family groups.

    You have a ton of valuable experience as a family member, and I’m glad you’re here. I do not want you to feel invisible, and yet I think grappling with some of the tensions I described above are pretty important. I hope you’ll stick around and grapple along with us.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Sam,

    I am sorry you found it hurtful, but I just can’t take it back. I believe in naming things what they are, and I have heard many speak to how hurtful it is when that doesn’t happen. Racism is a systemic issue. It’s not as simple as just treating people badly, and even when black and brown people rise to places of power and abuse that power, it is sometimes still related to systemic racism. I also hear very, very often from black and brown people (not all, but many with whom I’ve crossed paths) how hurtful it is that people so often want to change the topic, or turn anti-racism conversations into “let’s talk about all oppressions’ conversations. That is another reason why I find it important to sometimes talk about racism, and really just talk about that.

    And no, it would not be my place to go to an anti-racism website out of the blue and post about psychiatric oppression. However, I’ve had many, many conversations about how to educate in *both directions* across those lines because I do believe our voices will be stronger together. Typically, where I find the most room to have those sorts of conversations is among, for example, the prison abolition community, and so on. I do indeed think it is important for many more people – including those focused on anti-racism efforts – to understand our central issues, too. Hell, one of the Black Lives Matters founders (Patrisse Cullors) has a brother diagnosed with schizoaffective and absolutely seems to have bought into the Treatment Advocacy Center-type arguments. I’d *LOVE* to see those conversations happen. But this is where I have an established publishing relationship, and this is where I see myself as having a responsibility to push things a bit, so here I am.

    -Sera

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  • furies,

    I get what is being said. And I absolutely do not agree with it. The whole concept of “political correctness” is pretty offensive, honestly. It is just one of many tactics used in efforts to silence people who’ve been marginalized and are asking for change. Sure, there are some “saviors” that swoop in and get over zealoused at times, but what a way to shut down a conversation … this calling someone the “PC” police… and what a way to invalidate the ways in which they’re saying they’re being disrespected to call their request to not be called a particular label (or similar) by ascribing motives to being “politically correct.” I don’t buy it when I get told it when I am asking people not to call me “client,” or “mentally ill,” and I do not buy it as it shows up in this article, either.

    White media has a long history of co-opting, appropriating, misrepresenting, and even finding members of marginalized groups who will say what white media wants to hear and/or whose words can be taken out of context enough to support white-driven agendas. There are lines that get crossed, especially with the aforementioned savior complexes afoot… but those lines are often far less harmful than the lines being crossed by those who show disregard.

    Headlines like “Buildings Matter” and all the other appropriative stuff that flies around are worthy of negative attention in my eyes. So, I guess you can continue to see me as just not “getting it.” That’s okay. I did read the article you attached, but it just didn’t move me or resonate with me the way it does you.

    Thanks nonetheless for taking the time to comment 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for speaking up here, Morgan. You are definitely not the first black person I have heard say that psychiatric oppression has impacted you far more deeply than racism ever did. I know you do not need my validation or confirmation of your message, but I am sorry that not only psychiatry has hurt you so much, but that the people who at least theoretically should have had your back have instead acted like your pain and oppression simply does not exist.

    This is such a strange time… when so many people who couldn’t be bothered with these conversations of Black Lives Matter are now suddenly all about it. It feels like it is absurd that they weren’t there for the conversation before, but would be even more absurd to continue to ignore it now. And how to measure the level of disingenuous and posturing and just wanting to be seen that is involved i do not know, but I can imagine why it would all feel overwhelming, especially in the face of continuing to have the source of your pain and oppression being ignored.

    Black people working and using force in these systems is such an important topic, too. It is one that I do not personally feel like it is my business to be the one to speak on for the most part, but I have been working on this film project with some co-workers that is a bit complicated to explain, but has led to a black man who has experienced force in the system challenging a black man working in a psych facility very directly on how he reconciles being a part of that environment given oppressive histories.

    I think maybe with some of your comment, you are responding to my question re: why are there not more black and brown people’s voices being centered here? I can definitely understand it must be too much energy or too painful to even think about wanting to invest the time (not to mention expose one’s self to criticism and backlash). That makes sense.

    I responded to a lot of pieces that I heard in what you said. But underneath it all, I am sorry you have felt so unseen in all this. It is *so* hard to get most people to see and understand psychiatric oppression. It is as if it doesn’t exist in most people’s eyes. And where does that leave all of us whove been so consumed by that which is invisible, if not invisible ourselves? It is very painful.

    sera

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  • Oh, oldhead. I want you to know that I keep being asked if your and a few other people’s comments should be moderated out. I have said no, but my energy is really waning for this.

    Several things:

    1. Your comment led me to go back and read ‘A Racist Movement’ again. There is a lot of good stuff in there. I do not regret it. There *was* a piece I did regret. A reference to Tourettes Syndrome that was less than respectful. A moderator helped me remove it once I realized our error, so it is no longer there. There is also another racism article that I *do* regret for its appropriative nature. It is this one: https://www.madinamerica.com/2015/01/cant-breathe/ I am embarrassed that I used “Can’t Breathe’ for anything, and centered so much of my own story. If I could take *anything* down, it would be that one. However, Mad in America has a policy against removing past articles, and so I’ve never asked. Additionally, living with the embarrassment of my own mistakes is okay. Necessary in some ways. I recently decided that I would go through some of my old pieces on racism and offer some corrections and apology for the things I see as wrong in them now. I do not see doing that on ‘A Racist Movement Cannot Move,’ for several reasons including that I co-wrote it with two black people.

    2. I am wondering about your definition of ‘reasonably well off.’ Certainly, I was born into some wealth as a kid. And I’ve benefited from that somewhat as an adult to when I had parents to fall back on to help me – say when I got very unexpectedly pregnant in my 20s. I was lucky and have privilege in that regard, and I mention that every single time I share my story publicly. However, I haven’t had access to any “family” money in a very long time. I am severely in debt, and go further in debt every single month because my single-income household does not have enough to cover basic expenses. I’m hardly living in poverty, but we will struggle to figure out how to pay for the least inexpensive Community College for my son when he leaves highschool next year. I guess I do not define that as “reasonably well off,” but it is better than many people who don’t have enough to cover their basic expenses and also don’t have access to the credit that I have to survive for a while longer, so interpret it how you will, I guess. This is irrelevant to most things here, but it’s hard – when I am struggling so much with money – to read such assumptions.

    3. I cycled through the comments on the other article (Racist Movement). I keep thinking it is funny that people say the comments section hadn’t gotten out of control, when they have no idea how many comments were being moderated out (i.e., that are no longer visible now), or how much labor it was requiring on my part and moderators’ parts to try and keep up.

    4. In flipping through old comments, I looked for where you are getting this idea that I called Richard a “racist old white man.” It doesn’t sound like something I say, and I didn’t remember saying it. And, as best as I can tell, I didn’t say it. I did, however, find a comment where I referred to the “mostly older white men” group that was responding to my comments. What I guess I was trying to get at is that I find that you, Richard, and some others do have what I receive as a very – at times – condescending way of speaking to me, replete with periodic references to how much longer you all have been at this and how much more you all know than me. It may not be intentional, and you/others may find me equally condescending. Fine, but it does get tiresome. The comments are so long, and I’ve actually been chastised at times for not writing a long enough comment representative of enough of what was said back. As if this is my job, and I’m being paid to do it. As if I owe endless amounts of my emotional labor. All this even in spite of the fact that I’m one of the few authors who actually takes the time to consistently respond at all. So, when I said that, that is what I had in mind. But I could have phrased it better, and without using the word “older,” so I am sorry for that. Regardless of my intent or what I was trying to say, I can understand why it landed as ageist, and I could have done better.

    5. a) I’m pretty sure I’ve said at various points that when it comes to systemic racism I am talking about *all* the systems.

    6. b) I *have* said that capitalism and economic justice are inextricably intertwined with racism. Multiple times in multiple places. Just because I don’t want to don the labels that you deem most appropriate for me to don in order to pledge my allegiance to your philosophy (aka “anti-capitalism,” and “anti-psychiatry”) doesn’t mean I have not acknowledged this point. I have.

    oldhead, I do not see a point in continuing to go back and forth here. Maybe you still have an axe to grind with me, but for my part, I am doing my best to create change. Sometimes that looks like words on a page. Other times it looks like direct action. And still other times it looks like a zillion other things. And, I am really, really tired. I do not feel any differently about what I wrote here than when I started, so if that was your goal, you haven’t been successful. I just feel more tired. It’d be nice if you’d direct your energies elsewhere for a while. I hope you can find something else to do with your time here. I don’t know that I’m giong to keep responding.

    -Sera

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  • Bob,

    I want to reiterate that I have never said that Mad in America has never mentioned racism. I have to be honest that this effort to dig back in Mad in America’s history feels odd and misguided to me. What I said was that there had been no *recent* mention of racism. If I was not clear enough, what I meant was that this site was almost entirely devoid of any mention of what is happening *now*, and what is happening *now* is historic and potentially revolutionary.

    Just for the sake of doing, I did go and search racism and 2020 and I got around 10 articles. Four of them were from this week. Earlier ones were prior to this current period we are in.

    I feel a bit like we’ve tread into territory where we’re just preparing for a research article or something. But all of it misses the point I was actually making in this piece… This is an important time. It wasn’t represented on Mad in America by writers, staff, or commenters at least not in any noticeable way. It is important that we be present and paying attention in these times because our liberations are bound up in one another, and for all the other reasons I said above. That’s really it.

    Bob, You do good work. But like so many of us, I think you may be taking this too personally, and that is getting you off on the wrong track. It felt important to me to name the silence here. It is even more important that everyone work together to change that silence. Going back and forth about what percentage of articles prior to this moment in history represented racism or not just wasn’t ever the point. Let’s move forward together.

    -Sera

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  • anomie,

    I find it really odd that you are accusing me of not talking *with* you. I have done my very best here to stay present and respond, and even hear (some) criticisms when offered. Blaming me for a “difficult atmosphere” feels pretty frustrating, honestly. Your seeing me as “lecturing” when so many people have also been “lecturing” me here seems uneven.

    I also would offer that your post *is* impacted by gender, whether you meant it to be or not.

    I think it is fair that we both disengage from this as I would agree it is not especially productive. Thank you for taking the time here, nonetheless.

    -Sera

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  • anomie,

    I am going to admit upfront that your post here pushes my buttons in a BIG way, so take that for what it is worth.

    I know nothing about your gender, but I can say that the level of sexism I have experienced in this movement has been staggering. I have had white men steal my work in blatant ways. I have had white men who are getting paid wayyyyyyy more than me ask me to help them with their work behind the scenes, and then have had to fight to see that help credited. I have had white men say things in MUCH more controversial ways than I do in in person meetings (where I tend to be far more diplomatic than when I am writing an article), and yet I have been perceived as the stand out “bitch.” I have literally had people write on training evaluations for trainings I’ve done with another female co-worker, “You two were both wonderful trainers, but you must have a man who is a good trainer and that you could have sent.” And on and on and on.

    So, I am *not* going to respond well to being told that I need to defer to two white men to learn how I should speak, even if they also have valuable things to say. It’s just not the way this is going to go.

    Meanwhile, a few things about Will… I have known Will in person for about 15 years now. I am not going to criticize him in any way. I think he has brought valuable things to the conversation both here and via Madness Radio, etc. However, please note that Will neither has children nor a permanent full-time job with many moving pieces that requires his constant basically 24/7 attention. Yet, in spite of that, and while I haven’t looked at all his articles, I have noticed that he often responds to reader comments either minimally or not all.

    I’m not going to critique him for that. It’s a personal choice. I choose to respond to comments because a) I think it’s disrespectful and a power move not to in a forum such as this (not a specific dig at Will, just how I feel across the board in this forum), and b) When the author responds, it tends to lead to more comments and deeper dialogue within them. But I also wonder what element our gender socialization has played into whether or not we each choose to respond. And I want to emphasize that responding in the way that I do requires a TON of emotional labor.

    So, when you tell me to look at the comments section of Will Hall’s latest article and how much better it is going over there, I want to point out to you how that that article was posted over 24 hours ago, and its comments section has a grand total of 9 comments. None of them are from Will. He hasn’t shown up ther eat all.

    The article itself is also not directly about racism, although I’m glad it unites the issues. I am not going to say anything bad about it. I am glad it exists and was posted here. I never suggested my article should be both the first *and* the last, but I reject completely and entirely that his article is the only “right” way to bring the conversation here. And I ask you to question why you would even suggest that I should defer to how to white men have chosen to do things.

    They have their way. I have mine. That is okay. It requires many people speaking up to move things. And it will always be messy and imperfect along the way.

    -Sera

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  • Okay, Richard. I hear you on my misunderstanding. I gotta be honest, it is *really* hard to have lengthy dialogues in this manner. I work *a lot* of hours, and even more hours right now during this ‘COVID’ mess. I feel a responsibility and obligation to respond to each commenter at least once whether they right something supportive or in disagreement, but you and oldhead in particular write very lengthy posts with a lot of complex ideas in them, and usually not just one of them per article. I am trying to keep up here, but the reality is that I am reading very quickly a lot of the time in an effort to keep up with my obligation to things I write and not just be so arrogant as to write and run… but it is really, really hard to pull the full meaning from every long post I receive when so pressed from time and pulled in multiple directions. If I listed out all the things that have been going on in the last 24 hours in my work world (never mind my kid world) while also trying to answer comments here… well, it would be a long list.

    I’m not sure it’s helpful – or at least I’m not sure I’m *capable* logistically speaking of continuing to go back and forth here, but if you want to e-mail me to talk about things further, I am willing to do that.

    -Sera

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  • meremortal,

    I am certainly not going to argue with you that I’m making assumptions about race at times, but after spending a lot of time here over the last 8 years.. which has included getting to know several of the commenters both based on what they’ve shared in comments, and what they’ve e-mailed me, etc, and looking at who is *writing* for Mad in America, and how that has developed over the years, and after talking to various Mad in America employees over the years… Well, that’s what’s informed my take not that there are *no* black and brown people showing up here, but that there are comparatively very few. But yes, like I said, I am not going to argue that I’m not making assumptions, and that those assumptions are sometimes wrong.

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  • Meremortal,

    The older piece was a moderation nightmare. Many of the worst were moderated out. Ditto the ‘Dear Man’ post on sexism and misogyny.

    I will take your words here into consideration. I do think that these pieces are designed to be ‘opinion’ pieces, not dialogues, and so many of them contain strong opinions, strongly phrased… not just mine, though I can certainly appreciate if you feel that my pieces in particular have that tone and will bear it in mind.

    For now, I will offer that when writing an article, etc. I do not think it is generally the time for a ton of uncertainty. I regard it as a time to state one one believes/has experienced – often with certainty and a clear perspective. That – in those moments, it can be time to “teach” or at least clearly impart wisdom one feels that they have to offer… And that the mutuality comes from us each taking turns in that, not in necessarily avoiding ever speaking strongly and clearly from a particular perspective.

    I really don’t know that I can promise to change my writing style or the importance I see in wording things strongly at times. But, I will consider your words.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • anomie,

    Well, a couple of things… I try my best to respond to most comments, but the reality is that I’m often reading quickly in the middle of work tasks, and sometimes my efforts to pick up something I can respond to in someone’s comment may miss the mark. That is certainly true. The first half felt mostly like the correction that I responded to above.

    As to your second and more central point, maybe I am not quite getting what you most want me to take away from what your saying… But I’m not looking for there to be articles on here devoid of *any* connections being made, and I agree that connecting psychiatry and policing both as a way of controlling people is an important point… though I do not agree that it has to be made strictly within an anti-psychiatry framework… For better or worse, I think that can be talked about even within a reformist perspective.

    In the end, I think there are lots of connections to be made… some of which I at leats attempted to make in this piece… and moving forward, I just hope there continues to be less and less silence when something so potentially revolutionary is going on in one realm, especially as it is the case that all these threads are so impactful of one another. But I know I’m just repeating myself at this point!

    -Sera

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  • Okay, thanks for being willing to answer! it feels hard for me to separate out using a last name as respect vs deference that i see so often in our systems, and so it always jumps out at me when i see last names or titles being used. but i can totally hear that it is gratitude when you do it here. i am sorry if this was too weird or invasive of a question. it is just a topic that has really been on my mind lately!

    sera

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  • Sam,

    i am curious what would help this site feel like that place for you? i am not disagreeing with you that it isnt, i am sincerely curious. we are trying to develop more and more family support and opportunities to share where i work, and via hearing voices usa, and i know miranda and likely others have been working hard here to do the same. alternatives are so needed. i would love to see them drown nami out!

    sera

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  • meremortal,

    it is true that -based on how few black and brown people appear here- i tend to make that assumption, sometimes erroneously. i am sorry if i have done that to you. Also, if i have rewritten your same points, then i do not think i understood your points, as i was thinking they were not exactly in disagreement with your points, but in disagreement with them as the full picture. the points i did offer are ones i have been offered directly from non-white people during conversations of this nature. i will go back tomorrow and relook at your points so i can perhaps better understand them and how i may have restated them in my own.

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  • Richard,

    “Sera, I would never expect you or anyone else to defer to someone merely because of their age or political experience in political movements. But there are some people writing in this comment section with literally decades of radical activism, and some have been in the forefront with other Black radicals in some of the most significant struggles in this country’s history against systemic racial oppression. I’m in my fifth decade, and I know of others who equal that experience ,or come close.”

    You basically just did. You’re just not going to convince me here. And while I think there are things to be learned from the elders in any movement, they do not hold all the truths.

    “While your intent here is to combat various forms of racism, and some of your particular examples you used (in the past blog) to highlight your intent were exactly that – crude forms of appropriation that do come off as racist, and just plain stupid.”

    Richard, Can we be done with this? You are still at me over an article from no less than *four* years ago. Although, in fairness to you, I would absolutely still stand by the idea that white people have no business using terms like “psychiatric slavery,” but I have *zero* interest or willingness in continue to volley that discussion back and forth.

    Rather, in fairness to me, I will offer to you a hope that you might consider why you have spent so much time holding on to that four-year-old conversation. There are many aspects of what I know of you and your work that I have respect for, but I’m not obligated to respond to every comment at length nor work out these differences in perspective. At some point, you may just need to accept we see some of these pieces differently.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for taking the time to comment here, Bob. As I mentioned in this piece itself, I am thankful for what Mad in America *is,* in many ways, but think – as with so many other things – we can do better, too. I appreciate that you do not shy away from anything that ventures in to the land of the critical. I certainly know what that can feel like as someone who has been in a leadership role for the Western Mass RLC for the duration of its existence (now 13 years not including its unfunded phase).

    I hear you on the reform pieces, and appreciate your acknowledgement of the lack of non-white representation, too. And, I imagine you already understand this, but I certainly never said that Mad in America *never* touches the the topic of racism. But – in this moment in time – I found the silence problematic, not on any single person’s part, but as a collective. I’m glad that silence is now broken, messy as it may be.

    I do worry about the name piece you mentioned (re: oldhead). I worry – on a site that intentionally includes so many people who’ve been harmed by systems – that there isn’t more room for pseudonyms. It necessitates a certain level of privilege to right under one’s own full name. Privilege to not be under threat from the system itself (or even have to worry about being)… Privilege to not be running from an abuser in the community… Privilege to not be vulnerable to power holders at work or in educational environments. Privilege to not have to fear losses among our family, friends, and neighbors should we speak too openly of our psychiatric histories. As you know, my parental status was threatened just a year ago when I shared a historical experience of seeing visions at a training. I know there are reasons of journalistic integrity that drive you, and that I also respect, but I hope that this can be something in the ‘food for thought’ category, as I worry that it may marginalize the voices of some of those folks who are most at risk. Anyway, food for thought.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • I just want to take a moment right now to highlight power dynamics. I’m so curious – anomie – why you chose to call Bob Mr. Whitaker? I am actually not trying to chastise you, I’m just really genuinely curious. I just recently wrote to the Commissioner of Mental Health in our state pushing on the idea that they call everyone by their first name except for doctors and the most senior officials in their systems… A small point in some ways, yet so illustrative of power differentials. I’m curious if it is coming from that place, or from a different place for you? I wasn’t going to ask, but I just kept coming back to this place and wondering about it.

    -S

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  • I am confused about your response re: black psychiatrists. My main point in the article was that the virtual silence on what’s happening in the world at this moment in time is troubling, and brings me back to times when I was told that my other articles centering systemic racism were not relevant to this space, and I fear we haven’t moved beyond that. Then I explained why it is important that we move beyond that. I’m unclear how that connects to black psychiatrists being more or less oppressive than white psychiatrists, honestly. And as I mentioned in a prior comment, I’ve never suggested that they *never* do. In fact, at the very start of the piece, I cited two other times when they posted pieces by me and centering racism, and I’m surely not the only examples. But this is about now. And how important it is that we not be silent.

    So, again, my points are that we can’t be silent on this topic right now, and that our liberations are intertwined, and well… all the other points I made in the article. If the article doesn’t land well for you, that is also okay, but I think I feel just as confused by your comment as you feel about the article itself.

    -S

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  • Fair enough, You found a reference. My original point still stands. I never said that Mad in America has *never* addressed racism. I know it has. I’ve written *at least* four other pieces that were posted here and that centered that topic. Some of them I’d never write or would write very differently in current day, but they are there. That wasn’t the point. The point was that there has been almost complete silence on *this* moment in time, and no recent posts centering racism. And that we can’t remain silent because our “liberations are intertwined.”

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  • Meremortal,

    If you look at the link you provided, only one appears to even be as recent as 2019. I do not think I ever suggested that there are *no* posts on racism ever. One of my points is simply that if psychiatry has been used so historically as a tool to oppress black and brown people, and if black and brown people are subjected to more force, harsher diagnoses, etc. within psychiatry… Then why aren’t the topic and black and brown voices better represented here? And even if George Floyd’s name weren’t mentioned here, why weren’t there even any mentions of the US currently basically being on fire? Part of my point here is that it *is* related. It is *all* interrelated, and it makes no sense to have the country be on fire and have there be such silence on a website that is addressing systemic oppression, particularly of a type that has swallowed so many black and brown people whole.

    One additional point: We can’t possibly keep opining about the lack of representation from non-white voices at this table, without considering whether or not that means a different table needs to be built… In other words, if we aren’t even willing to mention the issues most deeply impacting so many black and brown people today, why would they ever see us as relevant? And if you think that the endless systemic racism and white supremacy that people experience in this nation isn’t part of what ends up driving them to the distress that lands them in this system… Well, suffice to say, it is all interconnected. But I already said most of this in my piece above!

    -Sera

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  • Richard,

    So, the meme that I posted is not my words. It is a meme circling the Internet, and that I have most explicitly seen posted by black people. They are not my words. I am supporting them.

    While I think I get your point about – as a white person – not being beholden to ideas that may be coming from internalized oppression or are simply harmful… And while I *have* fallen into debates at times with – for example – black people who argue in favor of the existence of “reverse racism”… I nonetheless do not think we are going to come to a point of agreement on this. It is just too important right now that white people follow the lead of black people… That they make space for black leaders to fight out the best approaches… That space is made for people to move in a particular direction through their own process, and not be forced and pushed, even if someone is simply pushing them in what they think is the ‘right’ direction (and even if I would personally agree it is the ‘right’ direction).

    I think white people *need* to have a place in the discussion, particularly when pushing back on other white people and using their privilege to push back on power in general. I think there is also space for us to ask questions that *could* support people to unpack and consider different ideas, or to share our own experiences at times. But systemic change has got to mean more black and brown leaders, not just more benevolent white people leading black and brown people in a different direction.

    I know that’s not carrying all the nuance of what you are saying, but it’s how it boils down for me. I’m afraid we just won’t likely reach a point of agreement here.

    As to the article you are referring to, I do not regret shutting that comments section down. Among the hundreds of comments remaining there, sure there’s some worthwhile stuff, and as we discussed earlier in this comments section, I have taken some commenter feedback to heart (e.g., not buying into the language of ‘loot’ and ‘riot’). However, that post was being flooded by horrible things, just like the Dear Man post was. Much of it has been moderated out, but it would not be fair to require me to have kept going with it and trying to keep up with the flood of awful, nor would it have been fair to others reading it.

    Richard, I have now written over 70 pieces on Mad in America. Those are the *only* two pieces for which the comments section was shut down. I am generally fine with feedback or disagreement in comments sections of my articles. Even when I feel irritated by some of it, I do not request that it be erased, and as a moderator, Steve could tell you that – since Mad in America switched its approach to ‘moderate first’ – pretty much whenever he comes to me asking if I’m okay with a particular comment going through (if it’s on the line) I am typically in favor of letting it through and just responding to it. I am also one of the few authors on here who generally takes the time to response to each commenter on each piece at least once. That said, I also want to be clear that I – like all non-employee authors here – receive no compensation for my time spent writing pieces or responding to comments, and I have a limit to how much time I have given I also have a full-time job that consumes often 80 hours of my week, and two children. It would not be fair of people to expect me to be obligated to respond indefinitely to all comments on every article. The comments section for those two pieces went well beyond ‘okay,’ and I am glad they were closed. I’m not sure what to say beyond that.

    -S

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  • It is true, John. There is so much work to be done in so many communities, groups, and organizations. Hopefully, many were already doing the work to support more black and brown people to take on key leadership roles. It’s multi-layered work that requires not just inviting people in to the existing table, but re-evaluating the table altogether and building new ones. (My comment for some reason posted way above your comment, so just re-posting it here.)

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  • oldhead,

    I don’t disagree (particularly in the way you framed seeking ‘black support for the Mad in America agenda”), but I also think that sometimes in transition a lot of stumbling steps are needed, and recruiting black and brown people (who have a legit interest and something to say) seems valid to me as one of many efforts. It’s pretty hard to go from 0 to 60 in one step.

    -Sera

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  • Meremortal,

    That’s actually not consistent with my experience, or research I’m familiar with… It has actually appeared to me that black and brown people often end up even more deeply embedded in the system all too often, including heavier psych drug regimens, more force, harsher diagnoses, etc. And unfortunately, in many public sector hospitals and mental health service providers, they seem pretty heavily populated by non-white folks. Of course, not all black and brown people are the same, hold the same experiences, or respond in the same ways so that may very well be true for a number of non-white people… but certainly doesn’t seem true for all.

    There’s also the matter that so many black and brown people get routed into the foster care and prison systems rather than the mental health system, so I’m sure that has an impact. And I’ve heard many other perspectives too including:

    1. Black people (for example) already have a label that leads to systemic oppression (Black!) that has heavily impacted their lives, and they don’t really want to take on any psychiatric labels in a public sort of way.

    2. Many non-white people are deeply involved in spiritual communities that have very specific views on emotional distress and that do not necessarily align that may serve as barriers to identify as someone who’s been psychiatricaly labeled.

    I could keep going here, but I guess I’m just saying I think there’s a lot of complicated, layered issues here that include some of what you named, but a lot of others, too.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • It is true, John. There is so much work to be done in so many communities, groups, and organizations. Hopefully, many were already doing the work to support more black and brown people to take on key leadership roles. It’s multi-layered work that requires not just inviting people in to the existing table, but re-evaluating the table altogether and building new ones.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • anomie,

    I think it’s on everyone. Mad In America staff, Mad In America authors, Mad In America commenters… If you want an example of problematic contributions from commenters, check out the Facebook post for this article. And yes, I noted to Pat that I am asking the comments to stay on track because it’s extremely common – when racism is the topic – for people to move and shift the topic to something else. I have a responsibility to keep an eye on that.

    I think it’s a fair criticism of this piece that it wasn’t clear enough in its criticism of Mad in America oversight and their responsibility here. In truth, I didn’t name any specific group, and my point about the comments was more to say “I couldn’t even find a reference in the comments,” then to try and say it is the commenter’s responsibility to bring it up. I’m sorry I wasn’t clearer on that.

    In the end, I think we *ALL* hold a piece of the responsibility… but yes, as always, the greatest burden should be held by those with the most power and privilege in each space.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • markps2,

    I am not sure it changes too much, though I’ve also heard they worked for the same business over the course of several years. I do not know that means it is any less an issue of racism and white supremacy… not only what Derek did, but the complicity of the other cops, and so on.

    I worry about your recommendation for a psychology test for a number of reasons including:

    1. We have all been socialized in a white supremacist culture. All of us. That means that pretty much all white people will sometimes do or say things rooted in systemic racism. That doesn’t necessarily mean we are doomed. But it does mean that we need to *all* stop with the defensiveness, and intentionally pay attention to that so that we can recognize it when it happens in ourselves and others around us and attempt to mitigate it, correct it, and apologize to those we’ve harmed along the way. (Etc.)

    2. Even “good cops” are embedded in a criminal (in)justice system that is fundamentally rooted in that white supremacist culture. Weeding out those cops (or prospective cops) who are invested in actively *maintaining* that seems valuable, but ignoring that the system will generally force even the “good cops” to become complicit in awful things is necessary to make real change.

    3. I am not interested in giving any more power or trust to the mental health system. Do we really believe that they’d be any more capable of psychologically evaluating for beliefs rooted in racism than much of anything else? Do we want to give them that power?

    Although I’m in disagreement with your proposal, I nonetheless appreciate your posting your thoughts here.

    Thank you,

    Sera

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  • Sam,

    I am not 100% sure I followed all the ins and outs of your comment, but to be clear, I am for sure not saying that racism is our only problem, or the only form of systemic oppression. Nor do I support those who are calling for social workers to replace police, as social workers/the mental health system are – as others have pointed out – is just another form of policing in so many instances and is quick to call in the actual police, too. I regard many of the people saying such things as well-intended, and harmfully ignorant. It is far too common that those who get topics like systemic racism simply have no clue about psychiatric oppression, and think the best answer is to incarcerate people in psychiatric facilities (aka “give them access to treatment”).

    I have heard non-white people say “All lives matter.” It’s not my job or place to figure out why, though I will say that the majority of times I’ve heard that it’s been to largely white groups, and it’s hard not to wonder how some non-white people have been trained, and pushed, and punished into finding ways to signal that they are not a threat, and support white people. But, while I *have* heard *some* black and brown people utter that phrase, I have heard *far more* black and brown people be hurt by it. For so many reasons. Including that it represents an absolutely fundamental misunderstanding of what it means.

    Here is a brief segment of what I wrote in a comment on Mad in America’s Facebook page post for this article. (Side note: One commenter noted that the comments section was like a “dumpster fire,” and I would not disagree.)

    In reality, Black Lives Matter is not the same as saying ONLY Black Lives Matter. Rather, it is a way of saying:

    * We must focus on those lives being treated as invisible or disposable *in order for* all lives to actually matter.

    * We must focus on those being routinely harmed in order to lift them up…. no, not above us, but no longer below.

    * We must recognize that – until we are able to find a place of equality, equity, and inclusion – it is essential that we keep naming that Black Lives Matter because that is not the message being sent or received at this time.

    In any case, there’s much more I could be responding to or better understanding here I suspect, but I’ll leave it at this for now.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Thanks for your comment, Richard. There are a number of things I would change about ‘Baltimore is Burning’ and other things I’ve written related to systemic racism and police brutality. That includes not using ‘rioting’ and ‘looting,’ and I believe you were one of the people that brought that to my attention five years ago, so thank you for that.

    And yes, I did not mention the role of capitalism and economic justice. My main point here was to draw attention to the silence on the topic at all, and while I certainly could have worked that in… well, I didn’t. But I do not disagree that economic justice and the systems that perpetuate it are central to the problem, and need to be central to the conversation about what to do about it.

    As far as the second half of your comment goes… I do not disagree with all of it exactly. However, there is a ton of nuance and tension wrapped up in what you are saying. It strikes me as absolutely essential that we make space to elevate, listen to, and follow the lead of those who’ve been most marginalized. That simply can’t happen when well-meaning allies are constantly telling those most directly impacted by systemic oppression what to do, even if they really, really feel they know better. It can’t happen when those who’ve had the privilege to study concepts and language in school (and similar) attempt to overrun and speak over those who’ve had to actually live and learn to survive that which the others have primarily only studied. It also can’t mean just following along without any critical thought, or deferring to any and everyone whether or not they’ve internalized oppression, learned to act in the image of oppressors for survival’s sake, or simply not been supported to unpack all the crap they’ve been fed along the way. Somewhere in there, there’s a way to at least try and hold both of those points, however messily and imperfectly.

    And yes, there’s also the matter of compounded oppressions, or even – as you noted – the central role of money and capitalism in all forms of oppression. I watched a film recently (The Uncomfortable Truth) in which one of the central people (a black man) speaks to how black people and poor white people should have been great allies. There is indeed much as play here that serves to keep so many of us “under.”

    So, yes… being born with privilege (white, male, etc.) shouldn’t totally silence people… And, no… sometimes knowing how much privilege we hold *should* lead us to take a step back, even if not permanently… Because otherwise we continue to monopolize the space that is there. When I facilitate trainings – actually when I and/or any of my co-workers facilitate trainings – we include in our meeting agreements the need to sometimes take a step back or count to ten before speaking if you are someone who knows that you often speak first. This is because so many others need a moment to gather their thoughts in order to step forward, and will sometimes remain silent if all that space keeps being filled. This may be because of how society has trained/socialized them to defer to others, how they’ve been slapped back when they have tried to speak up in the past, for lack of trust in the room, because they haven’t had access to the education that supports others to use all the ‘right’ words and speak in ways identified by society as ‘articulate,’ or even just because their way of thinking and pulling ideas together takes a bit more time. Regardless, it’s not about those of us with privilege silencing ourselves forever, or following along without any critical thought at all… But it is about us recognizing how much damn space we’ve taken up at times, about how many others have never even been afforded the space to stumble around a bit as they grow into leaders, and about how sometimes shutting up is actually an important act of revolution at times.

    What you’ve said is complex and important, and I don’t know that I’ve responded to it all, but this is what I’ve got for the moment.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Oldhead,

    My time is really limited at the moment, but what I will say is this: Yes, absolutely systemic racism and capitalism/the need for economic justice are deeply intertwined, and have been since the beginning. And I would fully support the ‘defund psychiatry’ initiative, and it is not the first time I have heard that phrase over the last few months. Psychiatry has been used as a tool of oppression with many forms of systemic oppression, and certainly racism.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Ooof, I’m just seeing this now, but yeah, that’s scary.

    It makes me think – unfortunately – of the guidance our own state is providing to hospitals on whether or not to *release* them from psych facilities to save them from danger of catching COVID through presence in a congregate living facility. They’re basically asking these facilities to consider whether or not someone is good about wearing a mask and doing 6-feet distancing… standards that NO ONE out in the world is actually being measured by as a reason to have their freedom taken away (well, unless they start following TAC apparently).

    -S

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  • Sam,

    There are so many terrible stories out there of these sorts of things happening. I wish we could all do a better job of understanding and sharing with one another the laws around how to successfully evade this sort of force. For sure, it seems ridiculous that basically a nationwide search could be issued and sustained over years for someone who clearly didn’t want to be caught. The story is so vague that I’m not sure what on earth to make of it, but it’s frightening nonetheless.

    -Sera

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  • I’m not sure that I’m entirely following your post, Jen. This article wasn’t about “solutions,” but about that particular question, its harms, and the reality that providers exhibit dangerousness to us on many occasions. I also disagree that resources need to mean solutions. It is this idea that supporting someone through suicidal thoughts necessarily means that our actions must be designed strictly to get rid of the suicidal thoughts. Sometimes, the best “solution” is just being willing to be with someone in the darkness because “solutions” aren’t really possible at that time. We don’t have housing or steady income to give. We can’t raise the dead when someone’s grieving. We can’t zap away emotional distress, and when we temporarily numb it sometimes it actually gets in the way of someone’s ability to move through. The approach we use encourages validation, curiosity, vulnerability (including sharing on the part of the supporter), and community (looking at ways of expanding connections that might tether someone to this world), etc. But we also do all this without the agenda of making someone not kill themselves. Rather, we are looking to support them in the moment, and suicide “prevention” is a common side effect of that. There’s no way to write out easy answers, because the context of people’s lives are unique to them. As to resources, if you’re asking what the infographic is referencing then what I’m proposing is that people who can’t discuss suicide with someone without resorting to force etc have lists of on-line Alternatives to Suicide (or similar) groups, peer support lines that do NOT call 911 (Trans Lifeline, RLC’s Peer Support Line, etc.) on hand so that the person at least has the space to talk about where they’re at without being under threat.

    -Sera

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  • Sam,

    Hah, A co-worker (Sean) and I were just talking about what ‘safety’ means within the context of a film we’re working on (related to psychiatric oppression). It is indeed one of the trickiest questions they’ve got, especially as it relates to being a “risk to self or others.” So many words and all their special meanings in the system.. Oy.

    -Sera

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  • Berzerk,

    I’m not sure what happened, but I can imagine several possible outcomes to that that could be really harmful. I’m sorry that they violated your trust however they did. Someone mentioned Open Dialogue above, and from what I at least understand of how it exists in Finland, one of the key differences is that many people actually *trust* their system and reach out for help early on in their distress. Can you imagine living somewhere where the system designed to “help” actually helps more frequently than it hurts, and can be trusted in that regard? I wish I could.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for your comment, Truth in Psychiatry. Open Dialogue is so interesting. I share about it often in trainings for a number of reasons, but – while I’m aware it’s happening – I’m not terribly familiar with the “Peer Supported” version, and I’ve heard real debates about how ethical it is to have peer supporters be involved. I’m not sure what to make of all that, but you’re absolutely right that the average “professional” is in a bind even if they want to do a good job of supporting someone through a really dark time based on what’s expected of them by their employer/the system overall.

    -Sera

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  • dfk,

    That’s a really interesting idea, dfk, and absolutely..this all or nothing way of thinking about people and their distress is really bizarre and harmful. As is the idea that most “normal” people don’t ever think about suicide. The reality is that most of us do, but even the “suicide prevention trainings” like “ASIST” make that seem shameful.

    -Sera

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  • I’m sorry that happened to that person (and so very many others). As I noted above, there are many times when answering the questions “right” can help someone stay out of the system… But, of course, one of the great foundational problems of why we’re even here on this site having these conversations is that – when the system has an agenda for you – they have the power to make it happen in far too many instances without their ethics or ‘rightness’ ever being questioned (at least in a way that requires them to respond).

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  • ThereAreFourLights,

    You’re right that some providers are willing to twist and look for signs of whatever they want if they’ve got a particular agenda… On the other hand, I’ve seen people who’ve been dragged through the system quite successfully give each other advice on things like how to answer the questions so as to not end up in a psych facility, etc. It’s one of the more valuable forms of “peer support” that I’ve seen take place. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Fiachra,

    Yep, that’s the issue… When I facilitate trainings on this topic I and my co-workers spend a fair amount of time zeroing in on the fact that loss of power and control is a major contributor to suicidal thoughts and feelings, and examining how the system that’s trying to stop someone from killing themselves nonetheless immediately resorts to things that take power and control away… It makes zero sense, and yet it happens all the time.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Boans,

    Ha, interesting question. Fortunately for you, were you to say that within the context of a risk assessment process, they’d probably rule you out for immediate use of force primarily because that’s a pretty long range plan, as opposed to an immediate risk. That said, I’ve seen providers who have an agenda to get someone in to a hospital use statements like “I have a plan” and simply write those down in their notes and leave out the broader details that make the risk seem minimal or at least not current.

    And yes, the whole point of this piece really is that these questions aren’t a bad idea because suicide is scary and shouldn’t be talked about, but rather they’re a bad idea because they’re canned questions that usually signal “I’m going to try and take control now.”

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Berzerk,

    Well, for what it’s worth, I want to offer that I think it’s best to be really cautious about asking those sorts of questions, especially without asking for consent first. Even people who share pieces of their story publicly aren’t obligated to entertain questions that are intrusive or feel entitled to information that person isn’t up for sharing.

    That said, I have put myself in this public forum, and am pretty comfortable talking about suicide, so I feel okay going ahead and answering.

    I have wanted to kill myself for a number of different reasons that have ranged from:

    * Wanting my emotional pain to stop (moreso, if you will, wanting my pain to ‘die’ rather than my body… which is a way of thinking about things that I’ve learned through my co-worker, Caroline, and really resonates for me)

    * Wanting the endless drudgery that requires so much of my energy and feels so pointless to be over… The waking up, the brushing my hair, the showering, the dressing, etc. … Over and over and over, often for no discernible purpose.

    * Knowing that whatever pain I’m experiencing is temporary or will shift, and that all my fears of what people are saying about me/thinking about me are probably inaccurate should I only bother to ‘reality check’ them.. But also just being tired of that emotional roller coaster, and having to live in that place of worry/anxiety so much of the time.

    * Money. Feeling like my debt will never be resolved, and will only get worse and worse, and feeling like I have no way out.

    There are other reasons, but those come the easiest at the moment. And while I can apply ‘wanting to escape’ to each of those in their way… I also want to offer that when you ask, ‘What are you trying to escape from” it feels like you’re making an assumption or applying your own lens/meaning to my experience, and of all the things you said, that made me least want to respond. For whatever that’s worth.

    As to how it makes me better equipped… Well, as Oldhead said somewhere above, I really don’t paint myself as an ‘expert’ in general (Well, he was talking about my not painting myself as an expert on non-existent things which is certainly true, but also I generally try to avoid the language of ‘expert’ in general.) But I absolutely do think having ‘been there’ is a really useful tool. It helps me think of questions to ask that might support someone to come up with their own meaning. It makes me a less threatening person to someone else who’s struggling similarly, because I also know what it’s like to have someone step in and take all my power away because I said words like “suicide.” It makes it easier for me to validate other people’s feelings of this nature because I have internal experience to draw from, as well. And while I don’t know what will work for someone else, I’ve had enough experience trying different paths that I know something about at least some of them which can also be useful.

    Hope that helps.

    -Sera

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  • It’s funny (loosely)… Until I read what Leah wrote, I hadn’t even absorbed that it was considered a “teaching hospital.” It’s a bizarre place in every possible way, including that it’s this awful gigantic building surrounded by a golf course, playground, and all sorts of other stuff and most people walking by and around it don’t even seem to know what it is. Actually, even a guard in a booth that led up to the hospital seemed unclear what the building contained when asked by one of our group.

    -Sera

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  • NotCrazyAfterAllTheseYears,

    I totally agree. Jaffe is basically – in my experience – someone who discredits anything and everything that hasn’t been studied. Worse, he is someone who tends to discredit anything that hasn’t been studied in the ‘double blind’ blah blah blah supposed “gold standard” of research. The problems with that are many, including that even the supposedly ‘double blind’ research gets manipulated and misrepresented with frequency, and of course… some of those types of research are inaccessible to implement (way too much money, etc.) and simply not a match for treating everyone like actual human beings. It’s super frustrating in many regards, when the answer to his question would be answered pretty unequivocally by – as you suggest – simply asking people. But then, that would not fit his agenda either. :p

    -Sera

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  • Hi registered,

    I’m not sure how to answer your question, primarily because I don’t know quite what the answer is. You’re right. This space is still very much in the minority, and its audience is limited. The accusations, insults, and attempts to discredit are common and it doesn’t matter that they’re baseless because the people who hurl them are backed by the majority. It can be extremely frustrating.

    What I can say is that I haven’t found it helpful to try and force people out of that other paradigm… Because force is force and so much of what drives so many of us in our distress is loss of power. However, if you have the energy for it, exposure to other materials and ideas and perspectives will eventually move some folks… Almost every person I know who is here having these conversations now was once in a very different place where they too would not have balked at a diagnostic and psych drug listing in their signatures… Some of them would even have argued vehemently that it was absolutely needed… Short of blowing up what is so as to force the system’s hand (as opposed to individuals) re: change, I think that’s about all we’ve got. But it can be a very lonely spot indeed. I’m sorry I don’t have a better answer, but for what it’s worth, I have seen many people move in that way over the years.

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  • Don,

    It feels like you’re taking what I said a bit out of context and its actual meaning. I think it’s pretty clear that what I’m saying in that excerpt you’ve pulled out is that I do not think it’s okay to act as if what are often moreso inconveniences experienced by those who hold a significant amount of privilege to the deep and systemic losses of those who do not. But also, where you appear to be going with the rest of your comment isn’t a place I’m at all willing to go in this comments section. Perhaps others will be more available to that conversation, though!

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Itsrey,

    Thanks so much for reading and sharing. I really appreciated it, and you totally made sense. 🙂 I absolutely agree with you … this idea that we need research to demonstrate what is so obviously true is absurd… And that – in the absence of research – some are powerful and/or privileged enough to simply deny its reality is completely infuriating. I’m sorry you’ve been harmed in the ways you have, and I wish that aspect of your story wasn’t so common. Thanks again. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Eh, neither term is how I would choose to identify myself, oldhead. Sorry. Given that they are used to describe people, they are still labels even if labels representative of ideologies. Particularly the anti-psychiatry one doesn’t even do a good job of describing exactly what i think it truly means, and is too easily misunderstood or used as a label by which to dismiss someone. The anti-capitalist one is much clearer, but still I’m not going to slap it on my forehead. I said already what I mean… The capitalist nature of our system kills people, and necessitates the maintenance of groups that are at the bottom in order to keep others at the top, and so on and so forth. I can’t support such a mess, and I can’t really see a way for it to be different while still maintaining its central elements… So, call that what you will. 🙂

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  • Are you asking me that, oldhead? I mean, I’m typically not a big fan of so many labels or anti’s including ‘anti-psychiatry’ as I think you know… So, I don’t know if I’d be inclined to start labeling myself ‘anti-capitalist,’ but sure, yes, capitalism is a hugely problematic driver of what is destroying the lives of so many people, and the people who deny that are typically those who are most benefiting it *or* those who’ve gotten tangled up in fantasies that somehow, some day, they’ll be able to “show everyone” by becoming one of those ones, too..

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  • Well, I think this is true to a point, but I think we have to also be cautious to not – say – equate the oppressive nature of the work of people in clinical roles with, say, the existence of people who get incarcerated in the system. Many of us do end being cogs in the system, and as was said in a preceding comment, much of psychiatric oppression isn’t about the obvious stuff, but the more subtle every day that many of us do somehow play a role in… But it’s not all equal exactly.

    Thanks for commenting!

    -Sera

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  • Willoweed,

    Absolutely, I totally agree… As with most if not all types of systemic oppression, society tends to identify the most obvious, outrageous things and talk about stopping those (or at least hiding them better)… But the more insidious bits of oppression – especially the ones that are most effective at getting someone to internalize the oppression – can be what makes so damn hard to find one’s way back.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for reading and commenting, o.o. I’m not sure I’m following every sentence you wrote in this comment (the last couple of questions in particular), but I certainly agree that there’s a ton of issues in our own movement, including internalized psychiatric oppression that so many continue to spit back out onto others, as well as many other times of systemic oppression… And it seems that it is really, really hard for us to find a way out of that in said activist communities for a variety of reasons.

    -Sera

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  • Michael,

    I hear you. It’s really hard to know who on earth to trust now – or most of the time – as so many different interests cloud it all, and drive dishonesty, force, marginalization, and so on. That said, I think that’s a whole nother topic unto itself that doesn’t really negate that this may be a learning opportunity re: psychiatric oppression as well. Though, of course, psychiatric oppression is rooted back to many interests, dishonesty, force, marginalization, too.

    -Sera

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  • Berzerk,

    I’m a little unsure if I’m following what you’re meaning with the 9/11 video? In terms of my “expertise” on various experiences in the “mental health” system or with emotional distress… I’m someone who has struggled frequently with suicidal thoughts, been held in a psychiatric facility against my will, seen visions, had DCF called on me for vague worries that I’d be a danger to my kids because of sharing the experience of seeing visions in the past, etc. etc. I also have worked in different support roles, including for the last 13 years, as a part of the Western Mass Recovery Learning Community where we facilitate a number of groups related to suicide, hearing voices, and beyond, and also facilitate trainings on those and other topics. Don’t know if that helps?

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Oh, and one other thing, KateL… DJ is definitely not a doctor. He’s really mostly just a guy with a family member who has struggled and is diagnosed, and who has a ton of time on his hands to get Op-eds published allllll over the place. In fact, looking at his website with its list of places he’s been published or interviewed is one of the most depressing things I’ve done in a while…

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  • Thanks so much for sharing that story, KateL. Yes, I guess one of the things I wish for most is less than people fully “get it,” because that is just impossible when someone hasn’t been in it… and moreso that they get that they can’t and don’t get it. Asking you to go out and ask the people you’re desperately wanting to avoid coming to get you is kind of absurd, even if it makes some “logical” sense from the vantage point of one who already feels sure they weren’t there for you.

    That said, I *have* had some (minimal) luck using exercises that ask people to consider losses for *themselves* without first telling them that those losses would mirror incarceration in a psych facility. If there were any way to just get people to understand enough about how painful loss is for them, and how much smaller that loss is than what is experienced in a psych facility… maybe they could at least have a little more humility in that regard.

    However, often any humility found is fleeting for the sake of keeping things running… as another commenter suggested above. I continue to hang on to the fight that there must be some way, though…

    -Sera

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  • Eh, Oldhead, I don’t really want to get into a conversation unpacking how much the media is or isn’t over blowing all this chaos. This piece doesn’t really attempt to take a stance on that, so much as a stance on how the response that is may have something to teach people about psychiatric oppression. I can at least agree that there is much to question in how the media and politicians have chosen to respond to all this in pretty much every direction, but what the truth is remains pretty obscured, I think. I can say, however, that I’m not aware of any other illness in recent history that has been killing people in institutions at the rate this one has. About a 50% transmission rate and at least 13 people dead in one of our MA psych facilities alone in the last month. I feel like some of the bigger picture stuff you’re referencing will be easier to assess a bit down the road, but I worry – as with so many things – it will remain hard to get at the full picture for a long time.

    -Sera

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  • ThereAreFourLights,

    I spent some time in a hotel recently which also led to my seeing commercials for the first time in quite a long time… And in the matter of about a day, I became a serious risk of smashing the TV for all those ads saying “We are in this together” in so many different ways, when that’s clearly not true for huge swaths of our communities. No less infuriating is all the money that must be going into all those ridiculous advertisements that could be going to housing, food, and so much else that could actually help in real ways. Oy. Anyway, thanks for mentioning this!

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Sam. You mentioned ‘less nearness’ in units. I’m not sure that’s consistently true. COVID is spreading through psychiatric facilities just like nursing homes and jails, and some hospitals are leaving up to 5 people per bedroom. Others have mostly continued holding groups with people too close together. And so on. There are reports of doctors still on the unit and refusing to wear masks. And then we mix that with the reality that many people in the psych system are more vulnerable healthwise, often *because* of the debilitating nature the “treatment” can have… Oy.

    Anyway, yes, some have regarded this all as a vacation and won’t be impacted in the same way… but there are many, many others who have felt pretty impacted, so I hope there’s something to be done with that!

    -Sera

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  • Hi Paige,

    Thanks for all you wrote. And yes, I was *just* talking with someone about the loss of Matt in particular just a week ago. But you’re right. So many losses. Deron Drumm, too, and I’m sure so many others we’re not thinking of in this moment. And you are absolutely right about people who are incarcerated in prisons, too… Honestly, everyone who was invisible is even moreso now. 🙁

    -Sera

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  • Hi Boans,

    Ugh to that quote! I wish people were better at balance… At trying to understand how their own experiences make build understanding of others experiences, without ever thinking they can truly know or have somehow experienced the same thing. I sincerely do hope people can begin to make the connection between quarantine and what it might be like to be held against your will in a psych facility, but *never* in a “Now I know what this is like” sort of way… Moreso “If this felt this bad, imagine how much greater of a loss that would be…” It’s a stretch to expect this to happen in any reasonable way, I know, but somehow we need to find a way for people to better understand the impact of loss of power on humanity. Doesn’t sound like the person in that quote is finding that balance at all.

    In any case, thanks for your comment and for reading. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Ken. I sure wish I could believe that, but while more alternatives are developing I’m not sure how many of them are developing *with* integrity or in great enough/accessible enough numbers… and at the same time, as watch nonsense like the White House Mental Health Summit and the number of places Dj Jaffe is showing up, I think we’re simultaneously losing ground. I sure hope some real change happens, but I’ve seen *so* much injustice in both the psychiatric and legal systems in the last year alone… It is indeed exhausting. But I appreciate your hopefulness and some of the work you’ve done to impact both the public opinion and alternatives pieces!

    -Sera

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  • Ah, yes, it’s funny how the very best cures to psychiatric diagnosis seem to include a mix of insurance running out and no longer being willing to pay and liability risk. I’m reminded of Jim Gottstein’s ‘transformation triangle’ through which he argues that it is creation of alternatives + shifting public opinion + legal pressure (I forget what language he uses precisely) that will lead us to real change overall. I so wish more of us could have gone on to be lawyers! I feel like serious money ought to be invested in sending folks who’ve been in the depths of the system and experienced psychiatric oppression directly through law school.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Rosalee! Yeah, you know, I should be completely used to all the hypocrisy and injustice at this point… Like totally used to and numb to all of it at this point. And yet somehow the stuff like what happened with the Suicide Prevention Coalition absolutely pushes me over the edge at times. It’s far from the worst that happens in this system given the numbers of people incarcerated in psychiatric hospitals and how they’re being treated there on the regular… But it’s such a symbol to me of just how absurd it all is. Thanks for reading and commenting!

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Someone Else! Ultimately, of course, I don’t know what an ‘I’m sorry’ campaign would actually do, especially in the absence of change… But I do think it is relevant to change, personally. On a number of levels. I’d be so curious to see it play out… I hadn’t really made the connections to religious texts that you have here, though, so thanks for that.

    -Sera

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  • Fair enough, Steve. And yet, many people find it quite relevant, myself included… And perhaps most importantly, I believe it’s shifts toward saying “I’m sorry” and so no that may help some folks realize what they’re a part of. The vast majority of people working in these systems are not people wanting to do harm or people who consciously seek out to just control and silence… They’re simply playing a role that they were taught to play, and perhaps if we could get back to some of these basic human ways of saying ‘i see you, and i see my impact on you, and i’m sorry for that,’ the rest would follow? Honestly, while I get that ‘sorry’ matters far less than actually stopping the harm, I’m pretty perplexed that people don’t think those two things are pretty intertwined.

    -Sera

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  • About the Love Story reference:

    Heyall,

    I was reminded by a reader that in Love Story itself there is a deeper meaning to ‘Love Means Never Having to Say Sorry’ that is more about having no regrets than what I write about here. I acknowledge that the story itself had a deeper way of looking at this phrase and that there is truth to that meaning that resonates with many. However, this is a phrase that has lived louder and longer than the meaning from the story, and is nonetheless problematic at least for its superficial appearance and how it’s been used since that time… And perhaps most importantly, what it meant in ‘Love Story,’ just isn’t what this article is about, so hopefully you can look past that even if you are someone for whom the actual book or film was beloved.

    Thanks!

    Sera

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  • Thanks, Anonymous17! You raise many important points here… there’s a couple that jump out most to me including how some people who are in traumatic, abusive, etc. situations are taught that they need to feel guilty/apologize for everything themselves… It’s a complete mind fuck! And some learn it from such a young age or such an abusive situation that they can’t see what’s happening… Others can see it but feel no choice but to go along with it (no matter how much it tears them apart)… and still others see it for what it is, refuse, and pay a price…and so on.

    The second is how much people in activist roles or who are inspired by ‘the fight’ can lose sight of how hard and dangerous the fight can be for people in certain situations, and how one of the most insidious aspects of the system is how it rewards people for silence and punishes them for speaking up… And that can truly be dangerous for someone in so many different ways (psych drug changes, force orders, physical abuse, isolation, threats of loss of basic needs being met, and so on!)… And that just can’t be seen as the fault of the person who is just trying to survive in awful, unfair, and unjust conditions.

    It sounds like you’ve been treated unfairly from many directions. Thank you for still showing up here, and taking time to share. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Hey Manyshev, Thanks for your comment! I’m not sure I totally follow, though… Do you mean neuroleptics help people contend with/stay calm when facing people in power? I suppose neuroleptics have different impacts on different people, but of course, I worry that for a lot of people (not all, but a lot!) the ‘help’ to not lose control actually comes in numbness and sedation rather than improved ability to navigate the world.

    On the other hand, I definitely see (and maybe you mean?) the system use neuroleptics to aid in *their* not losing control/maintaining power. I definitely, for example, have seen a change made to someone’s neuroleptic drugs to quiet them down when they want to make a complaint against a hospital. (It was very effective.)

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Sam Plover! Yes, there’s so much else that could have been said here… So many off shoots, including how power also equals credibility (and how power calls upon others in power to protect one another), and how even (especially) a genuine ‘sorry’ knows that forgiveness isn’t required, and so on. Thanks for raising some of that here!

    -Sera

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  • I am frankly horrified that Mad in America would choose to circulate *anything* positive about this film.

    The article above says: “But what the movie does quite brilliantly is make it clear that contrary to popular belief, anger and violence are not symptoms of any mental illness. Rather, they are normal reactions to a lifetime spent being treated like an outcast, ignored, taken advantage of, disbelieved, bullied and abused.”

    Are you kidding me?!?! Wouldn’t it be lovely were this were true. It’s not.

    Sure, people who are already familiar with trauma narratives will be able to pull this idea out of the muck. And yes, the film is well acted, and all that, bit let’s be serious here.

    You have a film where a guy talks about needing his psych drugs increased, only to be his psych services are being cut… Then he laments he won’t be able to get more psych drugs with his services cut. Then he exclaims how he’s off his ” meds” right before *murdering* someone for the first time on screen (goodness only knows why he was previously locked up), and then to top it all off, he explicitly refers to himself as “mentally ill” immediately before shooting another person to death.

    And you think the film doesn’t make connections between “mental illness” (particularly “untreated” by definition of the current mental health system) and violence?

    Forget the (somewhat) “woke” folks who will be able to recognize the trauma narrative… what do you think the average person will take away from it? And how can a site like Mad in America willingly participate in that?

    So disappointed.

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  • Thanks, Julie. Yeah, even people who focus on ‘alternatives’ often still have layers of internalized oppression (etc) to peel away… I’ve seen the ‘no graphic detail’ thing perpetuated in all sorts of communities, and few people ever seem to stop and ask ‘why?’ … And yeah, there’s still room to consider consent and environment when choosing what one will share and where, but that’s far from the overarching silencing we’ve got now in so many places.

    Sera

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  • Thanks, PacificDawn. I appreciate your taking the time to read and comment, even if I might not agree with everything you’ve said above. And, I do think some of what you offered above is tricky. For example, I’m not sure precisely what you mean by the Autism hoax… Many people have been forcibly diagnosed as autistic which is a huge problem.. But there are many neurodivergent people who also claim that label for themselves in quite well informed ways. They take that label with power, rather than in concession, and I do not feel it is my place to try and convince them they’re wrong. But again, I’m not sure what you were specifically reference.

    And, of course, you and I have talked about drugs before, if I’m recalling correctly. I can’t stand with the idea of ‘no drugs’ across the board. As I’ve said before, drugs have been around in one form or another since the beginning of time. They’ve never been the root of the issue. How they’ve been used by *others* to control certain groups, coerce and force different groups… That’s one of the biggest issues as I see it. I personally don’t use psych drugs, and wouldn’t argue that they’ve caused great harm to many people. That seems factual rather than debatable! But I have other drugs that I do enjoy, however, and I know many others in my life use or have used various drugs to good effect for them. What I want is to be free to choose. While I in no way see your request for ‘no drugs’ as equivalent to those who’ve previously tried to push drugs on me, I’m still not interested in replacing one dictate with another.

    Choice and power are where I believe the answers are to be found… Not abstinence.

    I also feel confused by your comment about ‘no recovery programs.’ I don’t consider where I work to be a “recovery program”… We don’t even like to use that word ‘recovery’… But I do think people sometimes really do need connection points and support, and that’s also okay.

    Anyway, I guess all this leaves me curious… What *do* you think should be available to help people who want support of some kind? And what would it look like to push back and seize reparations?

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Hi Someone Else,

    Thanks for sharing so much and going piece by piece in your response… I don’t know that – until quite recently – I’d thought of the mental health system as being complicit in covering up childhood sexual abuse, but I don’t disagree at this point. I don’t know that it’s intentional on most people’s parts, but any system that helps center blame in the individual rather than on the people and/or conditions that hurt them does indeed become complicit in allowing such things to continue. Thank you for helping me get clearer on that point!

    -Sera

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  • LavenderSage,

    Wow, that sounds intense… I don’t know if I could manage that level of … well… just the noise of all the pain feels like it’d be overwhelming to me. But, I feel like there are lots of people for whom that’d be powerful, and agree with you we need more space for it all. For me, the words are the key, but I know for many it is something different. Maybe I’d be better off if I could get to that level of rawness, but for now I at least don’t want anyone taking my words from me!

    Thanks for sharing this experience!

    Sera

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  • Jess,

    I was at the National Council conference in Orlando when he offered his Ebola spiel. I missed out on his hazmat suit laden performance piece on the topic at AAS. :p Thanks for using those articles. It’s always good to hear when that’s happening somewhere.

    And fair point re: AAS vs. other movement spaces… I agree that there are *tons* of issues within this world… I guess it’s just harder for me to personally take when we’re talking about a group that is always in the power position and perpetuating so many problematic things, including all that ‘safe messaging’ crap. :p

    Anyway, thanks once again for this piece! 🙂

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  • Wait, you mean we shouldn’t all listen to David Covington when he compares Ebola contagion to suicide contagion? (And yes, I know his narrative around this is slightly more complex than I’m making it out to be, but really…)

    I appreciate your overall point here, and will add this article to our resource list of articles worth reading on the topic… I have an article in the queue that has a similar message (although I don’t zero in on suicide specifically) called ‘No Graphic Detail.’ It does make me wonder how you have been tolerating the AAS scene, though!

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  • It will only continue to downgrade any quality and integrity of the peer role. We already know that CPS trainings are *HUGELY* problematic from states like New York. People *NEED* to gather in person and really grapple with the point of this work together. On-line simply doesn’t work.

    Failed local CPS systems is not an excuse to further the failure with a terrible on-line system.

    Also, you seem to misunderstand this national certification business. It’s only a test (that you have to pay a fair mount of money for). And if you don’t have any in-person training, you may not even qualify for it.

    This is a money making scheme that will continue to do harm to any value peer roles actually have.

    -Sera

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  • Don,

    I was a little surprised by how much you said you liked the article on Facebook, and seem critical of it here, but fair enough! 🙂 I absolutely agree that the quote you pulled out is at the heart of what we are saying. Haven’t read what you linked to from Akiko (yet), but she does indeed offer many good contributions to these dialogues, and many contributions are needed as different ones will resonate with different people 🙂 !

    Thanks,

    -Sera

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  • Oldhead,

    I think we are on the same page even about getting rid of the phrase altogether, as per this part of the article above!:

    “1. Check your own ‘pill shaming’ narrative contributions: Stop writing “pill shaming” pushback posts. Stop ‘liking’ them. Stop sharing them on social media. Stop creating, buying, or wearing anti-pill shaming swag. Stop using the phrase entirely. Even if there’s some piece of the message you like, you’re contributing to a larger problem, so find a different way to address that piece and leave the rest behind. At best, the underpinnings of the ‘pill shaming’ accusation are misguided. At worst, they represent a concerted effort on the part of the current power structure to use us against ourselves, and they don’t need any more help. Seriously.”

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  • Anonymous2016,

    Well, I’m pretty sure the point of the article is that the two sides are *NOT* equal, and that the ‘shame’ should be reserved for those who have the power and are doing the harm, etc. so there’s that…

    And I guess you can say that ‘all drugs are bad for everyone’, but I personally don’t think it’s a useful or accurate statement… but yes, you get to make it. And no, I don’t think when you make it that makes you equal to those doing systemic harm or forcing people on drugs… But, I guess I’d ask that you consider what else is caught up in making such a blanket statement… Do you believe that we are the true experts on ourselves? Do you believe that we should get to choose whatever we feel helps us get by and make the most of our lives, provided its done freely and in fully informed ways? There’s several other questions I could add in here about disability, freedom to make choices, and all that, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll just say: If yes to those things – any of them – again, I just don’t know how you can then say ‘all drugs are bad for everyone all the time’… I think that is a harmful statement…

    But in the end, the real point of this article was that the ‘pill shaming’ concept is a harmful one that is used by those in power to try and get us to undercut ourselves and each other.

    -Sera

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  • Auntie Psychiatry,

    I guess we were talking about the people who go after *individuals* who have chosen to take psych drugs and not try to come off of them either because the coming off is too hard (at least for now), or because they feel the drugs help them. I *do* think there is an intent of sorts to push shame on people in those situations for making the choices that they’ve made.

    That said, while we wanted to recognize that that does happen and that it is harmful, I don’t think it’s any way equivalent to what is pushed on us by the system because it lacks power. And, frankly, I’d never actually use the term ‘pill shaming’ at all, because I do – as Oldhead said somewhere in this thread – see it as a term of the ‘enemy’ overall. That is a point we likely could have been clearer about, while still recognizing that it isn’t helpful and can be harmful to push ideas on people at the individual level or insisted that they are making the wrong choice for themselves.

    -Sera

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  • Hi Annie,

    Thanks so much for sharing some of your story here. It can be *so* hard to get off these drugs, even after all the risks and truth are known. It’s not a pain I’ve personally known. (Effexor was the hardest for me to get off of, but not by any stretch as hard as what I’ve heard so many people go through.) However, even having not been through withdrawal as intense as that myself, I’ve seen so many others try to make their way through it – some successfully, and some not.. And I am so horrified by how many doctors just want to deny that it is a thing at all. (I recently had a conversation with a psych doctor who works at a hospital that was offended that I even used the word ‘withdrawal’ in connection to psych drugs, because in her mind, they simply aren’t addictive.) Of course, ‘denial’ is yet another word that the system uses on us freely, but that we’re prohibited from using back against them (at least in any widely accepted sort of way). Thanks again for sharing some of your experience.

    -Sera

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  • Thank you, LavendarSage. I suppose it is indeed something like that, although without all the power to hurt me in the way the system has. 🙂 But it’s okay. We all misunderstand or read into each other’s words at times, and for any number of reasons. 🙂 Provided we don’t have the power to force our perspectives on each other in any substantive way (as the system does), that’s okay. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Oldhead,

    I’ve personally done away with referring to psychiatric drugs as ‘medication’ in standard practice, but the phrase that is used against is us is nonetheless “anti-medication” which is why we used it here. I agree it’s a distortion of reality and a marketing tactic, as well as one that attempts to enforce the system’s absurd differentiation between what they want to call us bad for taking (marijuana, heroin, etc.) and what they want to force on us (neuroleptics, and so on). It is – as you noted – in quotes here to suggest that it is not a term we buy into overall, but maybe you’re right that we need to be even more careful with it. I’m not sure, and will have to think about that.

    Also, I *think* we were pretty clear here that actual oppression requires power, and those stating the harms of these drugs don’t have it… So, I’d not personally use the word ‘oppressive’ in any serious manner against people who take that stance. However, as also stated above, I don’t think it is especially useful for people to claim they know all that is ‘right’ for other people. Doctors certainly don’t understand these drugs and their full scope or impact, and neither do we… I’d rather be honest about that. Which isn’t to say we can’t know for our own bodies (at least, certainly better than anyone else), or can’t and shouldn’t speak of the very real harms and lies we *are* aware of… But there is a line that gets crossed that involves individuals telling other individuals what is best for them that I simply don’t think is helpful in any regard. More over, at least some of the ‘I know what is best for you stuff’ is intertwined with privilege, ableism, and so on.

    However, none of that was the main point of this piece which is, simply(ish) put: There is no such thing as ‘pill shaming’ in the way it is described in the articles that circulate accusing people of it, because all the power lies on the other side (those who push people to *take* the drugs sometimes under threat of force or loss of liberty), and we have every right to be out there talking, yelling, and screaming about how we’ve been harmed and how the pill pushing – backed by capitalism and corporate interests and the desire to control – is full of lies.

    That we think – in offering up that message – that there needs to be nuance and effort to avoid erasure or denigration of those who (being the experts on themselves) knowingly and in well-informed ways decide that psych drugs should be a part of their lives seems to be what has tripped things up here for some, but I guess I’m okay with that.

    -Sera

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  • Hi Olga,

    Good to see you pop up here. 🙂 Thanks for reading, and taking the time to comment! The actions that harm us in the psychiatric system are the ones that ultimately harm us most in the moment, but the system’s ability to control the words that are used to define and explain us and all that happens around and to us are what – I believe – really stick with us over time. It’s so painful.

    -Sera

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  • Diana,

    I think that’s for sure true that people with a lot of privilege are sometimes the ones that are making this argument… I think others, though, have been at the depths of having no privilege at all and it’s just to painful to think that they got where they are because they were lied to… I’ve literally had people say (in trainings where I’m offering some of this info), “Are you saying that maybe my life didn’t need to be like this?” That’s really painful. It’s a sort of grieving. Sometimes people make their way out the other side, and sometimes it is just too much pain… or too much perceived risk (especially if their whole life – housing, income, etc. – revolves around that identity)… It’s comlicated, but I appreciate you bringing up the privilege end of that, because that’s definitely a part of the story!

    -Sera

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  • Fortunately, it’s not the majority, kindredspirit!! Just a handful here, it would seem, and given so many others have found it to be clear, it’s hard not to imagine that at least some people are just skimming and making assumptions. Fierce debate is fine. It would just be good to be debating over what was actually said. In any case, I’m not going to keep arguing on this point. People are welcome to respond how they are… It’s just frustrating.

    -Sera

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  • Hi all,

    I’m writing this comment separate from response to everyone’s individual comments just to try and make a point here that I find myself repeating through a number of the comment threads:

    No one is obligated to like or support this article. However, I do feel frustrated by the apparent misunderstanding of it through a handful of the comments being made, and I want to clarify.

    This article was written with a lot of intentional nuance and balance, but the fundamental underlying point here is that we find the ‘pill shaming’ concept to be highly problematic, which I hope is clear from the bolded quotes even if you don’t read anything else. In fact, we have buttons made up with some of those quotes that we take to conferences in an effort to push back on people who would claim ‘pill shaming’ when another person simply speaks to the harms they’ve suffered at the hands of the psychiatric system, or when they speak truth about what science *actually* tells us about psych drugs and their efficacy and potential harms.

    Where people seem to be getting lost – as best I can tell – is in our recognition that there *are* sometimes people who claim that no one should ever be on any kind of drug or that they know that anyone who says drugs help them is somehow misguided or “deluded”. People who push in this way are *NOT* equal to the system that pushes drugs because (as we say several times in the article) those people have no systemic power.

    However, my personal wish is that this movement will eventually get to the point where the focus *is* on power. Not on ‘recovery’… Not on what people should or shouldn’t be doing… but simply on their right to have real information, make real choices, be treated equally where their rights are concerned, and be the holder of power where their own lives are concerned. And along with that hope is one where once people’s power is restored, that we are clear to not tell them what they should do with that power, even if that means they make different choices than we would like. Because if we can’t let go of that agenda – even if we are for more right and more justified than others in what we believe – we just contribute to chipping away at that power once again… or at least don’t contribute to people really owning power for themselves.

    I’m sorry if some of my responses above have been snippy, but it is hard to put something out there and then have it not be heard for what it actually says… again, hearing does not need to mean agreeing… but it’s the lack of hearing that feels most bad. Thank you to all of you who have taken the time to truly take it in – whether you agree or not! 🙂

    -Sera

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  • PacificDawn,

    You are welcome to oppose the article. That’s fine. People can speak their truth about anything, including this article, provided they are speaking to what it says. (And I guess even if they’re not, although that’s substantially more upsetting because it feels like we’re being used to make a point that’s not representative of what we worked hard to say and being misrepresented in the process.) I personally would and do feel quite denigrated by the idea that I don’t know myself well enough to know that the drugs I *do* use to numb out some time (not psych drugs, but alcohol for one), and that I’m somehow a ‘victim’ as a result of seeing the value in that for myself… It also feels hard to hear that I’m somehow also not able to do the work that I apparently need to do to process my feelings, etc, if I’m using such substances and am somehow – if I’m reading you right – lesser than for that.

    Drugs have been used since the beginning of time to bring about experiences or numb out from them. I do not think that is the issue. It’s the power that comes behind them, in a system that feels it should get to say ‘We force (or punish) you not to take this one that we’ve labeled as bad, and we force you to take this one that we’ve labeled as good and punish you if you try to resist’ while using that same power to lie about why… that’s the problem. The people who then come along and tell me that they also thing I’m bad or wrong for choosing what I do take even in the most well informed way don’t have the same power or cause the same harm in any way, but they surely don’t help.

    -Sera

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  • Nijinsky,

    I didn’t accuse you of not reading. I said it was hard to tell where you were coming from, and hard to tell with most comments… But some of them – those that accuse *us* of shaming people for speaking truth – certainly indicate they didn’t read it at all. Which is – I would hope you understand – quite frustrating.

    The article doesn’t ask anyone to silence their own truth or the overall truth about psychiatric drugs or the system. Quite the opposite.

    -Sera

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  • Njinsky,

    Yeah, I think that’s very true: That one can’t argue with someone on psych drugs. I’ve been incredibly frustrated many times by seeing people who are shaking, falling down, etc. and are just at least appearing to be regurgitating what they’ve been fed for so long that this is what ‘recovery’ looks like for them and they’re doing so well (because they’re not getting in trouble)… I regularly share in trainings that there is usually a small group of people that seem to do better on psych drugs longer term in most studies on psych drug efficacy, but that a) We don’t know why and if it is really all about the psych drugs or some other factor given the limited options available for alternatives and b) that small group is tiny compared to the number of people that are *told* in the US that they need to be on psych drugs… and so, if 20% do actually seem to do better, but 100% are being told that they are that 20% (if its even true about the 20%) … what do we do about that?

    Honestly, I believe wholeheartedly what we said in there about the most important thing being about people having their power back, and us not worrying so much what they then do with it. Even if we are far more “right” about what would be useful to them, taking people’s power away isn’t useful and often just results in a power struggle. I feel like when people find themselves arguing with someone about what would be right for that person for themselves we’ve lost our way. We have a job to put information out there based on our own experiences and based on science and truth and all that. We have a job to illuminate paths. But the moment we start pushing someone down a path, we are failing to do that most important thing… focus on them holding their own power. We can’t claim people know themselves best and then tack on ‘unless you’re on drugs… then we know better’ without invalidating so much of what we say (those of us who say/believe that anyway). I don’t think it’s comparable in any way to what the system does when we do choose to argue and push an individual person because we don’t have any systemic power… but I still think it means we’ve lost their way.

    I’ve seen *so* many people get mad at first when just presented with information… I’ve personally been attacked during trainings for unraveling the ‘chemical imbalance’ theory for people because – even though I’m speaking truth – it shakes their belief system about themselves too much. And while I do *NOT* owe it to them to stop sharing that… not ever… I *do* owe them the right to go through their own process with it…

    So yes, ultimately, “It’s their life”, as you said, and we’ve got to focus on illuminating life’s potential and psychiatry’s lies without getting too stuck on the idea that everyone therefore needs to come to the exact same conclusion for what that means they need or want to do.

    -Sera

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  • Rachel,

    I don’t disagree with most of what people are saying in the comments section about ‘pill shaming’ (which includes pretty much anything that’s been said right up until it gets to the point where people start claiming that *every and anyone* who chooses to take them is wrong, deluded, and should be regarded as lesser than or what have you), and that was kind of why we wrote the article and have made buttons that we bring to conferences with the two of the three bolded quotes in the article (which were written by me, but inspired by conversations with Caroline). It’s just frustrating to see the finger pointed at us in these comments when there are so few articles pushing back on the ‘pill shaming’ concept and we worked pretty hard to write an article that pushed back on the silliness and harmfulness of ‘pill shaming’ in alignment with most of those comments and people aren’t taking the time to see that.

    -Sera

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  • Nijinsky,

    I’ll be honest that I’m having a hell of a time figuring out whether a lot of these comments (not just yours) are misunderstanding our article and criticizing/attempting to educate us, or if they’re just riffing on their own take on things. In any case, as someone who has spent literal years, writing, training, and making films about the lack of real evidence of ‘chemical imbalance’ any any number of other elements to do with the psychiatric system, you’ll get no argument from me for most of what you say. And yet, I’m not going to argue with people who say that they want to be on psych drugs and that they’re somehow helpful to them. Pretending I know someone else’s truth – everyone else’s truth – is not something I’m willing to do. It’s a replication of the system that we fight against… I’d rather live in the ‘I don’t know’, so long as we also get to be really clear that the psychiatric system also clearly don’t know either and shouldn’t get to pretend that they do.

    -Sera

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  • PacificDawn,

    I quite enjoy my altering drugs when I have them… They just aren’t psych drugs which I refuse to touch for a number of reasons. It’s hard to tell from your comment – as it is unfortunately hard to tell from many of the comments here – if you read through the entire article and saw that we very clearly took a position *against* ‘pill shaming’ being a legitimate thing. HOWEVER, at the same time, I’m not comfortable with speaking against people who take drugs (whatever drugs they choose) to numb feelings at times, as long as they do so knowingly (knowing that that’s the goal, knowing the risks of doing that, etc.). The problem isn’t that people sometimes want to numb out (frankly, I’d like to numb out after reading some of these comments that so blatantly speak to people not having read what we put quite a lot of effort into writing and fully intend to do so a bit later), it’s that those in power want to force, coerce, and trick them into doing so and in ways that come with dire consequences for those that would be numbed.

    -Sera

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  • Kindred Spirit,

    Did you *actually* read the article? Your response suggests not. It’s primarily a push back *against* people who claim ‘pill shaming’ is a legitimate phenomenon. While we acknolwedge that it is largely unhelpful for people to say ‘all psych drugs are bad for all people’ and try to push people into getting off of them, I wonder how you could read lines like:

    “At best, the underpinnings of the ‘pill shaming’ accusation are misguided. At worst, they represent a concerted effort on the part of the current power structure to use us against ourselves, and they don’t need any more help. Seriously.”

    Or

    ““We’re not pill shaming you. We’re just sick of watching people fucking die.”

    Or

    “Speaking truth about bad science and psychiatric oppression does not equal ‘pill shaming.’”

    And see this article as one that is supporting the ‘pill shaming’ concept overall.

    Balance is important. So is actually reading what you seek to critique. :p

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Catalyzt.

    I do hope that you hear (and I can’t quite be sure from what you’ve written) that we ultimately really don’t want to create an environment where ‘pill shaming’ is lingo that is put upon people, or that the people who’ve been harmed, forced, etc., carry the burden of needing to worry too much about making people who do take psych drugs uncomfortable. Ultimately, we want an environment where all the truths are able to be spoken without any back pedaling… One where we stop short of blanket statements about all drugs being bad and all people who take them being bad, wrong, misguided, ignorant, etc (we need not diagnose each other any more!)… but where we speak truth and get to express our anger at all the bad science and pushing of drugs that come at us without anyone trying to undercut us by calling us ‘pill shamers’ because in the end pretty much all the force and power in this society is on the side of those who push the drugs on us. So, yeah, agendas and blanket statements and intentionally trying to tell other people they’re bad for not choosing the way you have chosen isn’t generally helpful (and, as you say, doesn’t typically move people toward where you’re actually trying to move them even if it *would* be useful to them to move in that way), but I hope you get to continue to speak your truth with all the passion and anger you hold and without needing to back pedal. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Johnnyb,

    I can appreciate what you’re saying, but I think it’s a bit more complex than that. I rarely here from people who feel they also haven’t been harmed in some ways, for example. That is actually a really interesting topic, I think, because sometimes (most of the time) when someone says ‘the hospital saved my life’ the system just says, “look what we did! hospitals are great!” But few really stop and say, “What exactly was it about your hospital experience that you feel helped, and were there other things that also hurt during that same experience that you wish hadn’t happened?” It’s weirdly all or nothing on a number of levels, and then when we offer any critique of that *we* are the ones painted in that way in an attempt to dismiss us.

    In any case, I think a lot of people *do* talk about shaming people who use drugs, cigarettes, etc… talk about AA/NA as very shaming at times, etc. etc… But yes, I think overall I get your point and your right that there’s a boat load of hypocrisy wrapped up in all this and how socially acceptable drugs are regarded and responded to vs those that are not socially acceptable (and socially acceptable has little to do with what is *actually* most harmful). And yes, if each person didn’t have to fight for the power (within or outside of themselves) to simply be who they are and be confident in that, so much would be better… but so much of that is wrapped up in the environmental conditions we all live within that it seems quite the challenge to get there!

    -Sera

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  • Dmshanin,

    I am afraid I can’t agree with a lot of what you are saying here. I know people in my own life who are quite well informed, and hold quite a bit of power, who still choose to take some of the antidopmanergic drugs you are taking at least on an intermittent basis. I also know many many people who experience them and the reasons they ever took them in a way that aligns with what I understand to be your experience.

    Some of the point of this article is that it’s generally *not* helpful to put on other people blanket attitudes that assume everything is exactly the same for us all… including things like that psych drugs are uniformly bad and useless for everyone, or that everyone who agrees to them suffers from Stockholm syndrome. However, the larger point of the article is that even though being told something like “you take these drugs because you suffer from Stockholm syndrome” can be hurtful and lead someone to feel pressured, since *all* the real power is in the hands of those who *push* these (yes often harmful and ineffective) drugs, that it’s silly to suggest that making someone feel bad in that way is in anyway equal to actually hold all the power to force them to do anything or influence enough of society to even make the more subtle pressure consistent.

    Again, written from a treadmill so a bit more clumsy but hopefully still clarifying…

    Sera

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  • Nchurch,

    Thank you so much for your comment and for putting to words so well what it can feel like to feel so powerless that you need to hide your humanity and light in order to stay some approximation of free that isn’t really very free at all. That can be so painful, and so soul crushing. I’m sorry that that is your experience, but thank you for sharing a piece of it.

    Sera

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  • Eh, as we said, we have “intermittent respect” for the output of those outlets… not constant. But each of those has certainly sometimes put out useful things and I’d look there before I’d look many other places. But regardless, a critique of which media sources we each like is relatively irrelevant to this topic. Our point was simply that we are starting to see these “pill shaming”-type stories popping up from an array of sources.

    Sera

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  • Auntie Psychiatry,

    Do you mean the really small group of people who do seem to actually go after the people taking the pills in pretty relentless ways or do you mean something else?

    The main point of the article was that “pill shaming” isn’t really a thing, for the most part… that it’s often about something else in the little ways it does happen, and that mostly the term is a misunderstanding of or misuse of power because the very few people who actually criticize people for taking psych drugs still don’t actually hold any power over them, and the argument that “pill shaming” is this real and frightening thing that is somehow equal to the force and coercion out there that makes people think they have to *take* drugs is just off base.

    Sorry, I’m writing clumsily from the treadmill so that’s also a clumsy synopsis, but I guess I’m just trying to understand why you are asking Caroline and I for real examples when our emphasis is on pill shaming being an over blown often manufactured sort of thing?

    That said, I think if you look around Mad in America in some of the comments sections you will occasionally see the people that absolutely do think we should be telling every single person to get off their drugs and that any person who wants to take them … not just the people who – from a big picture perspective – think they do more harm than good or that we as a society are unable to ethically handle prescribing them without resorting to force and coercion – but those who think that anyone who says they truly benefit from them is just misguided or brainwashed and tells them so. It’s not common, but it happens every now and again.

    Sera

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  • Thank you for this, Mitzy. Deron has always been one of my favorite people. We drifted a bit, because – I think – he found his inner peace and actively pursued that path, and I’ve stayed more angry. But I’ve still always so appreciated his existence, and his work, and knowing he was just a (relatively) short drive away pushing for similar things, even if in different ways!

    I’m going to do my best to remember lots of moments with him… at protests and rallies, driving along the California coast and sharing the terror of being so close to the cliffs, and staying up late (for Deron!) talking about silliness and seriousness in equal measures.

    Thanks again,

    Sera

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  • Hey FreeDom,

    I could have sworn I replied previously, yet my reply seems not to be here, so trying again…

    I particularly appreciate your last paragraph about just how hard it is to get people to believe any of the truths, once they’ve bought into the myths… Because giving up the myth means so much more than just believing the one truth that with which they might be presented in that moment.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Well, yeah, I mean, overall I agree with you.

    But, for example, the Informed Consent laws I’m aware of require:

    * Doc to inform someone of the potential risks and benefits of the proposed treatment
    * Doc to inform someone of the potential risks and benefits of any *alternative* treatments of which they are reasonably aware
    * Doc to inform someone of the potential risks and benefits of doing nothing

    So, even if they stop short of calling “bullshit” or saying “I really have no idea what I’m doing, but this is what the latest pharma rep suggested when they stopped by my office”… the above sure would be a nice change. But most doctors don’t come even close.

    -Sera

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  • Alex,

    Yeah, I get what you’re saying and how my comment could be read. In my mind, I was thinking of a particular group of people including Kevin Hines who are basically just going around and telling their stories to make everyone feel good, but kind of supporting the systems way of being at the same time.

    And yeah, I think you could rightly accuse me of being invalidating of that specific group of people, I suppose. But I frankly had a *huge* reaction to hearing Kevin for the first time in person… His story no longer sounded like his story. It sounded dramatized, like a one-person show… and a one-person show that supported many of the things that so many of us are trying to rail against. And I don’t know if I’ve *EVER* received so many e-mails as I received in promotion of his film (which, in fairness, I have not yet seen).

    So, I suppose you could say I’m being unfair to him, and maybe I am. I’ll just have to accept that as one of my many flaws. But it just feels so very far away from genuine sharing to me, and he has such a big platform.

    -Sera

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  • Hi CatNight,

    Thanks for sharing what you’ve seen. Ah, truth in advertising laws… Unfortunately, of course, there *are* some laws (e.g., Informed Consent laws) that *do* suggest there should be ‘truth in advertising’ (at least a lot more truth than there is now), and yet those laws are wholeheartedly ignored without any negative consequence (for the folks responsible for upholding them, yet who are not). So many broken systems complicit with one another in making things what they are these days.

    -Sera

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  • rasselas.redux,

    As Steve already pointed out, what I’ve written is about the way stories are handled, restricted, and used and often *not* about the stories themselves. In the case of AAS, I’m not referring to the specific stories at all. I haven’t read most of them. And I don’t think of the authors as “victims”, even if I wish they wouldn’t have participated. For example, I know Leah Harris reasonably well, and I certainly don’t think of her as a hapless victim fallen into a system’s trap. And I’m sure some – maybe even all – of the “winning” stories have value. I do personally take issue with some of the folks who’ve kind of made their careers off this struggle, and go around endlessly telling their stories *without* being clear about what needs to change, or having much experiencing in supporting others to move toward that change because I do feel like I see them getting used. And, I did get pretty uncomfortable with Des’rae’s partner commenting that they’re riding her “suicide star” to fame (I don’t remember quite exactly how it was phrased, but it was something like that) in the ‘S’ word, but all of those things are at least somewhat different topics, even if overlapping.

    So, yeah, I am speaking about the contest itself. What it calls upon people to do. How it uses competition between people for these limited amount of funds, yet fails ENTIRELY to actually value their voice beyond the perceived value (often *entertainment* value, in my experience) of their story by not making the conference ITSELF accessible, and so on. As I already said in the article.

    As to the Legislative Breakfast, that’s a whole ‘nother example of this phenomenon where they tend to take people who have very little experience sharing their stories and (as I’ve heard with my own ears) sometimes give *very specific* instructions about not saying anything too negative about any mental health service, and then stick them up there to succeed or flounder (often the latter) and ultimately ask for no real change. It’s PAINFUL to watch. And different than the AAS contest. But under the same umbrella.

    In any case, I stand by everything I’ve said in the article above.

    -Sera

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  • Mecarlym,

    Thanks for reading and for your comment. And yes, you’re right. It is so hard to figure out how to navigate challenging the way this works, when we are ultimately talking about people’s personal stories and sharing. Yet, it is indeed often fairly apparent when people are being used or shoved in one direction or the other as to how they tell it… And when that story becomes something else other than entirely theirs.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Fiachra,

    Well, I don’t know if I’d go quite as far as saying it only exists outside of the “medical” system, because I think there are few absolutes and I don’t want to rule out anyone’s valid stories… But, I will say that both research and my own experience resonate with what you have to say in that the medical system sure does seem to do a LOT of *getting in the way* of people actually moving forward and beyond such struggle.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Thanks, Anonymous2016!

    Can you just clarify… I’m not sure what you mean here:

    But here’s the thing. How do you you learn anything from it if it’s not the truth and the bare and brutal truth. The fact is, we will never learn by sugar coating anything. It’s just not done that way and we’ll never change anything. The truth is uncomfortable and so is making change, one cannot be done without the other.

    You write that as if I had said things should be watered down… I can’t tell if I’m misunderstanding you, or you misunderstood me? But, regardless, I’ll just say nothing I wrote above was meant to suggest we should have to water ourselves down, although I did talk about how people often ask us to do that either “for our own good” or to prevent them from feeling uncomfortable… Neither of which I agree with…

    Anyway, thanks again for reading and taking the time to comment 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Wishing I’d read the WHOLE “participant guide” for the AAS story contest before finishing this story…

    Some highlights include:

    * There’s a $10 fee to submit your story to the competition
    * There’s a “guide” on “safe” writing about suicide
    * There’s a warning that writers’ submissions will be evaluated by judges who are mental health professionals, and that they may be “contacted” if they are believed to be at imminent risk

    Oy.

    https://www.suicidology.org/Portals/14/docs/Writing%20Contest/2017/ParticipantGuidelines%202018%20contest%20year.pdf?ver=2017-08-29-210039-963

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  • Thanks, Bricew. It’s always interesting to me how important language is, and how we hear words differently. I do often challenge people re: “Committed suicide” when I’m in training environments. I do *not* ever tell people they “can’t” or “shouldn’t” use it, but just offer food for thought which is this: “Committed suicide” comes from a time when suicide was being painted overtly as illegal (as in “committed a crime”). Based on that, I personally try not to use that frame… but nor am I fond of “completed suicide” or ever telling people *what* precisely they need to say.

    In my experience, telling others (and especially others who have first-hand experience with something) precisely what words they’re supposed to use comes from a special brand of ignorance and insensitivity.

    Thanks for sharing some of your mother’s story as it intersects with your own. I too struggle with this idea that we should get to put our own priorities of people living as long as possible on other people who may genuinely just not want to be here. I’ve heard there are other countries where there are supports set up for people who want to die… Even heard at one point of a place of that nature where people could go to get support in killing themselves that supposedly ended up not having people actually go through with it, because it provided such a valuable space for people to talk openly about their struggles and death and everything else. I actually don’t know if that place actually fully exists as it was described to be… But it sounds really interesting if it does.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Catnight! The taboo you speak of … the reality that a lot of this comes from a fear of talking about death at all… is definitely one of the things we try to address and bring to the surface with our Alternatives to Suicide work. And it was so weird to watch the ASIST folks twist themselves around the idea that we should be able to talk about suicide, while still sending such a strong message that it should also be really hard and upsetting whenever we talk about death. And yes, it definitely doesn’t have to be like this. There are certainly cultures where talking about death in all its forms is so much more normalized. The issues – being able to talk about death at all and being able to talk about suicide – are absolutely intertwined.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks so much, Richard. And you’re absolutely right.. I shouldn’t have gone alone (from any other than a financial standpoint). Even before some of the worst things happened, it was still painful to be the lone voice in a sea of providers who were all on the same page with the terrible things they were saying. And it made my credibility much lower in a lot of ways.

    And good question… Massachusetts doesn’t seem to do much with ASIST right now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it moved in that direction. We’ll certainly be watching for it 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Alex. Yes, mandated reporter is a serious issue, *especially* since so many people claim that it has anything to do with the topic of suicide which it most assuredly does not. But in general as well… It is a real issue. And what I think many people don’t realize is that once DCF is called in, it’s kind of like getting a diagnosis… I was thinking about my house after DCF was called on me. My kids aren’t getting abused. They’ve got pretty well supported, good lives… but how would DCF interpret my house not being so clean a lot of the time, and all sorts of other things that are just fine when you don’t have DCF looking at you through a particular lens…. Oy.

    -Sera

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  • Fiachra,

    I think the drugs – and their largely unacknowledged contributions to *increasing* emotional ups and downs, disconnections, etc. – definitely have a role. However, I hesitate to say they’re all to blame. The hopelessness that comes with being given some of these diagnoses, the “prognosis” people are given, the hospital environments and how powerless people can feel… All of it also has a role.

    Iatrogenic effects are bit… and with more than just the psych drugs.

    -Sera

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  • Oldhead,

    Yes, I know you’re largely right, and I can’t help but try. And no, not a word… although I e-mailed them *ALL* (Office of Mental Health and Northern Rivers leadership and Board members) again yesterday with a link to this article, and telling them that I am *formally* asking for information on how to file a complaint which I believe they should be legally compelled to provide to me… But nope, nothing.

    -Sera

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  • Hey The_cat,

    Yeah, I’ve been in similar situations, too and had to make some really difficult situations. Ultimately, I so appreciate where you landed. It’s where I’ve landed, too. People *need* to be able to say some of those things to other humans and not get locked up for it. That said, there have been occasions when I’ve also said to people, “Hey, it was super unfair when you said that and then disappeared, and I’m feeling angry about that right now.” That (treating them as not so fragile that they can’t handle hearing how what they did impacted me) also turned out to be good for our relationship, though.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Julie,

    I hear you, and you’re not the person to suggest I make it about someone else. However, it loses a lot of power when I can’t say “that was me”. Being able to say “that was me” is a huge chunk of the power of sharing these sorts of stories at all. It’s where we get to challenge people’s assumptions in how they might conjure up an image of the person about whom that story is true… I know it’s a risk to me. But in spite of all this, it’s a risk I continue to be willing to take … most of the time. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • I don’t disagree with you that people don’t want to deal with the politics and just want help. *HOWEVER*, part of the point here is that often they think they’re getting help and they end up getting hurt. Or, if they get legit help at the individual level, it may still contribute to hurt at the systemic level by sustaining the illusion of need for NAMI. None of that ultimately changes anything I’m saying here…

    Anyway, I think we’re ultimately basically saying the same thing underneath it all…

    -Sera

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  • Lenora,

    You said: “Places like this, or your doctor, or mental heath professional, etc take things like this seriously and follow protocol because if they don’t, they might get hit was a malpractice suit.”

    Yes to a certain extent, however:

    1) That’s really misguided, and not at all supported by research evidence that says that both assessment of need and the most common interventions used are wildly ineffective.
    2) Even the fear of lawsuit is misguided, as successful lawsuits blaming providers for suicide deaths is actually incredibly rare, and especially in situations where there wasn’t egregious neglect (such as there wouldn’t be should want simply *talk* to someone rather than immediately shipping them off for “help”).
    3) I don’t even think that’s *truly* the motivation for a lot of people… Having *just* been subjected to a “wellness” check by a provider this past Friday myself, I strongly believe that some of these things are motivated by power and control, and excused under the cover of liability.

    I don’t disagree with most of the rest of what you said, but I’m not – and never have – blamed people for falling into NAMI’s clutches. I blame the broader systems (including NAMI) that make that so damn hard to avoid. So, ultimately, I agree with oldhead… if NAMI were gone, we wouldn’t have keep worrying about all this… but that’s certainly not to say that people don’t really struggle or need support. Just not the NAMI trap brand of it.

    -Sera

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  • Systemic oppression and privilege do not preclude the success of members of those groups, but it does speak to the default design of society. For example, our holidays and workweek and how many people are afforded time off are structured around a Christian perspective. When kids are forced to stand and say the Pledge in school or people are asked to swear to tell the truth in courts, a Christian perspective on god works its way in. Presidential candidates suspected of not being Christian have had to go out of their way to prove that they are. These are just small examples, and don’t predict the outcome or impact for each individual which will vary significantly… but it seems strange to me to suggest that folks who follow a Christian practice aren’t privileged in this society in ways that make their way of life at least a bit easier.

    It doesn’t seem as if we will come to agreement on this. I believe that the insistence on seeing this as insult rather than a reality of the fabric of our society is a part of what keeps these things in place, and that seems really sad to me. But I don’t really know what else to say about it, and I don’t think it’s worthwhile to get into an extensive argument about it here.

    Sera

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  • I have to be honest, Oldhead, that sometimes I really do wish you’d give it a rest. You seem like you have so much time to spend in these comment sections actively derailing things, and it can be exhausting to even try to keep up.

    Her main point was that she felt I’d insulted white people, and discounted her experience. I did my best to illustrate how that is a misunderstanding of what I said which isn’t an insult toward white people at all.

    *You* are the one bent on dismissing that in the name of naming capitalism. Of course capitalism has a role in all this, including the fact that it is capitalism that drives big pharma to use groups like NAMI as they do. And that’s not the whole picture, and none of this – not even the white privilege part – was central to the actual point of this article… although overal features of systemic oppression certainly are.

    Sera

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  • Marie,

    I can’t be sorry that I included reference to white privilege in the article, because it’s real and it’s important to keep recognizing that fact. But, I am sorry that you received it as an attack, because it surely isn’t one at all. I know it can feel awful, however, to feel as if someone isn’t seeing your own suffering. I believe that you and your family have really struggled, and faced lots of adversity.

    I don’t think that that changes that you’ve received from benefit from your whiteness, but I believe that that’s been much harder to see or feel because of all the other benefits you haven’t received.

    In the end, privilege really isn’t about the person who possesses it being bad, or not having earned much of what they’ve gained. Rather, it’s about the reality that our society has been built and sustained by people who’ve had their own needs and wants and beliefs most in mind… That means that society centers and prioritizes mostly white, male, cisgender, christian, heterosexual, able-bodied folks with some wealth and education. And for each of those (and other relevant) qualities that one does not possess, there are at least a few more barriers in their way to the success… and people from the dominant groups blaming them for having a tougher time because many from those dominant groups can’t even *see* the barriers the marginalized group might be tripping over… because that’s how privilege works.

    Anyway, here’s a couple of samples of what’s out there about white privilege if it’s of interest:

    Joy Degruy presentation on Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: https://youtu.be/BGjSday7f_8

    Joy Degruy clip on white privilege: https://youtu.be/dCv4luaBfk4

    Article on white privilege: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/01/16/white-privilege-explained/?utm_term=.d7571600149c

    Sera

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  • Oldhead,

    Whoever said that to you was also being silly. The reasons why black and other non-white people aren’t more present here runs deep, and is reflected throughout any movement closely associated with pushing back on the psychiatric system. The reasons run from the fact that people of different backgrounds and privileges are shuffled into different systems, to how the psychiatric system and racism already intersect to even further marginalize non-white people, to how shitty white people are at making space and centering voices other than their own or hearing and respecting people other than those they see as representing their own image, and beyond. Whether you call people asking folks here not to use the term “psychiatric slavery” as appropriation or simply a show of lack of respect for the multiple black voices who’ve come here and said it doesn’t sit well with them… it doesn’t really matter. If becoming less white were more important to folks around here, they’ve be willing to give on these points even if they don’t fully agree.

    But regardless… I’m not going to continue arguing about this. We’ve been round this circle before.

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  • Will spent a fair amount of lines on ‘peer respite, Frank. It wasn’t just one casual mention. And I think it was out of place. I actually think Will fairly frequently has include off handed lines in several of his blogs here that are targeted at particular people or groups in ways that don’t feel honest to me. This is but one example.

    That aside, your reference to “adult babysitting” just tells me you don’t know much about what peer respites are actually intended to be or what the ones done with integrity have to offer, and you are missing my point entirely. I also think it’s strangely naive to suggest that creating alternative supports is a waste of time… that echoes of the criticism many of us often receive about pretending nothing is wrong when we argue against the medical model. Mostly, people who hurl that criticism aren’t actually paying attention… because often many of us *are* acknowledging fully that something may be wrong for lots of people… that their pain and struggles are legit and that they deserve support. Just not within the framework the system has to offer.

    I also think you are giving Will way too much credit in what you ascribe to what he was saying there.

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  • Sam,

    I would frame what I’m doing here largely as offering food for thought, and material to counter those who continue to argue in favor of these large entities like NAMI, MHA, etc without unpacking what’s really going on.

    That’s neither as personal as venting, nor as productive as offering a solution… but I do see it as being on the road to the latter… or at least a necessary part of ever getting there.

    Sera

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  • Will,

    I’m not too sure what to make of this article. It seems a little all over the place. I *think* I appreciate the challenge to using the “creative maladjustment” term as its always struck me as appropriative rather than unifying in any way. But, overall, I’m finding myself a little lost in your point.

    I’m also a little perplexed as to why you zeroed in on “peer respite” here. I’m not super fond of that terminology because of the word “peer” and how strangely it’s come to be understood and used within the mental health system. However, your focus on it here suggests to me you have some deeper issue against peer respite (or the people connected to them) than anything else. Ultimately, “hospital alternative” strikes me as no solution, although it’s often a piece of the explanation as to what “peer respite” is. Certainly, I’d see little to no improvement in automatic understanding if I began using that terminology instead of “peer respite” , and may actually see an *increase* in people who *think* they understand what I’m talking about but don’t.

    I’m all for looking deeply at the power of language, and I’m not at all against looking for an alternative to “peer respite” , but I question the reason for your focus here.

    Sera

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  • That’s pretty reductive, Oldhead. I don’t think anyone believes that “psychiatric slavery” is what has chase black and other people of color away from here. In general, non-white people weren’t here to begin with. But weirdly appropriative stuff like the insistence on clinging to that particular phrase, along with appropriation related to MLK and so on certainly doesn’t help.

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  • Thanks, Frank. I totally agree that it is a treatment/medicalization movement which is precisely why NAMI has been such a tool for pharma… that’s precisely the point made by the pharma exec I’ve quoted in multiple nami articles (he talks about how these “advocacy” orgs are better marketing instruments than any “direct to consumer” ads ever could be).

    Sera

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  • Thanks, yeah_I_survived.. .For reading and sharing some of your own experience. I missed that Mother Jones article (ugh), but yeah, I wish the “liberal” ends of our media and society in general weren’t so hell bent on keeping their head in the sand where psychiatric oppression is concerned. I actually wrote an article about that at one point, too… :p

    In case anyone’s curious about that one: https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/04/dear-self-proclaimed-progressives-liberals-humanitarians-youve-really-messed-one/

    -Sera

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  • Seltz6912,

    I’m not sure who this comment is directed at? Did you take my article to be suggesting that only the “sunny side” of voice hearing, etc be shared? That’s certainly not what I was saying… not even close… and I don’t think anyone else was saying that either, tho maybe I missed something?

    If that is what you took away from this article at first glance, I hope you’ll read through it again, as it’s just not what it actually says.

    Sera

    Sera

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  • Steve,

    There’s one that supposedly Pat Deegan put together, but I’m skeptical of *all* the pre-recorded nonsense for all the reasons I already named. I *will* say, though, that the reason I titled the article “almost” is because there are trainings – such as the ones offered through the western mass rlc – that offer live simulations. That means that people – often including many people who have heard or do hear voices – provided a live simulation experience. We have found some value in that because a) it is offered contextually and b) it is debriefed after the simulation at length and most importantly c) it’s embedded in a broader training that talks about all the other pieces of the experience including how different it can look from person to person and moment to moment.

    AND as also noted in the article above, the exercise *still* runs the risk of encouraging people to take away sensationalized ideas and/or generalize… but that is at least also discussed in the debriefing process.

    Ultimately, I don’t think even the recorded simulation exercises constructed by people who hear voices could ever not be hugely problematic.

    Sera

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  • Hey Sam,

    I tend to believe you aren’t replicating the NAMI stuff I speak of. However, my believing that doesn’t mean that I suddenly think it’s a good idea to confuse the language, as that opens the door for further issues with others. I believe you that you and your wife have played the meaningful healing roles for one another that you describe, but I do think It’s much more useful when you use that language as opposed to language that’s been claimed in other ways. (Although, iin general, I hate the ‘peer’ language in the way it’s used today almost entirely across the board._

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  • Sam,

    Thanks for your comment, and I certainly remember you from other posts. You are welcome to come visit, btw!

    I think where I remember us diverging most is around what ‘peer’ and the role of family is specifically… that said, I’m not sure we diverge all that much. I *do* think it’s essential to *not* confuse family members with ‘peer supporter’ not because family can’t be key, but because NAMI, the whole ‘family partner’ peer scene, etc have had truly dangerous and damaging implications in how they’ve confused those things… and centered family voices *over* the voices of those most directly impacted.

    I also do believe that ‘peer’ is more about how two people interact and the nature of their connection, and I remember you resonating with that… but I just think that needs to work in concert with having key experiences (being in the system, etc) in common or else it drifts too quickly into nami land. Although, as I say that, I can also say that our community takes a pretty broad perspective on what ‘peer’ means, too… So, it’s gray.

    But somehow, I think we need to continue to hold the tension that exists between family (especially chosen family like significant others) having really important roles *and* recognizing that very often they still come with power dynamics and other complexities and historical trends that mean differentiating is also important.

    I fear I’m rambling… perhaps due to being in a vacation state of mind… but ultimately, I’d be all for more trainings, supports, and opportunities for patterns and other family to have positive impact in someone’s struggles… just not to the point of confusing that with the expectation that someone can typically be in that role *and* be in a ‘peer supporter’ role such as we are usually talking about It here.

    Sera

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  • Thanks for sharing your experience, rachel777. I think everyone’s experiences are different/unique in some way, but what you described sounds similar to many I’ve heard… especially how the voices connect to something in the environment and self-blame somehow, as well as how the psych drugs didn’t actually make the voices go away. So true for so many people. In any case, thank you for sharing a piece of your experience here.

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  • Thanks, Mark. I think for me, the art has a lot to do with how it’s conveyed… if it’s an art display expressly by “crazy” people – like what nami periodically offers and basically just saying “hey crazy people make good pictures too” – then yeah, not a fan. However, if it’s an art installation respecting people’s experiences, or the difference and brilliance that brings that art forth… I can certainly respect that!

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  • It’s absolutely true, Kindredspirit. And, in fact, there is research at this point I believe that suggests that people’s sense of having control and understanding over what’s happening means they’ll be less negatively impacted by it.

    How something impacts us and our lives really *is* the key point… although the mental health system doesn’t necessarily see it that way, and the simulations certainly don’t convey that point at all. For example, I used to have visions telling me to hurt or kill my daughter when she was a baby. I eventually figure out why… they were a message to me about how I was blaming my body for the babies that died by miscarriage before she was born. Once I figured that out, they lost a lot of their power over me. Before that, I at least knew better than to tell anyone about them… I don’t think the system would have cared at all what the visions meant…

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  • Madmom,

    I wouldn’t suggest IPS for hearing voices at all, actually. I think the 5 day IPS core training is useful for lots of things, but not that.

    However, there are alternatives already established. I struggle with not being too self-promoting, so I left out some of the work we do at my workplace but perhaps I shouldn’t have, so let me offer it here now:

    We offer three day trainings intended primarily for current and future hearing voices facilitators and sometimes others join those trainings, as well… but they are long.

    My co-worker, Caroline Mazel-Carlton coordinated a webinar specifically geared toward family, and I’m sure she’ll do that again in the future.

    She and another co-worker of mine, Marty Hadge, fairly regularly offer three-hour trainings on trauma-informed strategies for working with voice hearing like this one: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/VoicesPittsfield2019

    Caroline, Marty and several others on our team also do a variety of other hearing voices trainings. Everyone who trains on this topic either currently hears voices (true of the majority of our trainers), or has had experiences that fit under the Hearing Voices umbrella.

    And we certainly arent the only ones. We have brought out Peter Bullimore and company from England several times, and will have them out again in April. in fact, if you look at our January newsletter, you’ll find information about what Peter and Shaun Hunt will be offering in MA and FL in the spring. https://madmimi.com/s/3ea57d

    There is no excuse for the simulations as they are offered. I understand what you are saying, but there *are* better options that simply don’t have the backing of the simulations so people don’t hear about them. That is the result of NAMI and all the other marketing behemoths (see the next article I hope to publish for more on this point). But the options *do* exist. And often they are low cost or free, offered by people who have that experience, and far more meaningful.

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  • Nik,

    We aim to make things accessible. Typically, getting the fee waived is just about e-mailing us to say you want it waived. Although the fees are helpful to sustainability of our work, we don’t count on them. In general, we only say no to someone who’s asked for a fee to be waived when we also just don’t have enough space to offer them a spot.

    If you don’t already get it, sign up for our e-newsletter at our website (www.westernmassrlc.org), so you’ll get notified when the next trainings are coming around. 🙂

    Thanks for your input on the name! I imagine we will be putting out some thoughts on the choices we come up with in December!! 🙂

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • CryAngerNow,

    Soooo, it’s Community not Center, but yes to the rest! But most begrudgingly for the majority of us who work here. Along those lines, you may want to check this out:

    https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/NewNameRLC

    Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment, and feel free to give feedback on our name via that survey! 🙂 In terms of trainings we offer, the vast majority of our trainings are free to in-state folks. There’s a $100 fee for out-of-state people, but it can be waived if it’s cost prohibitive. 🙂

    Thank you! 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Thanks so much, Irit. Yes, sometimes people who speak loudly and firmly may lose some people, but also act as an important ‘beacon’ of sorts for those who’ve had similar thoughts and haven’t known what to do with them. It can be so important. 🙂

    Admittedly, I do use the term ‘provider’ a bunch because I haven’t felt moved to worry too much about the impact of that one-word label on folks working in the system… but it’s a good point that I should probably think harder about the term and what it conveys to everyone about that role.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Don,

    I find that referring to things as ‘politically correct’ is a way to devalue or cut off the conversation. It communicates that someone is “just doing it to seem cool” or “in the know” or “woke” enough. I’m not saying that that is how you intended that term to come across, but it is how it is very often used (as something derisive in some way) and I can’t help be hear it that way.

    The RLC dropped the term ‘peer’ from job titles some years ago, and moved to Advocate. That’s also an imperfect word, but at least moves away from the idea that our job titles need be inextricably linked to something some people will see as part of our identities. I’m sure there are other options, all flawed in some way, but what I also say in this article is that it is less about a list of good and bad words than understanding values and aims.

    So, if we know that it’s one of our values to not lock people into mental health-system attached identities, then using *ANY* single word to routinely always refer to ‘them’ probably isn’t consistent with what we are working toward. Not client, not participant, not peer, not individual, not acorn. It’s the institutinalization of the language and the person right along with it that is the problem above all else.

    So, I’d be leading people astray if I listed out a bunch of words that are ‘okay’. That’s not the point. The point is figuring out what we are actually trying to accomplish in all this?

    -Sera

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  • Hi Sandy,

    Thanks for reading. 🙂 Unfortunately, in my experience, any time a word starts to become a ‘buzz word’ for SAMHSA, the mental health system, etc., it just starts to become hollow. Perhaps there’s something about words uttered by oppressors cannot simultaneously hold value for the oppressed… I think there is sometimes an impossible tension for some folks (particularly those focused on reform rather than abolition, but who still hold some pretty clear lines) who fight for providers to let them define the language, but then should the provider finally listen and use the language as requested by those who’ve until then been ignored or marginalized… it’s anticlimactic because then the language stops sounding so good. So, sure, some of that.

    However, some of that is driven by something deeper… So, for example, most providers who use ‘recovery’ language haven’t actually changed a damn thing about the potential they see for people in the system. They consider an acceptable or even *normal* version of ‘recovery’ to be (as I think I mentioned somewhere above in one of the other comments) sitting on the couch, zombified, and just ‘staying out of trouble’. It would *never* be good enough for themselves, but somehow it’s ‘success’ when looking as those in the system. One of the state hospitals in Massachusetts changed its name (when it wasted millions on rebuilding) to a ‘Recovery Center and Hospital’. So, now they’re using ‘recovery’ in relation to forced incarceration. Great.

    Additionally, sometimes better language simply gets used to win grants and look good. So, for example, not too long ago, we had to re-bid for our primary contract that funds the RLC and we found ourselves up against a clinical provider…. And it happened to be a clinical provider who’d invested a *LOT* of time learning our language and approach. And they essentially used our own work and words to try and take it from us.

    Words are meaningful, but they can also be rendered hollow when they are wielded by people who don’t understand more than their most basic definition, or who then believe that superficial ‘goodness’ is still good when it becomes forced or made hollow by overuse in under informed hands…

    Does that make sense? I think there’s probably a lot more to be said on this topic, but hopefully that helps some. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for reading, J! I do think that a lot of people do find liberty when they just completely reject what they’ve been told! Not always an easy journey, and I’m never going to personally be one who tells people which journey is right for them (because, at the very least, benevolent force is still force), but I know I personally felt an important shift when I moved from somewhat rebellious to just “fuck off”. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Ron,

    That’s not my experience… that it’s easy to repurpose or reframe words in conversation within the mental health system. Rather, my experience is that routine use of words leads to routine ways of thinking and routine ways of responding to people… And that sometimes it’s absolutely necessary to change the language to signal that people need to change the way they’re thinking and doing things.

    In other words, everyone – on every side – gets institutionalized to some degree.

    But I do hear what you are saying, and I think that will work some of the time.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Ron,

    Fair enough on the broader potential for ‘recover’, but I do believe that the reality is that when it is used within the mental health system the vast majority of people are referring to ‘recovering’ from an ‘illness’, and I think it’s important to not lose sight of that even if it means something different (just like ‘peer’, etc does) outside of the system.

    Thanks!

    -Sera

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  • yeah_i_survived,

    You make an excellent point. Some of the people with whom I’ve intersected and who refer to themselves as ‘in recovery’ are shaking from psych drugs, unable to work (in spite of wanting to), etc. I’ve heard stories from others now living full lives who were told they were doing ‘great’ when they were unable to get off their couch or do more than smoke and drink coffee because of how sedated they were. It’s painful to see. Although who am I to say what someone *should* look like, it’s awful to see that so many have been sold this particular ‘recovery’ bill of goods.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Judi,

    I don’t disagree with most of what you write as I understand it, but I guess I think there are different layers to the conversation. Even though I agree that the medical system has lied to people in ways that *should* have legal consequences, I don’t believe in forcing folks on the receiving end of that to give up words they find meaningful. I don’t find force helpful in general. If I am to regard at least some people who’ve been lied to in these ways as – say – trapped in a cave, I believe it’s my role to go in and shine a light on the pathways out that were previously in shadow and thus invisible. I don’t, however, believe it’s my role to grab them by their arm and drag them down the path I’ve chosen for them. That – more often than not – results in their pulling back and struggling with me, *or* in their coming along because they feel they have no choice, but not really feeling committed to that path themselves and so not really even knowing why they’re there (or necessarily staying). In order to be the best support, I believe I need to accept that people may choose to stay, even if they got their because of lies. It’s only by letting go of that agenda that I believe I make space for people *also* to decide differently and go down the path I was hoping they’d find.

    Hope that makes some sense.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Alex,

    I agree it can be a tricky balance, and that different communication styles match different intentions. For example, wanting to get media and general public’s attention may perfectly reasonably involve yelling at a building housing an org you’re protesting while carrying signs with catchy but ‘inflammatory’ slogans. On the other hand, if you actually want to have a conversation with someone, that’s probably not the best place to start.

    However, not bending on honest words and realities seems critical in either place. Thank you for not being willing to bend on words like ‘discrimination’, etc.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Thanks, out.

    I have mixed feelings about ‘content warnings’, but I do agree they are a vast improvement and potentially useful in some contexts… The best thing about them as compared to ‘trigger’ warnings is that they say ‘I want you to know what is included here’ vs. ‘This content may be harmful to you.’ Content warnings certainly don’t suggest in quite the same way that ‘trigger warnings’ do that we are all fragile folks that can’t handle certain topics. Yet, I still remain mixed about them, because I still see the heavy use of them resulting in some similar outcomes. Not quite sure where the ‘right’ balance is.

    And I hear you on the not wanting to forget, but not wanting to be paralyzed by anger (my own words, not sure if they resonate for you) forever. I can very much relate to that.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • HH,

    Apologies for my delay in responding. I was mostly out of reach of a computer yesterday.

    In any case, rarely do I advocate for correcting people on their individual word choices for themselves. While I would, for example, correct a fellow team member in my work place (because I think it’s *ESSENTIAL* that they not be reinforcing negative stuff in their language choices, and that they be using words that leave space for other people to self-define), I wouldn’t typically correct someone speaking about themselves (nor advocate that anyone else do so). One of the most important things in many people’s own healing process is to be able to have the space to choose their own path, including the language they use to describe it. If someone came in using a word for themselves that felt really problematic to me or that I at least wanted to explore with them further, I’d simply ask what that word means to them (or similar). For example: “I’m bipolar.” “I’ve known a lot of people who’ve been given that diagnosis, and they and their experiences are so different. What does that look like for or mean to you?” Sometimes people really need to think through that answer because they’ve been given so much systems language that they just haven’t really thought about what it truly means to them. In other words, as you referenced, some people are just ‘parroting’ ideas, and that phenomenon can become dangerous and inhibit growth and progress and healing and freedom on many levels.

    That said, in order for people to be able to truly see possibilities beyond the crap the system feeds us, they need to be exposed to it and have opportunity to unpack what it all means to them personally… So, that still brings me back to how important it is that we not be unnecessarily perpetuating all this stuff.

    Also, you said?: “When I was trying to educate the Vermont legislature about the problems with forced drugging in institutional situations, I used the term “forced drugging” rather than “involuntary medication” because I thought it was more accurate. But some people who I really wanted to get to understand my ideas, were alienated and stopped listening because they found my language inflammatory and they saw me as not sympathetic to their point of view and not respectful of… yada yada.”

    In my experience, people who are in that place at that time will find something to disagree with no matter what you say. Because you are threatening a paradigm with which they are intertwined either through years of work/education, or through years of institutionalization. I also use psychiatric drugs instead of medication. Rarely do people respond to that in any way in either direction. However, I get called inflammatory, and difficult, and all sorts of things all the time. That includes before I was ever writing on Mad in America. Before I’d put out publicly some of the more controversial things I’ve said. Before we made any films. Etc. Simply because I was challenging a paradigm. I used to believe that if I just tried hard enough, I’d be able to find the right words to reach people who are in that place, and that that was my job. But after years of trying and still getting the same ‘you’re too radical’ or inflammatory or whatever, I’ve stopped trying so hard. Because it’s not about me. It’s about them. They are *INVESTED* in hearing me that way, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about that, unless I water down what I say so much that I’m basically just supporting them and have lost all of what I truly believe.

    That is a feature of co-optation and systemic oppression. It is not our job to make people comfortable all the time, and they are attempting to trick us into stopping altogether when they put in effort to convince that if ‘only we were nicer about it’ we’d get further. While I’m not suggesting screaming at people is effective in many instances, I’ve not found that watering down is either.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Stephen. Yeah, I’ve had my share of experiences with the standard medical world, too. Both for myself, and with my kids. I’ve picked up the attitude (that I apply to most parts of my life at this point :p), that if you can’t tell me why (or if your ‘why’ is some stupid bureaucratic reason that has little to do with me), I’m probably not going to do it…

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  • The_Cat,

    Hmmm, I flipped through a few reviews of the film before I wrote my own, but I’m not sure I looked at that one. Not surprisingly, some of them were pretty insulting in the way they talked about people who’ve been diagnosed, honestly, and I got tired of that. Ugh.

    Sera

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  • Hey, yeah_i_survived,

    It’s a good question. We focus here primarily on the psych industry, but there are issues all around with the medical field… starting with how much power we hand over to them simply by calling them ‘Dr. Whatevertheirlastnameis’ when we are all our first names…

    Sera

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  • It’s a good point. There was an awful situation (but much less unusual than they’re making it out to be) at this place in Connecticut where they finally saw on video footage someone hospitalized there being tortured and it became a big news story… but somewhere in there, I believe they also had to admit that most of the time they don’t look at the footage.

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  • So, for those interested, here’s one document from the actual case decision: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ca-court-of-appeal/1771297.html

    Here’s an interview with Helena on the film: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/helena-bonham-carter-55-steps-interview-eleanor-riese_uk_5bc4f660e4b0fed45beb93d7

    And, I embedded the link to the film on Amazon, but some people don’t seem to realize it’s there, so here is the link to actually watch the film online: https://www.amazon.com/55-Steps-Hilary-Swank/dp/B07JVR24ZL?keywords=55+steps&qid=1539736703&sr=8-2&ref=sr_1_2

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  • Frank,

    It’s not about status. Even if involuntarily incarcerated, I believe the ruling prohibited forced drugging unless it was defined as an ’emergency’ in some way (and yes, I know that how ’emergencies’ are defined gets pretty sketchy, too). The film doesn’t really get too deeply into what happens between hospitalizations and forced drugging, or the Involuntary Outpatient Commitment laws and all that.

    However, like I said in the piece above, I think the film’s true significance is less about that ruling in California, and more about having a film circulating with mainstream actors that says some of these things, and puts it right out there that these drugs have killed people. (As well as some of the statements and fairly accurate representations of things like restraints that are offered along the way.)

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • CatNight,

    I think getting the courts to believe that harm was being caused was a long road. They didn’t win at first. In fact, they were barely given a chance to be heard. Eventually, they found some doctors willing to sign on and support their argument which helped. Collette’s having been a nurse and being willing to devote a ton of time to explaining the details of the harms caused was big, too. And then, even in spite of all that, I think people are still so often ignored. So, I’m just not sure beyond that, and I think there’s for sure a risk of any progress they made there being undone.

    -Sera

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  • God. This is *so* incredibly frustrating. Perhaps most frustrating of all is I can’t get the website to stop sending me notifications so it’s easy to check out of this incredibly frustrating conversation.

    Somehow I can’t manage to not respond to this, so as briefly as I can…

    You said: “as long as we continue to use race as the sole or major theme to describe who is oppressed and who isn’t, or who is appropriating what, we lose sight of those pulling the strings at the top.” But I didnt say race is the sole theme.

    You said: “People of color do not own the term slavery and slavery as a general term refers to much more than the enslavement of African and Caribbean people of color by early Americans.” I didn’t say people of color own it or that that type of slavery is the only type of slavery. But it *sure* would be nice if white Americans would be willing to attend to the fact that it *sure* is that kind of slavery that is most relevant to our recent history and that it might be nice if we could respect that fact when some people of color express that it’s offensive… especially when there are *plenty* of other words to choose from.

    You said, “But when we get into the weeds over who is oppressed and who isn’t” but that has literally nothing to do with what I said. However, when we are talking about race it is okay to just talk about race. And when we are talking about sexism it is okay to make space to just talk about sexism. That doesn’t mean the others don’t count. I wonder why you hear it that way?

    You said “fashion.

    But when we get into the weeds over who is oppressed and who isn’t, I’m supposed to be greatful it isn’t worse” … again, nope. Didn’t say any of that.

    No one is nullifying anyone’s suffering. But it is super important that we ask ourselves why these conversations about one type of systemic oppression so often get lost in people wanting to say ‘not all white people’ or ‘not all men’ or ‘not all psychiatrist’ etc etc etc… or why a conversation about one type of systemic oppression suddenly becomes about taking care of someone else’s needs because talking about that systemic oppression somehow made them feel bad.

    Good goodness sake.

    Yes, sure, capitalism is a tool in strengthening or driving all these forms of oppression, and they all intersect, and psychiatry has also been used as a tool (as driven by capitalism and control from the ruling class) with all types of oppression. Yes, yes, and yes,

    And we still need to take a serious look at each piece on its own. Cause we continue to be super white, and we continue to ignore feedback from some of the very few people of color who have tried to speak up, and we continue to be *incredibly* defensive about the issue of racism pops up, and we continue to have enormous holes in what we know/think we know.

    Steve, As new moderator, could you make one of your first acts helping me find out why the “manage your subscriptions’ feature isn’t working so I can stop getting notifications about this thread!!

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • There is literally nothing… and I mean nothing… no past history, no commitment to anti-racist ideology or actions… that exempts one from being party to/unable to see their own contributions to racist and white supremacist structures, Oldhead.

    Elitism in my assumptions? First of all, I didn’t make the assumption that Richard ‘has no understanding or privilege’… I believe that suggesting that I said such a thing is what ‘they’ call a ‘straw man’ argument… Second, I wonder if you’re able to see the difference between what I said and your own commentary which is rather accusatory and skewing toward name calling.

    But really, what is your point here? As far as I can tell, the vast majority of the time, your point is simply to argue. Enjoy that.

    I’m going to unfollow this post at this point.

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  • Richard,

    I can’t give you the apology you seek. What I can say is that I’m sorry it felt so personal to you. However, I am of the opinion that *all* white (and generally speaking, white passing) people have ways of being and moving through society that are based on benefiting from racism and white supremacy. And, I think that we *all* have blind spots as a result. And, my own experience and learning suggests that the more we have in common with the individual for whom this society was designed (the white, educated, male, cisgender, heterosexual, middle-class, able bodied, etc. individual), the harder it is to see all that and to not have those blind spots.

    So, I may be forgetting something (though I did skim back through the comment section of the blog to which you refer), but I don’t think I intended to ever say that *you* as an individual are especially racist. Simply put: Although I can see very clearly that you have invested a great deal of time in being good and moral and aware of oppression and the impact of capitalism, etc., that you – like most of us – have your blind spots made of the privilege you’ve experienced in moving through this world and/or the fact that you haven’t had to experience so many of these issues first hand. And that I do believe that at least some of the ways in which you seem to be using the terminology of ‘identity politics’ and denying the importance of hearing people of color when they ask people to not use terms like ‘psychiatric slavery’ and so on is born of some of that. But certainly not you alone. You alongside so many others, and in spite of that fact that I don’t think that’s how you mean any of it at all.

    You can call that divisive. But I look around here… Around this movement… This white, white movement… And I wonder why we can’t just do everything in a power to try and make space for that to change. Even if none of us have all the answers or are quite sure what will make the most difference.

    Anyway. I’m not going to be able to rehash most of this here. I’m about to start week two of being away from home facilitating Alternatives to Suicide trainings in Maine. I just really couldn’t avoid at least saying what I said about the ‘identity politics’ piece feeling dismissive. And I can appreciate why you wanted to reply back.

    Goodnight.

    -Sera

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  • Shaun,

    I’d be silly, naive and whatever else if I claimed you were wrong when you said ‘Second, there are people who will do better after being sent to the hospital.’ We know it’s true because people’s responses vary, and all that.

    BUT:

    1. Why is it true? What about hospital *actually* helped the person? And what did they need to ignore/avoid/not be impacted by that was negative in order to achieve that positive?

    2. How are we defining ‘doing better’? Inevitably, we’d define that in different ways. (Not just you and I… but so many of us…) Some people have been trained to say ‘doing better’ when all they mean is ‘under control’? Some people have been trained to say ‘doing better’ when all that means is ‘numbed out’… Some people have been trained to say ‘doing better’ when what they mean is ‘right in this moment things look better, and to hell with how what we did to get this short-term result may impact things long-term…’

    3. Let’s assume we can find people we’d *ALL* agree are ‘doing better’ *after* hospitalization… There inevitably are such people. BUT, there are also people who appear to be ‘doing better’ after being tortured. (See the Judge Rotenberg Center as an example of a place that tortures people with painful electric shocks because some of them seem to ‘do better’ and stop serious and life threatening self injury after being so tortured.) How far are we willing to go with justifying torture because it seems to ‘help’ some people? What if something is just morally wrong even if it sometimes has some desirable outcome with a set of people? And what if it still hurts FAR more people than it helps? At what point does that intervention become unacceptable for *all* because it is morally wrong and/or hurts far more people than it helps?

    If we can agree that forced hospitalization is morally wrong and if we can agree (i.e., accept the growing body of research and wide array of individual reports) that it is causing FAR more harm than good… then whether or not it may occasionally ‘help’ some people simply becomes irrelevant.

    -Sera

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  • Yes, as I noted in my comment, where people aren’t in the same org and there are tensions or a lack of sense of comraderie between the two orgs it can function quite differently. But, in my experience (not just personal, but decades of experience supporting people in different environments who are going through their own experience with the system), the assumption on the part of those with that power that they can and should just do what whichever clinician contacting them says that they should is absolutely pervasive.

    (There’s a typo in my above comment btw… It should say that it’s not at all UNcommon that psych nurses get to just tell doctors what to do, etc.).

    -Sera

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  • Although I realize this will take us right back to where we most went to head-to-head, Richard, I can’t help but state how troubling I find your comment here. There has been – and continues to be – lots that you bring to this site and to the world in general, but i find this ‘identity politics’ business to be incredibly dismissive.

    This continues to be a largely white-dominated site, and I for one would be *thrilled* if Mad in America could find a way to take a clearer stand on some of the language that re-enforces some of the white supremacist pieces that creep in here just as much as anywhere else… Including appropriation of terminology like ‘psychiatric slavery’. I’m not interested in re-hashing that particular debate again, so I’m not going to engage even if others comment to say how wrong I am…

    But I needed to say *something*. This isn’t just ‘identity politics’… I find that term just as dismissive as people who get irritated when someone else offers a correction that they feel is “politically correct”… Both suggest that the suggestions – usually based in actually being respectful and not replicating/changing the oppressive ways of the broader world – are trivial, and that honoring or truly hearing them are nothing more than appeasing some silly person. It’s a real problem.

    -Sera

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  • Hi Steve,

    So, I know it’s already been head as I saw it come up in my skim of other comments, but I just wanted to echo that I also find the ‘sheriff’ reference to be problematic. Though, admittedly, it simultaneously made me less and more inclined to want to read the piece.

    I also wanted to push back against the don’t generalize piece… I don’t think it’s okay to equate generalizing experienced by groups of people as a feature of systemic oppression (such as people of color, etc.) with generalizing about groups of people who’ve been a part of the oppressive structure itself (e.g., psychiatrists). Sure, generalizations will never be entirely accurate, BUT one is coming out of ignorance and/or a desire to keep systemic oppression in place… The other is coming out of justified anger at the experience of systemic oppression, and even if each INDIVIDUAL doesn’t fit the stereotype or what have you, the point is that the generalization is much more accurate because it speaks to the realities of the *system* and what it charges those with keeping the system rolling to do, etc.

    I generally (to generalize) have appreciate your comments on Mad in America, so I suspect you’ll do a good job here, but I really hope you’ll give particularly this latter piece some thought as you move forward.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Thanks for this, Jess. I crossed paths with Kevin Hines at the Alternatives Conference in 2017 in Boston. I was pretty horrified. I don’t mean to draw into question the basics of his story, but he presents it in such a theatrical manner that it comes across more as one-many show than genuine sharing. And some of the ideas he promotes and/or re-enforces are just awful and damaging. Watching him ride that story to the level he has without question and with such … rockstarish admiration from others in the movement (and beyond) … has been so frustrating. But I appreciate your drawing out the reasons behind that. What he offers is not only incredibly theatrical and appealing in that story porn sort of way, but also doesn’t challenge the conventional paradigm. In the end, it is a part of what silences so many of the stories out there that are much more rooted in the things people need to hear to make the changes that are needed to stop hurting people.

    -Sera

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  • Oldhead,

    Hopefully you picked up from what I wrote in the original piece that I *also* don’t think someone’s right to kill themselves is equal to their right to do so in front of me. And, I’d be hard pressed to stand by and do nothing if that’s the choice they made. But whatever I did… I’d do as a *human* and certainly not as any sort of ‘treatment’.

    Also, this piece isn’t about not calling the cops at all. If someone was in my home and refused to leave, I’d call the cops, for example. that said, I also think it’s true that all the white folk calling cops on black people for doing things like barbecuing in the park (etc.) *IS* atrocious and a threat of violence.

    We always bring a ton of intersectional buttons to give away whenever we go to a conference. At the last conference we attended, we premiered several new buttons. The most popular one asid, ‘Fuck your help. My cat saved my life’ But not far behind that were buttons that said ‘Calling the cops on a person of color = a threat of violence’ and ‘Calling the cops on a person in emotional distress – a threat of violence’. This wasn’t intended to mean that calling the cops on people who are literally threatening to/are taking steps to harm someone else is wrong… But I think people got the point, and those also flew of the table.

    I don’t think of that as ‘police shaming.’ I think of it as reality. Speaking of shaming, another couple of our buttons said ‘I’m not trying to pill shame you. I’m just sick of of watching people fucking die’ and ‘Speaking truth about bad science & psychiatric oppression does not equal pill shaming.’

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Thanks, Richard. I agree with everything you say here.

    And for the record, I’m technically taking not entirely dissimilar risks in my work, which is still largely funded by the state mental health system. In fact, in some ways, the risks to us are even greater because if *one* bad thing happens in the ‘peer support’ world people are more likely to discredit *everything* we do than is likely to happen in the conventional system But we also know that if we don’t take those risks we defeat our own purpose. In fact, there is risk even in posting this piece and this particular story. Who knows how folks from our funder will interpret (and I do know that they read my posts here).

    I only wish more people were willing to choose integrity over risk management, and understand that the risk taking not only is absolutely necessary to do their job well, but also often comes with far less actual risk than they fear should something go wrong (as you also point out).

    My one misgiving about your post is the use of the term ‘mandated reporter’… I realize you put it in quotes… But I feel compelled to nonetheless say that that term is wildly used in the system. ‘Mandated reporter’ of course has nothing to do with suicide. Mandated Reporters are required to report when they suspect or become aware of abuse or neglect of a child, someone labeled with a disability, or someone considered elderly by a caretaker. That so many organizations refer to that as ‘mandated reporting’ is a way of silencing the conversation and making people feel forced to behave in certain ways. Because, of course, if it’s a mandate that exists beyond the organization that suggests much less potential to change things than if it’s simply an organization policy.

    Thanks!

    Sera

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  • Ken and Shaun,

    I appreciate the truth of what you’re saying… that only doctors often have the right to sign off on papers, etc. to force someone into a psychiatric hold/forced hospitalization.

    HOWEVER, it nonetheless feels disingenuous to me to focus on this in most instances. Because doctors often just take clinicians at their word, and do whatever they suggest is the right thing. Because I’ve heard of situations where doctors have left blank forms with their signature on them for clinicians to use whenever needed. Because it’s not at all common for nurses to be able to go to doctors even in psych hospitals and tell them what is needed with someone incarcerated there and have the doctor just do it (force them into a ‘room plan’ that leaves them in isolation, make a change to their psych drug regiment, etc. etc.).

    The truth is that clinicians often have a TREMENDOUS amount of power when they say what is needed, even if they’re technically not able to sign off on the related paperwork. I realize there are exceptions or places where individuals aren’t int he same organization and if there’s tensions between the organizations that they may be less likely to listen to one another… but it’s true more often than not.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Hi Shaun,

    I can appreciate the realities that clinicians working in the system face, even when they truly want to practice differently. I guess I have several thoughts on this…

    1. Read Bruce Levine’s comment. At the most basic, if you could at least be real about *why* you are doing what you are doing, that’s a step in the right direction. Don’t get me wrong. It *still* can be devastatingly harmful to send someone to the hospital against their will, BUT… If you’re real about the reasons then at least you a) Can avoid contributing to the dehumanizing and disabling affects of telling someone that *they* are the problem in such a screwed up system and b) You can perhaps still partner with them to figure out how to minimize the damage. This might even include things like connecting them with folks who can coach them on what to say to get themselves the heck out of there as soon as possible, etc.

    2. Read ‘Rational Suicide, Irrational Laws: Examining Current Approaches to Suicide in Policy and Law’ by Susan Stefan. Susan is an Attorney in Massachusetts who has reviewed case law, etc. on suicide across the country. One of the realities that she has been able to identify along the way is that a clinician being successfully held liable for someone’s suicide is about as likely as being struck by lightning. Reading this book may give you some useful information as to your options and realities of your and others’ fears.

    3. Be upfront *before* someone comes to you and says they’re suicidal. *Tell* them what that would look like, and what you’d be obligated to do. Perhaps give every person you work with an informational sheet that explains all of your limits on privacy and what you’d be required to do if they said certain things. Be as specific as possible. But, don’t stop there. After you’re done being specific about all that, also give them resources for places where that’s NOT true… even if just a phone support line they can call. (But, be careful which one because many phone lines are also set up to call the cops if they perceive someone to be in imminent danger. But, there are SOME out there where that’s not true. The Western Mass RLC’s peer support line is an example of a place that simply won’t call the cops on someone talking about killing themselves, though it’s hours and funding are limited to 7pm to 9pm from Monday through Thursday and 7pm to 10pm from Friday through Sunday. (The number is 888.407.4515.) There are other options out there, too, but you really need to do your research to be able to be confident that they won’t call the cops, because most lines (including those most frequently promoted) will.

    4. Connect with others in your field who are trying to do things differently. Folks in England (for example) have done a much better job of forming ‘critical’ networks where they can get together and talk about how to do their jobs differently, and support one another to know they’re not alone in trying to do so.

    5. Also be honest about your fear and regret, and be willing to say you’re sorry. These things don’t make up for the worst of it, BUT being willing to talk about your own fears, regrets, worries, etc. *is* a big deal. Being willing to say you’re sorry when you cause harm is also huge. It almost never happens in the system.

    Those are my best ideas for now.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Bruce,

    Thanks, Bruce. Your point is an important one… If folks in professional roles could at least be more honest (with themselves and those around them) about why they’re doing what they’re doing, that’d be a huge step forward. At the very least, if someone was honest about doing something to cover themselves, at least the person they’re doing it to might be a little less likely to internalize the idea that they’re bad/the problem/hopeless/etc. It is so much of that latter issue that drives people getting stuck in these systems.

    -Sera

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  • Hi Danzig, I’m not totally sure I followed all of your comment, but I hope you didn’t think that this piece was suggesting a connection between biology and people’s emotional distress. While I think there are some situations where we might not know exactly what’s at the root for some people and I would never want to presume to know what causes people’s distress other than my own, I do think that so much of it is environmentally based.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Thanks, John. I can appreciate feeling so desperate about someone potentially being in medical distress that you call for help. I also really appreciate that it’s not what you jump to.

    Unfortunately, overall, I don’t think policies that put it as ‘only in extreme situations’ go far enough because… Well, it still leaves it as an option and we’ve seen through history time and time again that what happens is providers tend to define more and more situations as extreme.

    If we could *at least* get to the point within the provider system that it’s not see as ‘okay’ and is seen as a failure of the system to provide useful options and mandates a review of practices (including an interview with the person themselves)… Well, that would sure be a step in the right direction!

    To come back around what I appreciated about what you offered… That you’ve been able to hold that line and had so few instances where you did resort to calling the police… is really useful toward demonstrating that that level of reduction is possible to folks who believe that ‘extreme situations requiring extreme measures’ are commonplace.

    -Sera

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  • I’d encourage you to watch it, Oldhead. I think you’re right, we don’t need to keep asking… And in fairness to the film, it doesn’t overtly ask. It’s pretty smartly constructed. But it does put the viewer – many of whom will not have come to the same conclusions as you already – to give thought to those points.

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  • The thing is that acknowledging racism does *not* mean we can’t also acknowledge collective fights. It also doesn’t need to mean that it’s ‘race against race’. In fact, the Hamiltons said many times while they were here that we’re all in this. We’re all being affected.

    It’s also possible to acknowledge racism in a way that isn’t all about blame. I benefit from white privilege. I benefit from white supremacy. That doesn’t mean it’s me vs. black people, or that I’m operating with intent with any of that. Often there’s power to be found in acknowledging these issues honestly.

    -Sera

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  • Fair enough, meremortal. I would have balked less had Oldhead not begun his entire commentary by stating flatly that he hadn’t read anything I’d actually written… 🙂 As an author here, it can be very frustrating to have people come in and immediately go off topic. It can, unfortunately, change the whole energy of the piece.

    -Sera

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  • Just one last quick note:
    When you say this “There’s also something deeply bizarre with the idea that “the Blood is at” Roseanne’s “doorstep.” You may, as a white woman, feel that this extreme stance is really putting your weight behing the noble cause of supporting POC. As a POC, I can tell you that I find it profoundly weird that you would compare one comedian’s offhand, ambien-fuelled comment on Twatter to things like redlining, slavery, Jim Crow laws, lynchings, police brutality, etc. ”

    It really makes me wonder if you’re misunderstanding how the phrase is getting used? As I understood it when Dameion stood at one of the screenings and told the audience the blood is now at all of our doorsteps, it was more about not being able to ignore what’s happening in the world… Not an accusation that we are each responsible or any sort of direct cause so much as a call to action, to not look away, to face the challenge of making change… Again, I’m not sure you’ve taken the time to understand what I offered here, but I at least wanted to be clear about that point.

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  • Rachel,

    As I understand it, Dontre was *not* homeless. He was simply resting in a park in the middle of the day. I believe there was a report that went out stating he was homeless, but I believe that that was an erroneous assumption (and likely an assumption worth examining the roots of).

    I don’t actually know if Christopher Manney knew of Dontre’s diagnosis when he interacted with him. But I do know that how they painted Dontre afterward was skewed by that fact… (Check out the film if you have a chance.)

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  • Make of it what you will, meremortal. Oldhead came in here, openly acknowledged not reading this article, and then proceeded to make the whole thing about Trump verses liberals which has absolutely nothing to do with anything I wrote. I know what happens around here when people do that. It has the potential to throw the entire comments section off track, and, yes, I find that disrespectful.

    It also seems to me that you’ve misunderstood much of what I’ve said here. I certainly didn’t compare her commentary to those things. What I actually said was:

    A) It is ridiculous that people are trying to excuse her behavior under the defense of ‘mental illness’.

    B) That, yes, there is a history of ties between psychiatry and racism, but that it is of a very different nature.

    C) That while, yes, Roseanne’s behavior shines a light on a much deeper and more serious issue of racism in this country, our focus would be much better served on the people and stories worth hearing about… That focus on a famous person’s offensive comments aren’t where to put our attention.

    So, while you seem to have read what I wrote, I’m not sure you’ve taken time to understand. That’s fine. At least you read it. Thank you for that.

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  • I called everyone in the article by their first name, as best I recall. Yes, I referred to Trump as Trump… That’s just habit, I guess. But typically, I go for first names.

    And no, I will not be changing my lead in. It is what it is. I don’t know if you’ve actually taken the time to *read* the article at this point, but one of my points is that racism is *systemic* and Roseanne’s comment is merely illuminating that fact. She’s not so different than many people in the country, and as you know very well, I’m someone who believes that all white or white-presenting people have benefited from racism and white supremacy in this country, so it’s far more complicated than Roseanne being any sort of villain. However, I do absolutely believe that consequences for such overt racism are merited and necessary to initiate any sort of real change…

    MOST importantly, though, the point of the article is that it’s *absurd* to try and excuse her behavior as a symptom of ‘mental illness…’ That that’s wrong on many levels. And that the rush to focus on her while we’re still ignoring the voices and stories that deserve to be heard is a problem.

    This is the last time I’m replying to you on this. I find it disrespectful to come onto articles – especially articles that expressly make the point about how important it is that we shine the line on the people who deserve to be lifted up – and attempt to derail things in this way.

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  • I do hope you’ll take this elsewhere, Oldhead. I didn’t know that Roseanne was a Trump supporter at the time I first heard about her Tweet, and I certainly didn’t have to have that in my head to hear her comment as pretty blatant bigtory. I don’t care if she is or isn’t a Trump supporter. It’s irrelevant. And.. If she didn’t realize that Valerie was black… Well, I don’t even know what to say about that. I find it hard to believe, even if she’s now claiming it.

    More than anything, I really don’t appreciate this article being turned into a ground for strange political arguments and insults. This isn’t what all this is about. It’s more important than that.

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  • Fiachra,

    It means they were given a diagnosis. I quite intentionally use that language when stating a diagnosis that is relevant to a story or circumstance because being given a diagnosis is a fact (if someone in fact was given one by a doctor, psychologist, etc.), but what that means or why is left open.

    For example, I was personally given a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder. Can’t deny that. I sat before a therapist. They wrote it in my chart. But that still leaves space for me to say ‘and it was bullshit, and means nothing to me beyond the pain it caused me in the system.’ It’s fundamentally different than saying someone ‘has’ or ‘is’ a diagnosis in that way. It was relevant to mention here because the fact that Dontre was so diagnosed influenced how people, including the police, saw, interacted with, and spoke about him. It makes no claim about who he was or why.

    I certainly hope that is not all that you got out of this. I quite intentionally didn’t make this yet another article that goes on about the injustice of the labels themselves because I believe it’s clear in what I did write (for example, in the paragraph where I name some of the relationships that have existed between racism and diagnosis) that there is a problem. The main focus deserves to not be lost.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Jan! 🙂

    So, we did do a facilitator training in Melbourne, and the e-mail address for folks in that area who are getting things up and running is this: [email protected]

    We just did some broader events in Sydney and hope to go back to do a facilitator training at some point, but the contact e-mail publicly listed for that area in relation to the events we did do or bringing a facilitator training to that area is listed as [email protected]

    In Perth, there’s a committee managing getting things up and running (we’ve done the largest number of events/trainings in Perth) and their e-mail is: [email protected]

    It’s all still quite in the early stages, but hoping things develop soon. 🙂 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Hi Jan,

    Yes, Caroline and I arrived on March 1 and begin our flight home late on the 24th. We started in Melbourne where we offered an Alternatives to Suicide facilitator training. We then went to Sydney and did a couple of related events with hopes to return in the future for more. We’ve been in Perth for a week now, and between last week and this one up we will have done several events and both a When the Conversation Turns to Suicide and an Alternatives to Suicide Facilitator training. 🙂

    We didn’t get to Brisbane, unfortunately, but would love to in the future! 🙂

    Sera

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  • Jasna,

    Challenging feedback is hard, and I’ve certainly been subject to it myself when I’ve written here. However, I feel confused by your feedback which seems to be largely referring to my comment (though maybe I’m wrong about that?). I wasn’t simply looking for the fine points with which to argue for the sake of argument… I found pretty substantial issues with what was offered here that I think either confuse or take away from what was good, and I guess I don’t see the value in ignoring that. Endless fighting over irrelevancies won’t take us forward – you’re right about that… But neither will silence.

    -Sera

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  • Hey there,

    Well, you named Alternatives to Suicide so inevitably, I’m sure you knew, I’d pop up at some point. 🙂

    There is plenty I agree with in what you wrote, but I guess I have a lot to say about the things I question or disagree with… I want to start with the opening paragraph:

    “The radicalness of the anti-psychiatry movement has unfortunately become one of its greatest hurdles to overcome. Even in otherwise radical spaces like prison abolition, neurodiversity, or intersectional feminism, the most common reaction to anti-psychiatry ideas is to dismiss them as so intuitively ridiculous they need not be engaged with. Sanism, behaviorism, drugs and force have permeated our culture to the point many people literally can’t imagine life without them.”

    I see others already disagreeing with your first sentence. I guess I do want to say a few things about the paragraph as a whole, though. I still think that ‘anti-psychiatry’ falls way short as a term. It implies focus on psychiatry rather than a whole system, and distracts from the actual arguments for being a term so often used as an attack or diagnosis against someone others wish to dismiss.

    Meanwhile, I’m concerned about terms like ‘sanism,’ as well. I don’t get it. These terms seem to be raining down on us from leftist intellectual land, but I guess I don’t really appreciate what this one seems to suggest. If racism is a systemic oppression that centers whiteness and assumes it as society’s ‘default,’ and heterosexism does the same where heterosexuality is concerned… Are we saying that society society is centering those who are sane and setting that as society’s ‘default’ as opposed to those who are insane? I don’t get it. And I really, really do not accept the idea that I am ‘insane’ (or mad, etc. etc. etc.).

    This language seems to fly in the face of the idea that we all have (or have the potential to have) deep distress, extreme states, etc. at various points, and that those experiences often make a ton of sense in relationship to our environments. It also flies in the face of the idea that experiences like hearing voices or seeing visions are the norm within some cultures, and can be a variation from the norm that does not mean anything is actually ‘wrong’ in our own. So, not only do I not really get that terminology… it actually seems actively harmful to me.

    So, on to your second paragraph:

    “On a good day, our leaders pontificate about “reforms” that would somehow fix a system whose deepest foundation is a bed of violence, oppression, and at best pseudoscience. They ask for cultural awareness training, yoga classes, art therapy, and healthier food options in psychiatric facilities, without ever questioning the confinement that made those things unavailable in the first place (let alone the coercion involved when participation in such activities becomes a condition of obtaining release).”

    Wait, who are you thinking of as our ‘leaders’? And who on earth among our ‘leaders’ isn’t questioning the confinement and coercion? Myself and most (if not all) of my co-workers fall in the middle of the ‘reform’ vs. ‘abolition’ debate… Many of us believe abolition would be best and is a noble goal, but also that it is naive and harmful and unfair to desert those individuals still stuck in the system… And so we spend time working on making the conditions more tolerable, too. But we *NEVER* lose sight while engaged in our efforts in the latter of the force and coercion that occurs. We write articles about it, we talk to providers about it, we offer trainings that incorporate awareness of it, and – most importantly – we take action to push back against it wherever we can both in individual situations and overall.

    I think there are some people who fit the description you offer, but it’s completely inaccurate to suggest that any and everyone who hasn’t invested all their time in abolition talk fits the definition you’ve provided here.

    Another section I want to quote directly: “Mad and neurodivergent people would be managers, not “peer specialists…The essential function of a “peer specialist” is to appear non-threatening, earn people’s trust, and convince them to stay on their meds. Hiring managers know that these positions only exist because others don’t, that there are far more job-seekers than jobs to fill, and thus that anyone they hire is easily replaceable.”

    Again, this seems misinformed to me. I certainly agree that a *huge* number of ‘peer’ roles are co-opted, poorly designed, and harmful. But the definition you offer defines the co-opted lot, and not what these roles are truly meant to be. And what they’re truly meant to be *does* exist in at least some peer-to-peer *and* provider settings. It also suggests to me that you’re unfamiliar with the true landscape of things when you say that there are far more job-seekers than jobs to fill. In many areas, people are struggling deeply to find qualified individuals to fill peer roles.

    Also, there are a number of places where people who you might define as part of the ‘mad’ movement do hold managerial roles. I know many in my state alone. Although, what precisely are you suggesting they should be managers of, if the system will no longer exist?

    I understand where you’re coming from with the following: “If the “peer specialist” has more power than the patient, then they’re not a peer, and if they have the same or less power, then they’re not needed.” Yet, it also seems a little misinformed to me. There’s still a tremendous need to have someone – even who has no more power than the individual stuck in the system – to be by their side, bear witness, help them strategize about how to get heard, help them learn about ways out, etc. There’s tremendous power in these things. Though, I’ll also add that of course people in peer roles don’t have exactly equal power as the person they’re trying to support.. They’re getting paid. They get to leave locked environments. They’ll be seen as more credible because they’re an employee. Etc. Etc. Etc. But if they’re well trained and supported, their role will be designed to reduce and avoid power imbalances as much as possible.

    This is also inaccurate: “Currently, all hotlines train their staff as mandated reporters, to listen for key phrases and if the caller utters one of them, secretly send people with guns and a history of recklessly using them, directly to the caller’s location. The sole exception is Trans Lifeline, which is of course exclusively for trans people, only a fraction of everyone who might want to call a crisis hotline.”

    Unless you’re not counting ‘peer support lines?’ The Western Mass RLC operates a Peer Support Line and we absolutely do not track calls or notify 911 no matter what someone says. I agree with you that what you describe is a huge issue among such lines, but please be careful about misrepresenting these points. I’m pretty sure there are at least a few others who do not track calls, too.

    Meanwhile, I’m also concerned about your use of the language of ‘mandated reporter.’ While some employees within the system are misinformed that mandated reporter is generally connected to reporting people who are suicidal, this is not what it means in most places. Rather, ‘mandated reporter’ most commonly means that people are required to report known or suspected abuse or neglect of children, elders, or individuals labeled disabled by care givers. It’s important that we not further contribute to that common misunderstanding.

    And there’s this: “In a post-psychiatry world, both would be regularly, sternly reminded of their humility. Moreover, they would be taught when not to intervene, and they would not need to have basic respect packaged as just another proprietary methodology, with a sexy name like “Open Dialogue,” “Intentional Peer Support,” “Emotional CPR,” or even “Alternatives to Suicide.” You follow this up with the following in the comments section: “Essentially they boil down to “don’t do Mental Health First Aid” or “don’t call the police” and the rest is just fluff to make them sound more like something social workers might accept into their existing paradigm. IPS, eCPR and Alternatives to Suicide are good tools for mitigating a big problem, but I long for the day they become unnecessary.”

    So, first of all, I wasn’t aware that “Alternatives to Suicide” was a ‘sexy’ name, but… thanks? I will say that the rest of what you say about it here, though, is both confusing and offensive, if I’m honest. I’m not aware that you’ve been through the Alternatives to Suicide training… Have you? Am I mistaken about that? Caroline and I are currently traveling around Australia offering a variety of presentations and trainings on just that approach right now, and while I’ll agree with you that some of each training and presentation focuses on the research about how current approaches are harmful… There’s a heck of a lock more to the approach than ‘don’t funnel people into the system’ or ‘don’t call 911.’

    We talk an awful lot in these trainings about what *to* do… How to respond… questions that can be really useful to ask… fears that can arise for the listener and how to work through or learn to sit with them… This is only the briefest of summaries. But the point is, it’s not ‘fluff.’ I also don’t experience Intentional Peer Support in the way that you describe.

    And I wonder about the society where you feel these sorts of supports would have no use? Do you really mean to suggest that its only the mental health system that’s seen death and suicide as taboo? Cause I’m pretty sure religions that long preceded the mess we’re in now have had issue with it… And that families and communities have struggled in various ways since basically the beginning of time.

    Are you really meaning to suggest that the absence of the mental health system trap would mean a lack of need for healthy supports for people who are struggling? Cause I can’t quite help but hear some of that in what you’re saying right now.

    I’m going to stop going through your article point by point because it’s just so long and I don’t want to basically write a blog of my own in your comments section… I do agree (as I said at the start) with many of your points including the problems with the idea of rebranding (although I think there’s value in referencing psych diagnoses as opposed to most of the other terms as it’s simply a fact that one’s been diagnosed and said nothing about what’s *actually* going on), with the need to dispose of the diagnostic system, and with some of the overarching points about the problems with in and need to do away with the mental health system.

    But I keep getting lost in what feels like a lack of full understanding, contradictions, and what feels like a disregard of how the mental health system and its functions and perspectives are rather inextricably linked to school systems, prison systems, capitalism, and so much else…

    -Sera

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  • Bradford, Sounds like you may have spent even more time in at Suicide.org than I did! I missed the angel bit. :p Thanks for sharing some of your experience. It is strange (but true) how both the absolute fear to talk about death and the hyperfocus on preventing on death at all costs can co-exist. In a way I guess it make sense… because if you talk and act only to prevent it, then you don’t need to actually talk about it in any depth? It’s definitely a symptom of how messed up society is.

    I’m sorry about your friend. I’ve lost a few people to suicide. It’s hard, and only gets harder when no one will actually talk about what happened.

    -Sera

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  • Richard,

    I’ve come back to your comment a few times, and I’m not really sure how to respond. I guess I agree with a lot – maybe almost all – of what you’re saying. And yet, I do find the message paralyzing, as much as you say you don’t mean it to be. I’m also not totally sure I agree that the *only* way to shift some of this is to undo capitalism. Even with capitalism in place, I think I’m going to have to at least hope that there are other ways to adjust its focus or what feeds it… Somehow it feels more attainable to me to *use* capitalism’s tools to undo its capitalist appeal than to undo capitalism. Perhaps that’s foolish, but I’d be interested in a conversation about what *that* could look like.

    -Sera

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  • Eh, I see some of what you’re talking about, Julie… I personally support people to use *any* drugs they want in whatever way works for them, and without needing to post about it. People always have used drugs. It’s not inherently bad. What’s bad is the system that pushes a particular set of drugs as the ‘cure,’ while demonizing people who use the other set.

    I personally do talk about not using psych drugs at this point in my life… because it’s important to have some people (and not just some, but a critical mass of people) out there challenging the perception that psych drugs and psych diagnosis are a meaningful and consistent link in any sort of way…

    Sera

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  • Rasselas,

    Thanks for your comment… Although, I don’t think this is accurate:

    “Some people, I accept, such as Sera, work hard at bringing people together. Other people, such as myself, encourage people to break free and go it alone.”

    I think part of the challenge of the community in which I work, myself, etc, is that we do both things… We offer talks and trainings to providers, attempt to develop better ways for people who might be more succeptible/willing to ‘get it’ to begin to think about things in a different way… While *also* making films like the ‘Virtues of Non-Compliance’ that is basically all about how being so-called ‘non-compliant,’ ignoring what we were told in the system and getting on with life, in fact, saved our lives… Or a project we’re working on right now that is all about gathering information from people who’ve survived the system to share their wisdom about how they navigated the system’s unwritten rules and were able to ‘play the game’ well enough to get out, etc.

    We do both, and we don’t apologize for it. That makes us pretty hard to tolerate for a lot of people… And that’s fine.

    Sera

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  • Thanks so much for your reply, Susan.

    I love what you wrote here:

    “I came to the conclusion that many people who say they to want to hear ‘the other side’ actually don’t. They want to feel smug in their ‘open-mindedness,’ but they are threatened by any hint of real change.

    It’s called cooptation – they pretend that you have a place with them, but that place is only to make them look better than they are.”

    I think it is exactly true… Please stick around only so long as you make us look/feel good about ourselves.

    -S

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  • I genuinely am not sure why you are posting this here. This blog isn’t about ‘recovery.’ I’ve been pretty clear for many years that I don’t support the concept. And I am a part of a community that rejects most conventional ideas about psychiatric diagnosis and ‘help,’ and takes many pretty concrete actions toward change.

    Feel free to not like what I do or say, but arguing with me about something that has nothing to do with me because you – for some reason – need to believe that that’s part of my message is… not too much better than how the system treats me at the moment.

    I’m not going to respond anymore. 🙂

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Yes, I believe you are being presumptuous… You responded to a blog that has nothing to do with recovery with what feels like an attack on what I do based on the concept of recovery. And when I say you are being presumptuous it is because there is nothing that I write about that indicates support of the concept ‘recovery,’ and in fact, what I write about specifically speaks to my rejection of the term. Because there’s nothing on our website that speaks to ‘recovery’ beyond our name. And so on. We didn’t come up with our name, and while we’ve talked about changing it, frankly, we’ve been too busy with the ‘doing.’

    If you’re curious to see what happens with our work, just take a look… at our films, at our materials, etc… We’ve been around for over ten years. There’s already plenty to see in terms of where we come from.

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  • Nope. What you’re saying is presumptuous and sort of empty. Our name has the word ‘recovered’ in it because it was chosen 15 years ago and we didn’t have control over it. We’ve talked about changing it more recently and are working on that. But I don’t think there is a single person on our leadership team that would say they are invested in the concept of ‘recovery.’ We talk about our lack of belief in that, ‘mental illness’ ‘suicide prevention’ and many other such concepts all the time. So, please stop making assumptions and look at our actual work. 🙂

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  • Thanks, Brett. I appreciate your reading and kind words. I know it can also be difficult to be in a more clinical role and oppose the current paradigm. In fact, in one of our current film projects, there are three groups – individuals who’ve been ‘in’ the system, clinicians/direct support works, and administrators… And truth be told, Group 3 (administrators) was FAR angrier with Group 2 (clinical providers) when they said critical things about the system than they were with Group 1 (people who’d been ‘in’ the system). I imagine the reasons for that could be interpreted in at least a few different ways, but nonetheless, there it was.

    -Sera

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  • I have to admit this comment makes me angry, so I’m going to do my best to respond as best I can without falling into that.

    I am not ‘in bed’ with anyone in the sense that you speak. The community with which I work has done more to support people to get out of the system, to push back against the system, to challenge psychiatry, etc. In the last ten years than most other communities and groups and activists I know. We work hard beyond our limits and take risks all the time to have that be true. I would suggest you check out our work first hand before assigning it to any category.

    I do not ‘want to be.’ I am. And at least half the folks I know who disparage what we do as being somehow ‘in the system’ are spending most of their time saying those things, not actually doing themselves.

    By the way, my blog says nothing about change ‘needing to come from the inside.’ And frankly, it’s more than a little insulting that you suggest I have such a childish view that lacks any real nuance.

    This blog was about how hard it is to hold the lines I’ve held and do the work I do and the cost that comes with that… the cost to me as a human being who can only take so much poor treatment, even if it is expected.

    Perhaps my next blog should be the predictable way in which people in this movement tear each other down, too.

    Thanks for reading,

    Sera

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  • Pat,

    I continue to be perplexed by your portrayal of things. I’m sorry that you didn’t feel welcomed with Hearing Voices USA. And yet, I repeatedly hear you misrepresent what people have said, what Hearing Voices USA or the charter stands for, what I’m saying here, etc. You’re also conflating Hearing Voices USA and the RLC. The RLC is the group that brought Rufus May and Elisabeth Svanholmer to the US to offer some training on Voice Dialoguing. We don’t expect others to do what we are doing. We choose our own priorities, and I think many people have benefited from many of the choices we have made. I’m sure they also disagree with some of them, or wish we’d prioritize other things. We do the best we can.

    My experiences with you in person have always been pleasant, but I’m pretty baffled by the parts of yourself that you bring to this forum. Ultimately, I guess it’s your choice how you show up here, but I do want to ask that you do your best not to misrepresent other people/groups wherever possible.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Oh for goodness sake. You’re over hear arguing semantics, and Pat is down below ignoring the problems that paid peer roles have created. Perhaps the two of you could argue together?

    I’m done and holding out hope that people may show up here who want to actually talk about the blog, and not these arguments that are getting us nowhere.

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  • Oldhead,

    I guess part of my point is that it’s (largely) impossible to not eventually feel beaten down by the constant abuse, disregard, dismissal, etc… It doesn’t have to be about approaching them as lesser than or needing their approval. That I don’t is, I imagine, part of the problem. And yet, I am human. And it gets exhausting.

    I very much disagree with your ‘black power’ analogy, although I get your point. As I’ve already stated, I don’t care for the term ‘anti-psychiatry’ and it’s not really about try to soothe anyone’s fears. I simply don’t relate to it, and the fact that that’s actually my *truth* and people *still* want to use it to dismiss makes the whole thing all the more maddening.

    Yes, I realize that a large part of the downfall of the strength of this movement came with paid ‘peer’ roles and such. I talk about that with a great deal of frequency. And yet, expecting people to network, gain strength, and have a voice long-term with*out* any funding to support that is part of what made what was also not sustainable, I believe. Kind of a lose:lose…

    -Sera

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  • It’s funny. My post feels so clear to me, and seems to be connecting with several others to whom it also feels very clear. But, I guess we all see things through our own lenses and experiences, and so I can’t fault you for feeling otherwise.

    Perhaps it comes down to my simply not liking the word. I do not think that the term ‘anti-psychiatry’ conveys the things that you say above very well at all. I also feel that many people who talk about ‘anti-psychiatry’ as their primary perspective tend to over simplify things, but as you’ll see above some people feel that over-simplification is a bonus.

    It doesn’t work for me. That’s kind of all there is to it. It’s like arguing about what the word ‘bipolar’ means. Even for those who accept that label, it actually *looks* a thousand different ways, let alone if you factor in those who do not. It is not a way I choose to identify myself, and I think the term misses the mark, at the very least, in being a way to accurately convey what (some) people mean by it. I don’t really see the point in arguing about it, honestly.

    -Sera

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  • Criticism is fair, and there’s already a good amount of it in this comments section if you missed it! But I’m often troubled by your comments, as they seem to misrepresent what I say and what I do more often than not. I’m also confused by your capitalization in the above, but that’s also fine. And, you’re welcome to continue to e-mail me or the RLC for resources… My point was that you seem to tend toward attack here, and yet you clearly must see *some* value in what we do.

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  • Yes, I like to call like to call it activism with integrity, and you’re right, it’s hard to do that sort of activism without burning out. 🙂 It’s hard to imagine that you’re actually trying to argue with our push back against the Boston Globe for their deeply offensive ‘mental health spotlight’ series, or the way our school systems are failing our kids… Is that really what you’re doing? Also, my ‘getting along/synthesizing’ comment wasn’t about my blogs. I say what I want here. I was talking about my ability to navigate my daily work. 🙂 And speaking of my daily work, didn’t I – at your request – just send you a book I wrote on developing peer respite? It escapes me a bit why you keep coming on these blogs and intentionally misrepresenting or disparaging what I have to say. 🙂 But that’s okay. I hope all is well in your neck of the woods. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • I absolutely refuse to have the slavery compared to psychiatry argument again. This blog was deeply personal for me and took me a long time to write, and I simply won’t participate in having it hijacked in that way.

    As to the rest… The whole argument misses the mark for me. Almost any perspective that is completely one-sided is usually missing something in my eyes. That is how ‘anti-psychiatry’ feels to me. It a) misses that humans have used drugs for an eternity to manage their feelings, experiences, etc, and I’m not entirely sure that’s wrong in the most fundamental sense b) misses the fact that iatrogenic harm and dehumanization happen in the system for many reasons that include but extend beyond psychiatric drugs… At a minimum it misses those things.

    In any case, I’m done arguing about this, too, but thank you for reading the blog.

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  • mecarlym,

    Thanks so much for reading and commenting, as much as you’re not so generally inclined. 🙂 There seems to be a real push/pull for so many of us when it comes to staying in this work and fighting vs. walking away to do something else, or at least not get paid within the system. Touch choices all around, but you sound like someone I’m happy is still connected. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • I suspect we will continue to disagree on elements of this, Frank. I’m mostly going to look past your first paragraph (which feels a little insulting) and say this:

    As I said in one of my comments above, I agree that wiping the slate clean and starting over in terms of what we regard as ‘helping’ people and why and how to go about all that in our society is the ideal.

    Where we most strenuously disagree, I believe, is where I feel you have over simplified things. It’s not *just* about people being ‘different,’ as much as that’s a huge part of it. It may, in fact, be the most motivating part of it for the roots of this system… And yet, there are also people who are really struggling and want help, etc. Additionally, whenever I hear people get so fixed on abolition rather than change, it feels like it comes from a place of privilege to me. (Not privilege as in wealth or lack of hardship or whatever, but privilege nonetheless…. The privilege of not so much being at risk anymore of ending up in one of these places. The people I work with go in to institutions every day to try and help people get on their feet and get out… Abolitionist talk misses that. I realize that if we were truly successful in abolition, those people would also get out… Except, it wouldn’t be those people… They would have been lost and died off long ago. And I’m just not comfortable with sacrificing people in the now for what we might achieve somewhere far down the road.

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  • I hear you, feelindiscouraged. Most of this blog was directed as those who hold power and aren’t at any particular risk, not people who are trying to avoid incarceration. I’ve definitely experienced marginalization, but fortunately haven’t faced any real threat of incarceration in a long time for which I am very thankful. -Sera

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  • Thanks, J. In the best of worlds, I think abolition is indeed where it’s at. I’m not sure how we fix something that is being driven by so many interests that just aren’t helpful or healthy. What keeps me chasing reform is knowing how many people are stuck in there if we stop tending to that, and the numerous successes many of us have seen of helping people move beyond stuckness to a full life. I don’t feel great about getting too black and white about abolition goals primarily for that reason… But, yes, we need something totally different than what we have now.

    -Sera

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  • Not totally sure how to interpret some of your comment, but thanks for reading, either way.

    I disagree with your link between ‘critical psychiatry’ and ‘moderate,’ but perhaps that does – as you say – depend on who you’re asking. I only know that the only place I ever get called a ‘moderate’ is around here, and only by a pretty small group of folks. :p

    Personally, I’m not backing away from ‘antipsychiatry’ to justify anything. I’ve never cared for the term. It’s too black and white. I prefer to be critical of anything and everything. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Hey Will,

    I’ve been traveling and am super sleepy at the moment, but wanted to write a quick comment since you took the time to name us (Western Mass RLC) in your blog!

    I hear you on the fact that our movement hasn’t been nearly as successful as we want to be or should be or need to be in making real change… And I can totally support the idea of trying to re-evaluate strategies, and decide if we need to change direction a bit (or a lot) and how. This is actually not the first conversation I’ve had of this nature in the last sevenish days.

    However, I feel confused about your proposed strategy here… Not because I think capitalism hasn’t been harmful, but… because I’m not sure lack of capitalism has particularly led to success for individuals with psychiatric histories, and I certainly don’t feel more hopeful about our changing the tide of our political and economic systems than I do about changing the the mental health elements around us…

    I also feel confused about why you called out RLC specifically? I’ll just assume it’s because we’re such a good representation of what peer-to-peer support can actually look like 😉 … But bear in mind we aren’t just doing peer support and sitting around for others to change the world. We’re trying to work on all of it… but we’re definitely open to new ideas about how to move forward. 🙂

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Hi Patrick,

    I’m finally back. I hope you’ll bear with me in my more detailed response to your piece. It’s going to be long, although it’s late and so I’m afraid it won’t be quite as thorough or well thought out as I would have liked.

    First of all, let me begin by saying (once again) thank you. In order to respond to your blog, I needed to go back and read my own. I forgot how much I liked that particularly blog, so thanks for making me take another look! 🙂

    Okay, but, let’s get down to business. For starters, no, I am totally not kidding you. Do I mean to suggest that this certification has taken a completely healthy ‘peer support’ industry and knocked it off its perch onto the ground? No. ‘Peer support’ was suffering for being an ‘industry’ at all, and it was already deeply in trouble. But, Mental Health America certainly ain’t helping the situation.

    My complaints about Mental Health America (MHA) date back well before this last blog. In fact, the very first blog I ever wrote for Mad in America (back in December of 2012) was about MHA’s disappointing connection to mental health screening tools. See here, for more: https://www.madinamerica.com/2012/12/i-am-the-number-60/

    I followed that up with others, including ‘Dear NAMI: My apologies. I’ve been unfair’ (https://www.madinamerica.com/2014/03/dear-nami-apologies-ive-unfair/) in 2014 (in which I detail MHA and a few other organization’s heavy connections to the pharmaceutical industry), and ‘Do NAMI and MHA suffer from Anosognosia’ (https://www.madinamerica.com/2015/09/do-nami-and-mha-suffer-from-anosognosia/) back in 2015, where I discuss (among other things) Gionfriddo’s testimony in support of the Murphy Bill. So, you see, the problematic roots of MHA run deep.

    But, that aside, let’s look at what you wrote.

    So, the bell. I think you missed quoting what the bell *actually* said, or accurately representing my concerns with it at all. It’s not the ‘mental illness’ language. As harsh as that is on my ears, I understand the language of the era and all that. It’s the actual message. A refresher: Here’s what the bell’s inscription says in full:

    “Cast from shackles which bound them, this bell shall ring out hope for the mentally ill and victory over mental illness.”

    It doesn’t say that the bell shall ring out hope for the ‘mentally ill’ and victory over the system, the abuses they have suffered, the discrimination, the maltreatment, or whatever words might have been most commonly used to describe these phenomenon in that year. No, it suggests the bell ‘ring out hope’ for ‘victory over mental illness.’ That’s a *completely* different message, isn’t it? In fact, it sounds exactly like NAMI’s message, and every other organization that seeks to increase treatment to ward off and conquer these destructive ‘diseases’ without any real critical eye on the system itself (except perhaps to say it doesn’t offer enough beds or access for the “seriously mentally ill”). So, either you have re-interpreted what was written to what you wish it said (or what serves you in this moment), or the author(s) was a really poor writer. Either way, I’m sticking with my assertion that it is tone deaf and gross.

    You continue with several other points (I particularly appreciate the details on who makes what per each certification, so thank you for that), but also misrepresent another point I made here:

    “On a side note, I have no qualms about saying that all of the peers, including me, involved directly in the creation of this credential have just as much right to claim membership in the peer community as anyone else. When other people, particularly those with large audiences, try to disparage our “peerness” I have visions of a so-called recovery center I once visited which required proof of diagnosis before people were allowed access to the facility. It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.”

    Not a single time did I question anybody’s ‘peerness.’ Anyone who knows me or has read much of what I written will know that anything that links me to any place that would ask people for their diagnosis (or any other such thing) isn’t taking the time to understand what I’m saying at all.

    This is what is called a straw man argument, Patrick. You are responding to an argument I never made in order to (intentionally or not) distract from the points I actually made. I have *never* questioned the experiences of anyone who claims to have a psychiatric history or to have faced enough life-interrupting challenges to work in a peer role. What I *actually* said was that many organizations eat up the people who have internalized oppression, or who are prone to be silenced and changed when their paycheck comes from those they’ve previously sought to change.

    This is an important argument. It does not seek to diminish one’s experience or identity (and certainly doesn’t seek to ‘prove’ whether or not they qualify for membership to the ‘club’), but rather it questions whether or not they have had or currently have the support to not be swallowed up whole, co-opted and used by the system. And, it further questions the nature of a system that would prefer to hire people in this position than those who have gone through a fuller process of self and system realization.

    Based on what you say here, I’d also go several steps further and question your use of the word ‘peer’ in at least two other ways. First, you seem to be using it to mean an identity. Thus, right from the start, you are using the word in a co-opted manner. ‘Peer’ is not an identity you get to claim because you have some particular life experience. ‘Peer’ is a way of relating to other people. It’s an approach. A way of being. You serve to do the work of co-optation of the role simply by changing it to mean something else. (See my blog, ‘Cheers for Peers’ for more on this: https://www.madinamerica.com/2013/07/cheers-for-peers/)

    Meanwhile, by claiming doctors and licensors and all that can be ‘peers’ you also go a step or two deeper into dangerous territory by not only claiming ‘peer’ as a singular identity, but by also ignoring that peer supports and peer-to-peer relationships are fundamentally built on minimizing power imbalances. So, while doctors, licensors, and all sorts of other people may have psychiatric histories and legitimate wisdom to share from those experiences, they are full of power.

    Is this what you mean when I say I’m questioning people’s ‘peerness,’ Patrick? Because, if so, then I guess you’re right on. I do not question anyone’s right to claim a psychiatric history, or to choose to work in peer support. I do not think someone needs to share a diagnosis, take a qualifying test, prove they’ve been hospitalized, or anything else in order to play this game. But, yes, I sure as hell reject that I am a ‘peer’ (I am a human) or that doctors who have psychiatric histories are able to participate in offering peer support for all the power they hold.

    On to the clinical dance: You say, ” What is not said, through no fault of Ms. Davidow, is that in the initial interview I accentuated that individuals choosing to participate in DBT do so voluntarily and arrive at treatment goals and methods in concert with their therapist.”

    Now it’s my turn to say, ‘Are you kidding me!?’ Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced into DBT-inspired programs. If they’re given a choice at all, sometimes it goes something like this, “So, you could live in this here DBT-based residential program, or… you could be homeless. What do you choose?”

    Additionally, some people who ‘choose’ DBT do so under coercion or misinformation. And, once they’ve ‘chosen,’ and they realize it’s not working for them, they can’t easily or immediately undo their ‘choice.’ So, yeah, what you offer here changes nothing, and simply re-enforces my impression that you’re not paying attention to what’s actually happening to so many people in the mental health system.

    By insisting that peer supporters deviate from listening to the person they’re supporting over all other influences, you are diminishing the most very basic point of this all. At the very least, if a person participating in DBT chose it voluntarily, then surely THEY know that. If, knowing that, they still choose to reach out to a peer supporter and ask them to advocate or help with something that clinicians may seen as ‘interfering,’ they do so also knowing that. Are you suggesting that the peer supporter nonetheless treat that person as a child who can’t knowingly decide to act outside of the DBT framework, and that the peer supporter needs to take on that responsibility?

    In my world of peer support, we practice responsibility *to* one another, not for. The system has already done far too much harm being responsible ‘for.’ If a peer supporter has a question (so much of our work is about questions and curiosity), then they can *ask* the person with whom they’re connecting. After all, this is all so much more about understanding THAT person’s worldview and NOT someone else’s (and certainly not Marsha Linehan’s). I reject this idea entirely, and continue to assert that such beliefs will contribute to further destruction of whatever good and potential may be left. So, yes, ‘clinical, I do think so.’

    You go on to offer that, “Ms. Davidow’s comments on the Code of Ethics are her opinion… They are the same as the majority of codes of ethical behavior that any certified professionals agree to.”

    Well, okay, but this isn’t the “majority” of work. It’s an employment structure for people who have faced silencing and discrimination. It’s already been severely co-opted and misunderstood. While I don’t agree with everyone here who says its pointless altogether, I do seriously question whether there’s any way to have it exist and hold it on track as anything else than what people here accuse it of being. Peer support is also already something that people like Tim Murphy, Susan Inman, Elinore McCance-Katz, E Fuller Torrey, and DJ Jaffe have sought to control or destroy. The language of not practicing beyond one’s expertise is precisely what was put into the Murphy Bill in an effort to control peer roles in really limiting ways.

    Saying this is all ‘just the same’ as any other license is just silliness as far as I can tell. Don’t you at least think the level of potential for discrimination is worth considering before people start signing off on this thing? Has it not occurred to you that various Anosognosia disciples might lodge complaints simply to push these issues? Are you ignoring national news of the Murphy Bill passing under the 21st Century Cures Act or McCance-Katz making her way into SAMHSA with destroying peer support on her mind? Might you not be handing them just the tools they need?

    I just recently received an e-mail from someone wishing we’d get ‘shut down’ simply for hosting a Coming Off Psych Drugs event. You seem to be very naïve about the potential dangers here, and that is terrifying given you are constructing a framework in which so many other people may get caught.

    You close with this: “Ms. Davidow is writing this in a blog about Mental Health America, so the clear implication is that MHA is shrouding itself in “so-called peers” and “party liners.” The comments about not being able to see through their own medicated haze and tokenism are even more revolting.”

    Are you denying that organizations across the country are hiring up “party liners” and people who haven’t made their way out from under the weight of over prescriptions and other varieties of disabling treatments enough to think about their role? If you’re truly suggesting that’s not a thing, then you’re not paying any attention at all. None of that is meant to disparage the people working in peer support who get caught up in that trend, as it’s usually not really their fault. But, to ignore the phenomenon is just as dangerous as everything else you suggest.

    But you seem really wed to ignoring all this. For example, when you say “The individual who “confessed” to feeling beholden to their employer was not referring to us since they are not an employee of our office,” you’re missing the point entirely. Is it intentional?

    It doesn’t matter if they were talking about Mental Health America when they told me how silenced they felt at times. They were saying it in regard to a presentation they were offering, and in general. They were explaining how they felt that – whenever they acted in a professional capacity relating to their role in any way – they felt they needed to watch what they say, and tow at least some part of the party line. Your unwillingness to understand how that connects to MHA’s work is baffling to me.

    Patrick, this national certification is not a good thing. (And neither, I suspect, is Canada’s, though I know much less about it.) None of this is news to you. People have spoken up at your presentation at iNaps, at Alternatives, and more. Your blog really doesn’t present a convincing argument otherwise. I hope you’ll consider this further, but it seems clear you won’t.

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  • Hi Patrick,

    I don’t have time to respond to this right now (but, boy is there a lot to respond to)! However, I just wanted to say thank you! I’ve been cited in blogs and articles before, and even been the focus of an article outside of the Mad in America world.. But this is totally my first Sera-focused Mad in America blog written by another party. 🙂 It’s kind of like when I got my first ever hate mail following a letter to the editor that got published in the New York Times. Pretty exciting stuff.

    I look forward to having the time to respond.

    -Sera

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  • Hi CatNight, Very true indeed. I almost included some of that history in the blog, but decided not to go off on another thread… However, it’s nonetheless a valid point. This is not the first time we’ve had a president who is potentially ‘diagnosable’, but that means little for each president and certainly nothing for them as a group compared to one another.

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  • Thanks, Eric. 🙂 You bring up an important point that I’ve also argued at times… Not only is there a low prevalence of violence among people with psych diagnoses, but the fact that someone who commits violence has a psych diagnosis does not necessarily mean there’s a causal relationship. Far fewer people recognize the latter, than the former. And, of course, when we *do* start to look at what qualities and characteristics are most common in people who commit violence, it points us in another direction entirely…

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for your thoughts, Anonymous!

    This is an interesting and good point: In some respects, I hope they do succeed with getting the president with a diagnosis. I would love to see a congressional hearing on it for all the world to see. How annoyed do you think he might become then? Can you see his lawyers pick apart the basis for psychiatry and diagnosis?

    However, the likelihood of that success is super low, and the likelihood of harm done (or at least perpetuated) is high (and already happening).

    In some ways, this article is a bit of an experiment. I’ve intentionally NOT challenged the basic psychiatric paradigm (though I’ve equally as intentionally not supported it), because I’m not sure it’s necessary (and in fact may be detrimental) to use that as a starting point with people in the liberal/progressive camp. It’s such a leap from where they sit now, but trying to win understanding by focusing more on the basic human rights violations and injustices is less of a leap…

    Perhaps, if the conversation starts there, rather than with something that is SUCH a leap for people to take, they might listen a bit more… And then, if they do, they might be more open to the next push..

    We’ll see. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Hi BigPicture,

    Thanks for your lengthy and eloquent response. 🙂 I certainly want to believe by ‘doing’, we are leading the way to something different, and in many ways, we see the evidence that we are… And yet, it is all so easily co-opted and then the ‘doing’ can also lead us astray.

    -Sera

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  • epthe,

    The Hearing Voices movement definitely isn’t about telling people that it’s safe to come out about hearing voices! It’s definitely understood that that’s a risk for a lot of people. And, at the same time, when people are willing to come out, hopefully they make it a little safer for others to be able to do the same eventually. Totally respect your position, though. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • JanCarol,

    Thanks for your comment! Yeah, I’ve noticed more and more the weird little recommendation buttons popping up in my chatboxes on Facebook… or ads that correspond to some element of what I’m saying! :p It is disconcerting to say the least… Though in fairness to Joy, what I’ve seen in her responses suggests a total lack of attention, rather than too much. But, I hear you and your fears on this count seem totally valid to me!

    -Sera

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  • John, I do see you last comment got removed for moderation! I can’t quite remember what it said. :p Joy does seem fair game, though, all things considered… Someone recently e-mailed me to let me know there’s a new bot on the Facebook scene called ‘Woebot’, too…

    That one is… I don’t know. Different. It gets around Joy’s biggest issues by simply providing pre-determined bubbles one can choose for response. :p

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  • Thanks, Stephen. I agree he doesn’t have too much understanding at all… Precisely what I meant to convey with these lines:

    “This isn’t your world. You don’t belong here, at least not without some humility and a guide.”

    “Joy basically is Danny. All his good intentions, hopes and dreams, naivete, ignorance, arrogance, and blind spots are there in equal measure.”

    I wish he’d recognize that.

    -Sera

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  • Hi Bradford,

    Actually, just for your reference (and anyone else’s), if you go to ‘About’ in the Mad in America drop down menus, and then go to ‘Contact Us’, there’s a drop down menu from which you can choose any Mad in America employee or author and send an e-mail.

    People have definitely contacted me that way! I also don’t mind giving people my e-mail, but I’m reluctant to post it here for spam purposes.

    I’ll also be upfront that while I do my best to respond to all e-mails I do sometimes read something and then lose track of it, if I can’t respond right away, and so sometimes it may require people to ‘nudge’ me to bring me back around…

    I heard someone else talking about that film, but I at least *thought* they responded more positively to it.. I don’t know much about it myself at all.

    In any case, I’m realllly overwhelmed in work life right now, and am headed out of town for three weeks mid-summer, but I’m willing to give it a go, if you think I can somehow be useful up there!

    -Sera

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  • Matt,

    Yes, it does seem invisible to many who are on the inside of it! I think even of commenters here who are simultaneously challenging the validity of this article’s claims, while unknowingly pointing out some of the fundamental pieces of exactly what the article says makes the whole system tick along. It does all end up feeling a bit like asking the organization to change is like asking a human being to learn to not only live but prosper without food…

    Anyway, thanks for reading and commenting!

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, CCHR. Unfortunately, I worry your posting here under that name and promoting that website will suggest to people that this article is somehow related to Scientology, given that CCHR does seem to be linked. I do, at least, want to be clear that what I’ve shared here in this article is actually independent of any CCHR research, and includes sources like Mother Jones, New York Times, and even some very conservative sources like Pete Earley and DJ Jaffe. I don’t mean to suggest, either, that CCHR doesn’t include some valid and independently findable research, as well… But I do worry about the motives that are at the roots.

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  • Michael,

    Unfortunately, part of NAMI’s gig is to suck up all the air so no other ‘gas station’ is able to grow. It’s not as if they just benignly offer supports that people can take or leave… They are a part of a machine that conveys *one* way of thinking about such distress (intertwined with capitalistic interests), that lobbies for force and money to be taken *away* from alternatives and put into more ‘clinical treatments’ (that’s, after all, part of what the Murphy Bill aims to do…), etc. etc. etc.

    -S

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  • Thanks, Catnight, for all your thoughts.

    You mentioned a church you thought was progressive… I think one of the things we’re up against, is that people who are generally ‘progressive’ see ‘reducing stigma’ and increasing ‘treatment accessibility’ *as* the progressive things to do, without ever really stopping to understand that all the ideas that underlie those things are decidedly *not* progressive at all. It’s a huge part of the struggle.

    Sometimes theater pieces help, and there’s been the occasional good media piece (this for example! http://thesunmagazine.org/issues/496/an-open-mind), but *so much* that is geared toward making people think is just going out to the same audience as always.. So, part of the challenge is not just how to construct those pieces, but to find a way to expose people beyond our own bubble to them and *then* have those dialogues. Such a complex web to sort out…

    -Sera

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  • Carrieb, I am definitely no expert when it comes to search optimization, but I’d like to become one… I think it’d be good for our community to learn far more about that. As far as Mad in America goes, in the background they are paying attention to ‘SEO’ ratings which help articles rank higher… I always make sure my SEO rating is ‘green’ (good to go!) before I submit it for consideration, and I know there are Mad in America staff that will help with that if the author isn’t familiar with the process. And yet, that’s certainly not nearly enough to compete with NAMI just yet!

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  • Pat,

    I spent some time trying to figure out what you mean about ‘Split’, since I never actually refer to anyone as a “good boy”…I think you must mean this passage:

    First you have the goodhearted soul loved by all (or at least most), but who inevitably slips up every now and again, falls off their drug regimen and gets at least a tad out of control… Perhaps all in effort to provide a sort of ‘Public Service Announcement’ about just how bad it can get when one is so ‘non-compliant.’

    Maybe not? I’m not sure. I guess, if you mean that passage, I think you may be misinterpreting the point. The point wasn’t to put down people who actually have that experience, which is valid, but to put down the use of that experience as a boiled down stereotype used to scare everyone else into never trying to withdraw from their psychiatric drugs.

    I feel like there are a lot of times when you are misunderstanding what is being said, or reading a lot more into it… Not just here – where admittedly my sarcasm and ‘snark’ are turned on high a lot of the time – but in other settings and with documents and conversations that aren’t mine. I think you have a lot to offer from both your own experiences and your work, but I’m left wondering why there’s such a barrier to simply understanding what’s being said…

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  • Steve,

    Fair enough. This whole science conversation is an interesting one… How easy it is to discredit actual science as anti-science when it simply doesn’t fit with the power structures and dominant beliefs…And how hard it is to get people to listen to the *actual* holes in the ‘science’ that supports them.

    Sera

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  • Steve,

    I agree with your comment.. .AND, I would add a point which I also tried to make in this blog (as well as – perhaps more strongly – in my Autism Speaks blog): While local chapters may sometimes be miles better than the national NAMI, at least part of what that accomplishes is to give national NAMI an opportunity to say ‘see, we’re not so bad!’ and distract people from a very serious problem. In other words, it’s great when local NAMIs are better… great for those local people… but still, in some ways, potentially harmful to the bigger picture.

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  • Hi BillDare,

    Thanks for reading and for your comment. Yes, there’s lots of articles and fear circulating with Elinore, with the potential new appointments to the NAMI national board, and with so much else. Not too sure where it means we’re headed, or what conversations we might be having in a year, or two, or five as a result…

    -Sera

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  • Michael,

    NAMI has never pushed drugs? Hmmm… Aren’t they essentially doing that by pushing the Murphy Bill and Involuntary Outpatient Commitment?

    They have also pushed ideas like that psych diagnoses are unquestionably brain diseases, chemical imbalances, and/or ‘just like diabetes’…

    And, if you disagree, well, they’ve got that great little ‘anosognosia’ section on their website..

    These are all pushing drugs in one way or another… In fact, they’re much more effective ways of pushing drugs, then if they literally pushed drugs in the ways you seem to be imagining we mean…

    -Sera

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  • Hi Michael,

    So, I can appreciate you have felt helped by NAMI, and won’t attempt to take that away from you. However, when you say this:

    “aside from helping me come to terms with an illness and encouraging that I listen to recommendations by a psychiatrist, NAMI has done nothing to sell me or feed me drug information.”

    I say THAT is exactly what I – and the pharmaceutical rep I quoted above – am talking about. NAMI *does* engage in overall advocate and lobbying that help drug companies directly, but more notably they push people into the paradigm that *leads* them to take the drugs…

    The pharma rep’s point above was exactly that. That direct pushes toward specific drugs are NOT the most helpful approach. But that the more indirect approach of just convincing people they *need* drugs via advocacy to regard one’s self in a particular way… that’s proven quite effective.

    So, I’m not surprised what you say… in fact, it fits well within what I’d expect.

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  • Thanks for your post and thoughts. 🙂 I fear that we have a longgggg way to go before we can really say that it’s mainly just the politicians/1% that are pushing in the psych drug direction…. BUT I do think there’s nonetheless validity in what you say, and we should definitely be paying attention. It makes sense that it would be that way when we think of the ways in which systemic oppression works.

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  • Steve,

    Yes, I think you’re on track and are understanding what I’m getting at very well. I *would* ditch the world ‘client’ (as you seemed to realize during your post) as I’ve seen too many people internalize that they are ‘client’ into their identity and that *alone* can keep them stuck in a system that often isn’t truly helping them. But the rest of what you say is great.

    Kurt, I don’t think anyone here (myself included) are trying to say that you are ‘bad’, but I am saying that you haven’t hit the mark yet… You and co-workers may be miles better than the average clinician who hasn’t considered some of the things you have… But you *and* your co-workers and students still seem to be missing a huge piece of the puzzle.

    If, as you indicate below and Steve says above, you’re only here because you care about Bob’s work and the problems with the pharma industry, you’re missing how deep some of the system’s problems run. I don’t mean the occasional time when it got so big that you were able to see it again (as you’ve named a few exceptional examples above), but when it just stayed at that sort of day-to-day level of bad and power-ridden and oppressive so that it was mostly invisible to those who weren’t looking for it.

    This is the nature of most systemic oppression. The big and obvious examples are able to seen by *most*. But the system actually runs on the more insidious, harder to see stuff… Harder to see because you’re on the power end of it, and so it just looks like business as usual to you. And by you, I don’t mean *you*, but really anyone who is living on the privilege end of the stick (so, also you).

    It’s the *same* phenomenon that means the average white person *can* easily see the really egregious examples of racism, but has a much harder time pulling out the conditions or microagressions that are truly what sets up the environment for those bigger things to happen… Same with sexism… and homophobia… and all of it.

    I hope you’ll spend some more time trying to see.

    -Sera

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  • Yes, I misapplied *one* statement (about people being ultimately happy to be in hospital). Everything else has been a response to you. Nothing I said in my last comment – and only one bit of my first comment – had anything to do with what I misapplied.

    Kurt, You’ve come here to this site for the first time… a site full of people who’ve lived these things (though that’s certainly not representative of all bloggers here or the site’s full point), but you don’t seem to have a lot of respect for that. Or, at least, that’s how you come across to me.

    No, I don’t know who you are. But, I do know that what you’re conveying – as I believe someone else said – comes across as feeling tone deaf to me. You’re talking about what you believe to work in the world of ‘suicide prevention’ (a problematic concept at its very roots), but you are speaking in some of the least human-sounding language about what is the most human of matters: life and death.

    I don’t think you can fully see it, which is why I brought up privilege. I hope something makes it all more visible to you at some point.

    Sera

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  • Okay. I was trying to be reasonably polite. This might be somewhat less so.

    Your response – and much of your blog – comes across as pretty pretentious and … well, I’ll leave it at that.

    In fairness to you, I did mix up some of my notes and was attributing some of what Dickson said above to you…So, apologies for that much.

    However, the rest is for you. Your overly academic way of speaking, assumptions about what people (including myself) do and don’t know, and globalized way of speaking about *all* of your students and virtually *all* of your co-workers as somehow different and more special than almost every other clinical worker in the country is extremely off putting.

    And sure, you can’t vouch for an entire website of tools… The problem is, if you’re going to blindly direct people to such a thing, you might want to offer *some* information about just how much drek they might have to sort through. It’s not just that some will work better culturally for some groups than others, and vice versa. Some of it is actually dangerous. Some of it is primarily a marketing tool to get kids into ‘treatment’.

    It’s interesting that you defaulted to your whiteness and maleness when referencing my comment about privilege. It is true, you are privileged in that way, and I share the privilege of whiteness with you. However, what I was specifically referring to is your privilege of power in your role. You’ve never been – at least as far as I can tell – on the opposite end of the ‘suicide prevention’ stick. I have. Almost everyone I work with has. The privilege of not having ever been there – and not living on that cusp now – is big, and I do not think that you recognize it.

    You’re all theory and acronyms. I’m familiar with CAMS (and if I wasn’t, I luckily say through the aforementioned extraordinarily painful and offensive suicide training on Tuesday where it was reviewed). I’m also familiar with the BS that is ‘Zero Suicide’, I’m intensively trained in DBT by Charlie Swenson and Cindy Sanderson. Blah blah blah. I *know* what you’re talking about.

    And I disagree with most of it.

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  • Kurt,

    I have admittedly only read through your blog and then skimmed the comments, so I may be missing something already said in the subsequent dialogue, but I would like to point out that you have linked to a ‘suicide prevention’ resource that promotes products that are – in some cases – pharmaceutically funded. For example, it includes the SOS program about which I wrote a blog (https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/01/middle-school-invasion-when-the-pharmaceutical-companies-come-to-town/) when they tried to peddle it to my son at his middle school.

    While I understand what you’re getting at with some of what you write, I found myself reacting with concern to a number of points. For example, this emphasis on restriction of means… It reminds me of a suicide and self-injury training I attended earlier this week.. One (of many of) the most disturbing moments was when the trainer said that – after a particular suicide – he restricted anyone receiving services at the org where he worked from living in an apartment that was any higher than the second floor. Great. (Not really.)

    I’m also having trouble getting past your statements about people basically being happy to be locked up and become powerless… I mean, sure, some people experience an *element* of that, but if that’s your main takeaway on most occasions, I fear for what you’re missing.

    On the whole, I hope you realize that when you live the privilege of as much power as you hold, it’s almost *inevitable* that you’ll be missing several elements of what it is like to live on the other side of that power split. I hope you’ll hold that in mind and consider it deeply as you move forward.

    Sera

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  • Steve, I appreciate your comments here. I really don’t see autistic people telling other autistic people that they *must* be happy to be autistic, or that points of struggle that may somehow be connected to being autistic aren’t actually struggles… Same for people with various psychiatric diagnoses.

    What I *DO* see is people with those experiences saying ‘let me decide for myself what is ‘struggle’ and why, and stop trying to speak for me, or force your ideas on me based on your perspectives’…

    -Sera

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  • Strandra,

    If you haven’t heard people say ‘I want it back’ or, more commonly, ‘I wouldn’t want to lose it’ in regards to some of the experiences that have led to their psychiatric diagnoses, than you surely haven’t been listening. I have heard *lots* of people say they wouldn’t want to lose their voices, especially once they’ve learned to navigate them. I’ve heard many people say they appreciate the benefits their various sensitivities bring, especially once they’ve learned to balance them and navigate the world. And so on and so forth

    As to polio and who was or wasn’t ‘born this way’… Many people certainly do have the experiencing of having been born autistic, or neruodivergent and coming to appreciate many of the benefits that have come with that for them.

    Your excuse that many people who are autistic have difficulty with communicate is immediately belied by hundreds of thousands of autistic voices, several of which are found in the links I have included in this blog. Sure, there are people who would choose otherwise… Many of us would choose something different than what we have, the intensity and variances of our why or why nots are based on many different variables. I’d not take away from someone their desire to be different… but you’re ignoring and discounting MANY people with your extremely simplistic response.

    Perhaps even more importantly, whether or not you think of autism as an example of born neurodiversity, there are many points in this blog that hold either way. And there are many voices that I include that you might benefit from hearing.

    -Sera

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  • John,

    Sami is great. I’ve met and interviewed him for a film I’m working on.

    However, I don’t feel like it’s my place to argue against such a diagnosis, when people who are quite empowered and educated about their experiences say otherwise.

    What’s clear to me is that the approach of Autism Speaks and NAMI are abusive and damaging, and that can certainly drive a diagnostic process that is dehumanizing (such as the one that led to my own pscyh diagnoses, which I’ve since discarded). And, I’ve certainly heard from people who’ve been given autistic diagnoses that oppose or feel harmed by them.

    But, I don’t think it’s necessary to buy into a ‘autism diagnoses’ are inherently bad or wrong framework in order to see that was Autism Speaks has to offer is terrible!

    -Sera

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  • Hmmm… Looking at the 990s for the overall orgs is interesting. Have you checked them out?

    Here’s what I find for Autism Speaks on the contributions/grants line:

    (2012) 53,245,999.
    (2013) 63,725,069.
    (2014) 57,552,851.
    (2015) 58,085,859.

    Unfortunately, that shows an overall upward trend, albeit gradual/small.

    For NAMI, I find:

    (2012) 8,375,875
    (2013) 8,605,802
    (2014) 11,226,125
    (2015) 7,934,069

    So, they each have a bump year where things were substantially higher and that seems not particularly reflective of the overall trend… NAMI seems less clearly going up, but not exactly consistently headed down either…

    And *holy crap*, I didn’t realize that Autism Speaks was that much bigger than NAMI overall.

    Interesting stuff.

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  • The_Cat,

    I don’t know if there’s an easy way to truly measure that… When I personally just googled ‘NAMI criticisms’ two of the articles that popped up on the very first page were:

    https://www.cchrint.org/2009/12/15/nami-is-on-the-defensive/

    https://www.madinamerica.com/2013/07/nami-and-robert-whitaker/

    I myself have also written about NAMI on more than one occasion:

    https://www.madinamerica.com/2014/03/dear-nami-apologies-ive-unfair/

    https://www.madinamerica.com/2015/09/do-nami-and-mha-suffer-from-anosognosia/

    (Though I’m certainly not making the front page of any google searches)…

    And while I wouldn’t choose to promote anything from CCHR (being the Scientology front group that they are), all four of the above links note the NAMI/Pharma link.

    And, as I said at the top, I’m just not sure how to measure the success in fighting back. It doesn’t seem we’re too successful as of yet on either front. Hoping we can change that somehow!

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Feelingdiscoruaged.

    I should clarify that the woman’s org analogy was from an autistic blogger who goes by codeman38.

    I intentionally quoted and referenced a number of autistic people here, because I did not want to be just another non-autistic person speaking about autistic experiences, without actually including those voices. Though I recognize the risk in doing so under my name is still that their words could be attributed to me, so I want to be careful about clarifying that when I can, too.

    I really appreciate this point: “Normal people are allowed to be assertive, independent and have good self esteem. For the “mentally ill” these are no no’s.”

    I’m glad it feels like your voice and awareness are coming back.

    -Sera

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  • Pat,

    I’m not sure I’m totally following what you mean? I love to write and stir things up, but as you know, I also work in a world where many of us are out there doing the work in person, too.

    I really don’t think there’s agreement on this national certification business, including that it needed to exist at all. Thus, I don’t know that the answer is to simply offer MHA some competition.

    -Sera

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  • Julie, I hear you. I think the only challenge with *no* training if we’re going to do this whole ‘peer’ thing is that *so* many people go through some of those life experiences and come out the other end all full of internalized oppression. I have to admit that I do find *some* training helpful on top of all that personal life experience to help work through some of that, think through what it really means to ‘be’ with people, be curious, support, etc. But overall, I appreciate your post a lot. 🙂

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  • Stephen,

    If I had more time on my hands, I’d be fascinated to do some research that involves not only comparing licensure requirements between these various professions and the peer role, but *also* the logistics involved in meeting those requirements as they differ for each, *AND* how they’re applied… For example, I imagine a requirement that one put their licensure on ‘hold’ as a dentist is *likely* to bear many fewer actual risks and lower likelihood of abuse than for a peer role. Oy. What a mess.

    -Sera

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  • Frank,

    Overall, I agree with you the idea that everyone who goes into the system should come out as its employee. However, there are many people for him that has been a really important path. Many of my co-workers have seen the depths of the system, and now get much satisfaction out of fighting against it in the way that they do. Of course, most of them also work with the RLC which is much less direct than working for a traditional provider. Working in a traditional provider in a peer role is a terribly hard position to sustain and not lose sight of one’s self again.

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  • Hi The_cat. Comparing some of what happens in this world with Munchausen Syndrome is interesting… There does seem to be a bit of a common element in terms of somehow getting emotional gratification via public attention associated with one’s child’s struggles… Although, I’d stop short of the idea that most of these parents don’t also really care about their kids and wouldn’t find it much more important for their kids to be in a happier, better place.

    Thank you for the story! I look forward to checking it out.

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  • Laysha,

    It is a really good question, and not one to which I have the answer. Of course, my fantasy is that articles like this one and word of mouth will prevent so any people from taking the damn thing – or organizations from being willing to pay for it – that it will fall apart for lack of funding. Unfortunately, that seems unlikely, but it won’t keep me from trying!!

    Do you have any other suggestions?

    -Sera

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  • Dan,

    It’s all needed. As you know, I spend most of my day focused on creating. This recent Sun Magazine article speaks to much of what I’m doing with my day job 🙂 http://thesunmagazine.org/issues/496/an-open-mind

    But speaking out against the Globe… and hoping others are listening (both those who might join in the speaking out, and those who might be swayed by the speaking), whether or not the Globe folks themselves are… It’s all important.

    Sera

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  • Hi Julie,

    Thanks for taking the time to comment, as always. 🙂 I know it’s true that the Globe is not alone… though it’s beyond my capacity to poke at them at all. :p But almost everything I write could be lifted and applied to these other outlets as well. Though I worry that the Globe’s Spotlight Team has more capital and credibility than most. I mean, they’re saying the same stuff everyone else is, but already seem to have been lauded more than most for doing so… as if they’re saying something new.

    Anyway, I’m sorry about your CBFS experience. 🙁 I wish it were more surprising…

    -Sera

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  • I fail to see how you’re interpreting me as having said much of anything about Hilary Clinton, let alone that she would have been some sort of savoir? This blog is quite clearly primarily about the problem of diagnosing Trump. While I do express some negative feelings toward him on occasion, that doesn’t change the primary focus and has next to nothing to do with what I do or don’t think about Hilary or how she would have treated people who’ve been psychiatrically labeled… That seems like quite a leap…

    Sera

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  • Thanks, Zippy. I appreciate you’re mansplaining… Though, I’m not 100% sure you’re a man? Are you? An, thanks for your mansplaining explanation… It’s always good – as someone who has experienced a particular type of oppression – to be told by someone who hasn’t when and when not to be offended!

    Thank you 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Zippy,

    You’re treading in territory where many of experienced systemic oppression that has crushed their lives and spirits. You’re speaking from a place of privilege when you tell those who’ve experience oppression that you have not that they’re trying to curtail your speech and thinking. What I’m telling you is that that terminology has been used to harm people. It has done harm. It continues to do harm.

    I suspect you could find another way to express your meaning. Kind of like you could express your concern for Trump’s behavior without using the non-science of psychiatric labels that have also harmed people.

    -Sera

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  • “We shouldn’t be squeamish about applying DSM criteria upon the powerful. Otherwise it remains only a way of manipulating the less powerful in this society.”

    That’s an interesting point, lizadeeza. You seem to both be acknowledging that it’s a manipulation, *and* wanting to see groups across classes more equally ‘manipulated’? I’m not sure I get that.

    Certainly, many of us see that he’s a danger to this country. I maintain that I don’t need the DSM to see that.

    -Sera

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  • It is not my fear. It is a reality. One I see *every* day for hundreds of thousands of people.

    No one is suggesting we ignore people are struggling. What we are suggesting is that these experiences of struggle are very human, and often environmentally related in some way… And that we need not segregate out those who are struggling with diagnosis. This medicalized manner of regarding people’s human suffering came about for many reasons… To make psychiatrists feel more legitimate… For the purpose of billing. As an effort to to reduce what you keep calling ‘stigma’ (and I would call prejudice and discrimination).

    It has succeeded only at those first two causes, ant not to anyone’s betterment.

    -Sera

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  • I am suggesting that people struggle. Sometimes deeply. And that it leads us far down the wrong path to understand those *human* struggles by lumping them all into *medicalized* groupings that are largely artificial.

    Sure, *sometimes* people will speak to benefits… Helped them better connect with others with similar struggles and hear what’s worked for them, etc. But the benefits are far outweighed by the negative impacts, many of which I’ve already mentioned.

    We’d be far better off seeing struggle as struggle, and then being able to pick and choose from the array of supports that people have used to make their way through such struggles… Lumping the struggle into a man made category that does not objectively exist, narrows our view and our options and does harm to many of us.

    -Sera

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  • I do not ‘have’ a ‘personality disorder’. I have a diagnosis that was the subjective opinion of other human beings, based on the subjective process of man made creation of that diagnosis for which there is no test and cannot be a test because it is literally only a way of trying to boil down what is going on with someone.

    And, if that way of boiling down an explanation didn’t lead to poor assumptions about what to ‘do’ with them, and/or lead to discrimination against them in all matters of life (including child rearing, employment, housing and basic freedom), that wouldn’t be the end of the world. But that’s not how it works.

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  • I was diagnosed with a ‘Personality Disorder’ at one point in my life. What it did most effectively was give those who hurt and traumatized me a pass, because the diagnosis suggested it was a ‘mental illness’. The best thing I did to ‘cure’ my ‘mental illness’ was get *away* from the system and all the ‘help’ they were trying to provide me. Whether or not the various things I was doing then or since then had any relation to any sort of diagnosis is completely subjective opinion. But, somehow, I’ve managed to be a successful mother and leader of a fairly complex organization.

    Your ‘perspective’ is *exactly* the sort of thing that leads people to lose their kids because of a psychiatric diagnosis, or not be hired into complex and stressful jobs… Your ‘perspective’ would serve to ruin my life, and it has ruined the lives of many others.

    Look at what someone is doing, not some subjective, man made diagnosis.

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  • Yes, it sure is discrimination… It is making assumptions and limitings someone potential based strictly on some sort of label… and, in this instance, it’s a label that has no objective proof as to its existence. What about having been diagnosed makes someone unqualified to act as president? Having been formally diagnosed does not necessarily make someone unreliable or dangerous, nor does NOT qualifying for a diagnosis render someone reliable or ‘safe’. Additionally, having a diagnosis and doing something strange or dangerous doesn’t necessarily mean that one did the later *because* of the former.

    The primary benefit you are offering to diagnosing this man is based on playing on the country’s fears and prejudice about ‘mental illness’ itself to your own advantage. I get that, but it is harmful to do so, because it feeds into erroneous and damaging beliefs that already act as the basis for this system of oppression where psychiatric diagnosis is concerned.

    This is not ‘political correctness’. That’s just an insulting way to shut down the conversation. This is people’s lives. We don’t need diagnosis to see that what he is doing is wrong and dangerous.

    -Sera

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  • Let me give a quick summary of the point of the article:

    1. Why is whether or not he qualifies for a psychiatric diagnosis relevant to whether or not he is president? It actually doesn’t matter. What matters is what he’s *doing* as president, and whether or not he is demonstrating that he is fit to serve.

    2. He could have or not have a formal diagnosis, and that wouldn’t tell us anything, and to suggest it would is discriminatory and misguided.

    3. Pointing the finger at some ‘disorder’ in his brain does little to help us examine how we got to the point where we were willing to elect someone who demonstrates the characteristics you describe above.

    4. Arguing about this legitimizes that which is not legitimate… Psychiatric diagnosis is a system heavily influenced by privilege, racism, sexism, and various other biases. Diagnoses can’t be objectively ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ because they’re not objective. This is a distraction, and harmful to those of us who have experienced societal oppression due to the legitimization of such things.

    -Sera

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  • Eh, systemic racism refers to all of the systems that we live entangled within. Every last bit of it, as it is an overall system that was designed by white, christian, (etc. etc.) men. In general, systems are racist and people’s actions and words are bigoted. Since racism and sexism etc. are systemic issues, referring to one person *as* that thing doesn’t make a ton of sense. It makes much more sense to say they are a part of it, or have somehow perpetuated or supported it, etc. In some ways this is just semantics, but overall, I think it’s critical that these issues be recognized as systemic and so I think it’s important at that level to try and use the words properly.

    In any case, I don’t really think that argument is particularly helpful here. I get to share some of my political perspective in my blogs. You get to disagree. My overall point about Trump and psychiatric diagnosis remains the same. I’m going to stop responding to this thread now. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Eh, I don’t particularly agree with the frame of ‘everyone is racist/sexist/etc.’ However, I *do* agree with the frame that all white people benefit from white privilege and have participated in systemic racism, and ditto all men re: male privilege/systemic sexism, and so on.

    You can keep putting words in my mouth because … well… this is the comments section and you get to comment… But I didn’t say ‘gotcha’… I pointed out both those who did vote for him and those who didn’t for different reasons. And I *do* think it’s a sign of a real problem that so many voted for him when he was behaving like such an overt bigot and they thought that wasn’t important enough to not vote for him. And, frankly, I’ve heard so many non-white people speak to how that has felt for them to know so many people saw that and didn’t think it was enough to not vote for him…

    So, I stand by what I say. Thanks for trying to talk me out of it, though!

    -Sera

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  • Don,

    Thanks! I guess I just really feel differently about looking at things *other* than people as being ‘sick’ in their way. ‘Societal ills’ means something very different than ‘mental ills’. The former quite specifically leads to examining (and hopefully undoing) that which is oppressive, while the latter does just the opposite. They seem quite fundamentally different to me.

    But, there’s never anything wrong with explaining precisely what is going on, so I won’t argue that that would be valuable!

    -Sera

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  • oldhead,

    I don’t know that I’d frame it as ‘attacking’. I *do* question both those who voted for him, and those who failed to have a strong enough alternative to prevent that. I do come from the position of thinking Trump is a bad choice for this country. I do also personally – although it’s not particularly represented here – come from a place where to vote for him isn’t necessarily to be a racist/sexist/etc. but *is* basically saying one is *okay* with those things…

    I feel okay about having an opinion, and I also feel okay about expressing that opinion in what I write.

    -Sera

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  • oldhead, Where precisely am I treating what he says as his imagination? As I said in my response to him, Mad in America *does* allow for inclusion of opinion from its writers. I never said that the blog doesn’t express negative opinions about Trump. However, they are fairly low key, and none of it changes the fact that – love him or hate him – diagnosing him is harmful to all of us.

    Sera

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  • Read as you choose, of course. Mad in America does leave room for author opinions provided they don’t overrun the overall point, and so you will indeed find my thoughts and feelings on a number of issues throughout many of my posts. For example, surely you would be able to tell from my blog on ‘Split’ that I didn’t like the film, etc.

    If you feel so strongly about Trump, that one blog that expresses negative feelings about him within a much broader context of diagnosing him being harmful to us all is enough for you to write off the entire site… well, that seems unfortunate to me, but who am I to argue. I hope you find what you seek!

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  • Thanks for your comment! Reading and being reminded of some of these historical perceptions and realities was interesting! I did try to raise a similar point at the start of my article as you probably saw… that this whole idea that it’s all worse for a few diagnosis or that diagnosis makes for a bad president makes no sense!

    Sera

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  • Uprising,

    I’m not so sure I agree… But, of course, I wrote it so that’s no surprise!

    But I think it’s complicated. Some people absolutely like his attitudes and approaches and I think that’s a sign of a societal ill. Others were indifferent to them. And I think that’s a sign of a societal ill. Others were desperate to believe his promises because of how terrible things already were. And that’s a sign of a societal ill. And nobody on any side was really able to produce a solid candidate or come together to ward off what’s befallen us. And that’s a sign of a societal ill. All of it.

    While I’m not down with the idea of ‘mental illness’ I am absolutely down with the idea that people use ‘mental illness’ as a way to try and cover or deflect blame for ‘societal illness’…

    Beyond that, though, I don’t really want to get involved in a Democrats vs. Republicans debate, here… It feels too important to stick to the idea that – no matter where you’re coming from politically – it’s a problem to be calling Trump ‘mentally ill.’

    -Sera

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  • AntiP,

    I certainly wasn’t suggesting Frances is *any* sort of solution… But I did think what he said in his own ‘Trump is not mentally ill’ article was revealing and of value (in a way totally different than how he meant it), nonetheless!

    I think you make an important and valid point here:
    “the further requirement that is crucial in defining all mental disorders — the behaviors also must cause clinically significant distress or impairment”.

    NOOOOOOT TRUE. Where i live (DSM criteria applies), you get get locked in a mental hospital (for months), by just refusing to take psychiatric drugs. Allen Frances knows that. Every psychiatric nurse knows that.”

    And, I too considered pointing out that his statement about needing to be suffering/impaired was actually not accurate… HOWEVER, there *is* something accurate about it all the same… That privilege that keeps a certain group from being labeled and losing power in the same way as most of the rest… And that’s where Id ecided to focus. Both are true.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for your comments, Tina. I appreciate your bringing in more of the legal context of using diagnosis to prove Trump unfit… I also agree that crisis can serve to bring us together. I hope we end up looking back at all this as a time that drove us toward meaningful and long lasting *positive* change somehow.

    -Sera

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  • Frank, I kind of lumped all the terms together in this article… In part, because whatever you call it, I do think that who gets labeled as ‘mad’ or ‘mentally ill’ or ‘crazy’ is subject to essentially the same power dynamics and societal structure… But overall, I agree with you that ‘mentally ill’ is the worse of the three because it not only labels, but also attempts to explain *why* in a way that I find particularly damaging and not based in much objective reality.

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  • Eh, I’m going to steer clear of giving *anyone* a psych diagnosis, bcharris.. But I hear what you’re saying. I definitely thing our citizens need to take a look around at themselves to better understand how we got here… And not necessarily entirely in blame, but we do need to figure out how on earth we got here so that we can, perhaps, have a shot and digging ourselves out!

    Sera

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  • Hi Kallena,

    Thanks so much for your comment. I checked out my language (I’d originally used the term ‘alter’ and got feedback that that was not ideal and that ‘personality’ and ‘part’ were better), so I apologize if I got that piece wrong. And thank you for sharing additional layers in terms of how parts might work together and influence one another, etc.

    I’m also saddened here (and wherever) I see people trying to force frameworks on each other, even when it’s a non medical one. It just seems to be a way of being that misses a large part of the point of what we’re fighting for…

    -Sera

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  • Nomadic,

    I know you don’t know me in person, but I’m the one who says that none of the system stuff – not therapy, not the diagnoses, not the drugs, none of it – worked for me. That ‘non-compliance’ saved my life. That getting away from the system when I did saved my life. Also, whenever I share my story, I share how problematic the word ‘recovery’ is and how it’s just another part of the ‘mental health/illness’ box that I don’t want to be in. So, you’ll get no argument from me on much of what you say.

    And at the same time, I just don’t find myself wanting to be another person who tells someone else how to live or what they need to do to find their own way. In fact, sometimes, I think doing that actually pushes people *more* into the system, rather than helping them be open to at least considering if there’s another way.

    To be clear, this in *no way* amounts to me encouraging people into system stuff. I spend the bulk of my time trying to build alternative choices to all that, and sharing information about things beyond the medical model, etc. But I don’t want to be just another person in someone’s life saying, ‘Hey, I know better than you.’

    It’s a tricky balance.

    -Sera

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  • Hmmm… I replied to this yesterday, but it seems it didn’t show up, so let’s try again:

    Thanks, Steve! 🙂 I particularly appreciate your sharing about the woman who used her ‘teenager’ personality (that she used against people she found threatening) against the psychiatrist. It says a ton about the dynamic we have going in this country with the system that is supposed to ‘help’!

    -Sera

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  • Vortex,

    I quite disagree with the idea that ‘Alternative Facts’ are what we offer here, as noted in a previous response to a commenter. I see ‘Alternative Facts’ (as they’re currently being offered up in the media) as NOT facts. People in this world all too often confuse what is opinion with what is fact, and in many instances those ‘Alternative Facts’ are just. not. facts. 🙂 As we get accused of being ‘anti-science’ and all that, I often find we’re being so accused by people who refuse to look at the actual science. I find people I’ve met from this website, on the other hand, to be particularly interested in what research has to say.

    Meanwhile, it is an error in evaluation to simply count up what the majority of villains *look* like. What I spoke to was the *ratio* of representation… Number of characters represented positively who are from a particular group verses number of characters represented in some negative way. Totally different reference point.

    I find it really unfortunate that you are making the assertions you are about race (mostly irrelevant in the 2010s? Really?), and that it is actually your apparent need to diminish the relevance and prevalence of racism, sexism, homophobia, and so on as it very clearly exists in today’s pop culture. My comment on that point amount to one sentence in the actual blog. At this point, it is you and other commenters who feel they must argue about it that are actually diverting the focus away from what this blog was actually about.

    I am hoping that most commenters will be interested in talking about the actual blog and its points. I’m going to do my best to resist the urge to respond to further comments on this point. 🙂

    Thanks!

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for all your thoughts, CatNight. I remember the ‘Caps for Sale’ book from my son’s childhood (somehow we missed it with my daughter several years later). I’m actually not familiar with the pieces you mentioned (King of Hearts and Madwoman of Chaillot), but curious to look them up! Somehow, I think we need something of … Harry Potter… status or something… that really takes hold in pop culture, but gets at all these issues!

    -Sera

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  • Matt,

    I say what I say because it’s cis, white, heterosexual men who are most frequently portrayed on TV and in movies as strong, smart, non-criminals and non-sex objects, etc. I say what I say because the ‘default’ role for the portrayal of a white, heterosexual man in pop culture is *not* as the disposable sidekick for comic relief or who is most easily expendable when someone needs to be killed off. I say that because the majority of big Hollywood (etc.) directors and producers are white men who so commonly create starring roles in their own ‘default’ way of thinking (also influenced by what they think will ‘sell’)… which is basically in their image. This doesn’t make them (necessarily) ‘bad’ or ‘evil’, not does it make the average man so. It’s simply more evidence of our container, and how we’ve been taught to think and prioritize and skew. Media is no different than any other part of our culture in that way.

    What you say – that more people of color experience poverty, and so on – is certainly also accurate. But, this is not what is at the root of this phenomenon, even if it’s one influencing factor.

    Race (and gender, etc.) are *always* a relevant issue. Because ‘systemic oppression’ means just that. *Systemic*.

    Thanks for your comment, and for giving me the opportunity to explain. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Matt. Yes, at some point, the Globe agreed to publish an editorial I wrote, and I made a point to highlight some of the bad in the current system that they’re ignoring and some of the good (like Open Dialogue) potential they’re overlooking. They published it, but it doesn’t seem to have actually impacted them at all…

    And yeah, it seems so incredibly disingenuous for any of the Globe crew to be hanging on to claims that they’re not pro force (or paternalism). They are terribly clear where they stand in the excerpts such as the ones you cited above.

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  • Dear all,

    I am writing just to let you know that I am headed out of town and away from Internet connectivity for most of the next week.

    My general policy as a writer is to respond at least once to each commenter, but I just won’t be able to do that much after today and until the 27th or so.

    I apologize in advance for my silence, and thank you all for reading this blog and any comments you might make. 🙂

    Sera

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  • Steve,

    So true that logic clearly fails here. And it fails so terribly, that the most logical, fact based speakers among us are looked upon as anti-scientific jokes a solid amount of the time. I wish I knew what to do with that, as well. Because I myself feel like I’m stuck in a loop of trying to present logic (albeit with a healthy dose of sarcasm alongside it), and it’s obviously just not enough.

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  • Hey Anonymous,

    Thanks for your comment and appreciation of my writing style. I know it sometimes gets a little too sarcastic for some. 😉

    I did honestly flag a bit in my energy to cover this series, hence this blog covering four Globe articles at once… However, when Kelly (whose story is featured here) reached out to me and I read the awful San Antonio piece, it was just the kick I needed to not let the whole thing close with at least one more response!

    I just wish we could figure out how to get heard (and get those stories like what you mention here about psych drugs heard) in a much, much broader way.

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  • Thanks, Frank. You’re absolutely right that sensationalism was the ‘wind beneath the wings’ of Murphy and his ilk. There are so many powerful societal forces (sensationalism, greed, etc.) at work here that it feels terribly hard to effectively interrupt it here. Hoping these articles have at least served to put a bit more doubt in some people’s minds.

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  • Icagee,

    Thanks so much for your comment. I absolutely think there are many of us here who would be able to design supports that would be far more helpful than anything currently offered. And, thank you for some of your own ideas.

    The discrimination one is also huge. Unfortunately, there seems to be an underlying perception among many that when it comes to psych diagnoses many instances of discrimination aren’t actual discrimination, because they’re just ‘truth’.

    Sera

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  • Bcharris,

    I feel a little confused by your comment. Peer-to-peer support is really about coming at supporting one another with as little power differential and as much mutuality as possible. So, being responsible for sending police out on certain situations or being trained in martial arts for use on the job feels confusing to me?

    There’s several other things I feel inclined to say, but since I’m overall not sure I understand exactly your vision, I don’t want to jump into many directions trying to guess.

    Let me know if you want to clarify!

    Sera

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  • Actually, they took up over two hours of the two hours and fifteen minutes just letting the panel members talk and not letting the audience speak at all… but when I did finally get ahold of the mic, I did make mention how far more people are dying every day from the ‘treatments’ the Globe series is urging for more of… oy.

    But you make a very good point of who exactly gets to decide who is villainized…

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  • Thanks for your comment, Deena. They do approach this series as if it is a noble mission for which we should all be thankful.

    In fact, I saw two members of the Spotlight team (Scott Allen and Jenna Russell) on a panel Wednesday night, and they were quite self congratulatory about the whole thing… and Jenna (who I’ve actually liked and appreciated during individual conversations in the past) basically said that while she acknowledged that they’d perhaps contributed to ‘stigma’, that the real ‘stigma’ causer was that we (people with psych diagnoses) keep killing people. Oy. It was something else.

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  • Thanks so much, Alex. I appreciate your taking the time to really explore what we’ve offered and beyond.

    I want to be upfront that the video I linked you to and to which you refer in your comment here is one I only watched for the first time *after* the blog was written (it was actually already waiting on the Mad in America system for moderators to post when someone shared it with me), and I have no idea if Earl and Iden have seen it. So, our blog isn’t really based on that video, but there are many points that do resonate with it.

    I appreciate that you’re spending so much time looking for the connection points between what you’re hearing and learning and your own experience. Relating is *so* different than taking as one’s own, and is an important part of how we can build understanding and connection.

    Again, thank you for your time and comment.

    (A quick note to others: We decided to let these comments through because Alex’s conversation got cut off mid-way when we closed the comments, and it seemed to make sense to let it be completed!)

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  • Although things have quieted down a bit in here, we have collectively decided that closing the comments section makes the most sense at this time. But, before we do, we just wanted to offer some closing comments from each of us:

    EARL: Whoa! I am always hesitant to discuss race. It is kind of half the point of a racist society, the idea of making oppression such a quagmire to discuss that it isn’t worth it. However, if our thesis was that racism exists in dramatic ways in our movement, boy, were we right!

    The comments section has felt like quicksand and every time I thought of commenting, I remembered that I don’t want to fight you guys. This has felt terrible and unfortunately, this is what has been put out to people of color. This visceral response has been noted and I am in agreement that ending it now makes sense.

    IDEN: One of the things I find most fascinating about the comments section is that it appears that mostly older White men populate the comments. They argue incessantly about liberals and the usage of particular language and whose voice should not be ‘that of millions’ yet they use their two or three as if they are ‘the voice for millions’ themselves.

    Making space for others in between the MIA pages is crucial to ensuring diverse voices are heard. There is nothing to be gained by listening to the few. There are many lessons to be learned in the MIA space around access, privilege, the use of writing as a privilege, and oppression, but most importantly using it as connecting. I wish to use it more for connecting.

    SERA: It seems relevant to note that this is only the second blog (of 55) that I have been a part of where the decision was made to close down the comments. The first was ‘Dear Man: Sexism, Misogyny, and the ‘Movement,’ published almost exactly one year ago. Comments were closed at 200 because of the level of vitriol that the topic drew out. This one made it over 350, but the response has felt very similar.

    A lot could probably be said in comparing the two blogs, but the basics are clear: Each directly asked our ‘movement(s)’ to take a hard look at the realities of how we’re treating particular groups of people, and how we’re perpetuating specific ‘isms’ whilst claiming to fight systemic oppression. I feel sad about this blog – which ultimately (simply and straightforwardly) asked people to consider the images and words they use, and to center the feelings and voices of people of color, particularly when it comes to the experience of being non-white in this world.

    Regardless of how people felt about the ‘tone’ of what we had to say, it was offered honestly and because we see a serious problem – this absence of people of color in our movement(s). The comments section helped illustrate *why* that is the case. The question continues to be what do we do about it.

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  • The timing, oldhead, is that the blog was finally read to go. Nothing more nefarious than that! I took a quick look through the comments on Noel’s blog because I was interested in her blog. Didn’t even see your comparison. This blog was written because all the points above are serious issues… it’s not about you. 🙂

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  • Nah, it’s totally not ‘no MLK’ quotes. A co-worker of mine, Caroline, took me on a lengthy walking tour of DC, and one of my favorite parts was the MLK monument and looking at all the quotes. He’s said *lots* of *great* things.

    The *problem* isn’t quoting him overall… It’s that Paolo (in the example in the blog) took his quote and warped it into something it was never meant to say… Or that David Oaks used his words to apply to mostly white groups and than suggested those mostly white groups were what MLK envisioned which again seemed at least a bit appropriative…

    In addition to that, there is a certain trend to almost only and ever quote MLK when one wants a quotable black person (which seems either representative of substantial lack of exposure to black history and the many people of color who’ve said important things and/or that MLK said things in ways that are more palatable to white people than some others might have), so it does feel important to broaden our knowledge and exploration of quotable people… But I don’t think anyone’s saying MLK is off limits entirely if you’re white.

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  • Humanbeing,

    I wonder where we’d be able to get if we did the following:

    If a black person or other person of color says, “Hey, it hurts in a deeply personal way when you say that” [e.g., psychiatric slavery] or “it feels like you don’t see me when you say that,” [e.g., color blind] or “that’s a misuse of my (or another person of color’s) words or culture” [e.g., appropriation of MLK’s quotes, etc.], and a white person simply said, “Okay. Thank you for letting me know. I won’t do that again.”

    And if people who are not female-identified could similarly listen to those who are, and respond similarly when it comes to what it’s like to be a woman in this world…

    And if people who haven’t experienced psychiatric oppression could similarly listen to those who have, and respond similarly when it comes to what it’s like to be psychiatrized in this world…

    And so on. Where would we be then? Because that’s one of the central, underlying points of this blog, and the railing of so many white people against it is kind of exactly the opposite.

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  • I don’t recall the nature of your (or oldhead’s) participation, Richard, so I personally was not attempting to make any references to it (or any specific person). When I speak about that blog, it is primarily to point out that it followed a very similar course to this one in the comments section overall.

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  • humanbeing,

    There is a common trap left to lie for those of us who are speaking of systemic oppression from the vantage point of first-hand experience. I have been called out more than once for speaking out about misogyny and sexism in this movement, and *I* have been painted as the problem… Not the man about whom I was speaking (and I wasn’t swearing, or calling names… simply stating clearly that I would not work with a certain person and why, in one situation that comes to mind) who has explicitly done things that have hurt women. But, me for calling them out. Because I didn’t do it in a way that was most palatable for some in the group who was hearing it. (And, honestly, I’m not sure anything would have been palatable other than silence.)

    I have also been the person who was told that I spoke up in a way that couldn’t be heard by providers about psychiatric oppression… That maybe even that term is too harsh for their ears. That it’s great when I tell my story, but that it might be too much ( at least too much too fast) to actually expect them to effect some sort of change after I share some of the most intimate details of painful periods of my life.

    And – on the other side of things – at times, I’ve *been* the person who looked at some of the chalk drawings on my college campus’s walkways written out by the local LGBTQQI* community and said, ‘That seems a little too extreme They’re never going to get their message across if they say it like that.’ And, I’ve felt similarly in the past about some of the anti-racism actions I’ve witnessed. ‘Is inconveniencing people really the best way to get heard?’

    So, yeah, I’ve been on *both* sides, including the side you seem to currently be sitting on – where you’re telling Iden that he’s (we all are) being too angry to deserve to get heard. I can tell you, though, that I don’t feel proud about the examples of myself that I offered above. Because – while I do think there’s different best approaches for different situations – I also think it depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. And, perhaps, more over, I think it makes sense that people *ARE* angry!

    Hell, Iden is the *only* black person who’s been responding consistently on a thread that now has over 300 comments, many of them being ones that reportedly feel quiet upsetting and offensive to several people of color (and others!). How long is he expected to tolerate that and not sound at least a little bit upset or irritated? What about all the other people who’ve sounded a little upset or irritated on this thread? Has that not bothered you?

    We simply *can’t* say, hey, come, non-white person, into this white world we’ve created here, offer up your thoughts, let us tell you how wrong you are, share your experiences and feelings openly, but could you do it *perfectly* (as defined by us)… and, please, don’t get upset, keep your voice down, stay calm(er than we’re expected to)… Or else we’ll have *another* way to discredit you.

    Well, I guess we can… But where it gets us certainly isn’t change.

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  • humanbeing,

    I wonder why you think that all the steps toward unification must *look* like unification along the way? Doesn’t every such process – if there’s any honesty to it – also require a painful process of naming what’s wrong, what’s been hurtful, what needs to change first? And when that happens, how often is that not – at least at first – met with defensiveness and anger?

    I went into this with absolutely no expectation that everyone would be happy and unified at the end. I went into it because these problems aren’t being openly named, and our movement is not just ignoring but perpetuating them. I went into this with the hope that at least we might play some role in bringing that more to light. It would have been great if it had gone better, but this is a necessary step and I feel like we have successfully been a part of taking it.

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  • Richard,

    I can see that you are very upset with me at the moment. For what it’s worth, my initial thoughts about you weren’t made up or simply to appease you. I’ve seen you challenge yourself and the approach the work you do with great seriousness and care.

    But, I’m also not going to cave here. I think your insistent focus on ‘identity politics’ is a problem that comes across as a dismissal, much like the ‘political correctness’ accusation. But, I’ve said this before.

    One thing I perhaps haven’t said before – or at least in this particular way is this: People in this comments section seem to be taking some of this very personally, and hearing me and some others as if we are saying ‘YOU ARE A RACIST.’ And, that’s not quite exactly what’s being said. At least by me.

    Racism is about systems… Systems that are developed and defined by and for those in power, which results in some of us having privilege that others don’t have because we fit (or are closer to) the image of those by whom the system was designed. I imagine I’m not saying anything you haven’t heard before, and I could go deeper into it, but instead let me say this:

    While I *am* absolutely saying this movement is just as racist as any other that exists within this nation, that’s a bit different than calling particular people out as ‘racist’. I’ve heard others frame it as ‘every white person is racist,’ but I guess I would tend instead to say ‘every white person has benefited somehow from the privilege that comes with being white, and has participated in some way in perpetuating that structure, even if only by not acknowledging or working to change it.’

    But not saying that straight out allows for space for it to all continue on unchecked. I pointed out the same dynamics in relation to sexism and the movement with my ‘Dear Man’ blog. I can’t recall if you commented on that one. Did you read it and have the same reaction?

    You are pointing the finger and me, Iden and Earl for ‘identity politics’ and behaving poorly throughout this whole comment thread. I am pointing the finger at how we have all been together, at the reality that this movement *is* extremely white and that that doesn’t seem to be changing.

    You seem to be blaming me and my co-authors for setting up the dynamic that has shut down this conversation, but it just seems so strange to me that you’d feel in a position to place that blame when everyone I’m aware of that is a person of color that has had a reaction to this blog (certainly more than Earl and Iden at this point) is reacting to what is being posted in the comments section by a series of white men.

    Does that mean you are ‘racist’ for disagreeing? No. Not exactly. It’s not that simple. But I do think that you and others here have substantially contributed to the perpetuation of keeping this a space that feels most comfortable to white people.

    -Sera

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  • There have been several comments here and on Facebook from people who are saying there is no ‘movement’ or that there are multiple movements. I’ve said the latter, at times, myself… but I wanted to take a moment to say overall that this feels a disingenuous argument, at least here.

    Iden and I do – I think – disagree on language to some extent. I don’t use language such as ‘mental health movement’ (or ‘peer movement,’ or ‘recovery movement,’ etc.), and if I do speak about movements, it’s usually without any specific title, or ‘human rights movement,’ or (occasionally) ‘psych survivor movement’…

    However, I think it’s disingenuous to go too far down that path here for two reasons.

    1. It strikes me as silly to say that there is not a movement… When many of us are on the same email lists and list servs, when many of us go to conferences and see the same people (or know the same people who aren’t there because they disagree with the conference’s existence or what have you), when so many of us recognize each other’s names even though no one outside of this ‘movement’ would and even though we’re on opposite sides of the spectrum, when – whether or not we agree – so many of us are familiar with the same ‘in’ language and warring perspectives and common points made within each…

    I don’t want to be associated with a movement that promotes ‘peer’ roles over understanding and undoing psychiatric oppression, or talks about ‘mental illness’ as a global truth, or wastes time on ‘stigma’ campaigns… My personal perspective tends to resonate most strongly with those of you who are talking almost entirely from an oppression/liberation point-of-view. AND, I know there’s still a movement. It’s a movement (or smaller, fractured, somewhat interconnected movements, if you prefer) that has dark and co-opted pieces to it… A movement that I think is largely failing. And many people with whom I *refuse* to unify because unity strictly for the sake of numbers, and with no attention to integrity seems like a failure all on its own…

    But, to say there is nothing… just seems so strange to me.

    2. This feels like a point of distraction to me. So often, when the topic of racism comes up, people look for other topics to bring in… And this feels like an example of that to me. A way to be talking about something else. And whether that’s the intent or not (unconscious or not), it is the impact. I understand why it might be important for people to name that they do not see Alternatives as ‘the movement’ or that it is a co-optation of the movement… Fine. I see it as a broken, co-opted piece myself, but also one where I might be able to go in and share information with people stuck there who don’t know there’s anything else. We can argue another time whether I’m wasting my time, and whether that’s good or bad.

    But meanwhile, that very same section that talks about Alternatives *also* talks about a blog by David Oaks, co-founder of Mindfreedom who is engaged in pretty much the same practice. And, Frank, that’s actually where I met you. At a Mindfreedom conference. So, presumably you don’t dismiss them as at least connected to the movement you’re a part of?

    So, in the end, I think there’s value to piecing out some aspect of this ‘what movement’ conversation, but this is a blog about racism… and how it has been maintained throughout *all* pieces of *all* movements connected in any way to this issue, and how we’ve really failed at making spaces and conversations that are accessible to people of color.

    I’m hoping that people can put this ‘movement’ conversation aside for the most part, while we talk about that.

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  • Matt,

    Fair enough that you don’t want to take my statements about Facebook at face value. However, this isn’t a legal case. I was intentionally vague because what I read was from people who were *VERY CLEAR* that they did not want to be dragged into all this for the reasons that I stated.

    To call them out by name or point you to that Facebook page so you can go argue with them kind of… completely defeats that purpose and would be incredibly disrespectful on my part. So, you’ll have to live in wonder.

    And, you’re right… People on *my* Facebook page who are discussing this are mostly white.. But I’d just like to point out that many of them are women (sexism is also rampant in this movement… see my ‘Dear Man’ blog for more on that!), and the person who came into that thread on my own page and was very upset and argued with it is (shockingly) also a white man. Meanwhile, if you look at Mad in America’s Facebook page, you can also see that the people who are most vehemently disagreeing with the blog are… also white men… and then there is a person who at least appears to be a person of color who had this to say over there:

    “Scarlett Alejandra Salvo Gutiérrez Thank you, Mad in America. The refusal of all the “mental health professionals” I’ve come across to even acknowledge the huge role that racism plays in the mental issues I have is so beyond exasperating. unfortunately, the comments here are pretty exasperating, too. So things go. Thanks for putting this out there.”

    Yet, you are here continuing to say things like “if we can’t dialogue with these people from the mysterious group, it’s a dead end – if they think we’re unwelcoming (without having ever talked to us, I should add), and we don’t know how to contact them – then there is no way of interacting or changing perceptions. Thus things will remain a closed system…”

    So, you know. I guess I’m left with the fact that you really seem so ready to argue and look for any loophole that lets you out of needing to take a hard look at this topics from a *much* more open, much less ‘I’m the expert’ kind of place. A *HUGE* central point of this blog was that we are not creating spaces as a movement that leave room for people of color to even want to come into them. Your insistence that people should just ‘give it a go,’ ignores a lifetime of hurt that so many of people of color have experienced in this country, *and* for many, what they have also already experienced in this movement. You’re also ignoring the fact that some of the people I referenced may not have spoken, but they sure did *look*… And they saw people like you, oldhead, Frank and others doing exactly what they were concerned would be going on…

    You mention that Earl hasn’t commented here, and I can tell you that he will be speaking for himself on this point shortly, so I will leave it at that.

    -Sera

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  • Matt,

    This is not about a popularity contest. It shouldn’t be surprising that this comments section has played out the way that it has, given that it’s a fairly common result when the topic of racism is brought up.

    What I am attempting to point out, however, is that while I and at least a few others in this comments section are trying to raise issues and point out ways of being that allow for racism to continue so unhindered, you are often speaking in a way that illustrates that for us.

    If you are unable to see yourself in the article that Iden linked you to, or even attempt to hear the problems with a white man speaking to a black man in the way that you have about race… then I just don’t think you’re ready to hear it. But, I hope that someday you are…

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Jordan.

    The inclusion of that term in such a public forum was my fault (I wrote in that part), and it had occurred to me even before your comment that I probably shouldn’t have… Although I think that it was a reflection of several people’s experiences at the time that Paolo Del Vecchio was just kind of randomly and without care throwing out the names of several black people in his speech in a way that felt chaotic and problematic, I also get that it comes across as making light of something real (Tourette’s) and using it as a joke (which is how I think it is already commonly portrayed in the media) especially when written in to such a more permanent document.

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  • Matt,

    I think that you’re trying hard here to get your point across, and I don’t think you mean for your point to be harmful.

    Yet, I continue to find most of your posts to contain extremely problematic statements. Like the one above.

    You have essentially just suggest that the primary thing stopping more people of color from posting here is their *fear* of bad response.

    Well, gosh. One of my co-authors is a black man, and this is his first blog post here… I wonder how you think he might feel about the mess that constitutes the ‘response’ in this comments section?

    Did you see my post from last night where I pointed out some of the Facebook comments I’m seeing from people of color who don’t want to come here *not* because of their fear of how people *might* respond, but because they’ve seen how people *have* responded and how white this community is and they simply do not want to do it.

    You can disagree with the blog all you want, but part of what we were getting at is how to create environments that feel even remotely welcoming and safe and open to sharing space with people of color… A bunch of white men fighting back on those suggestions, or a white man saying ‘we’ve invited them, and they chose not to come’ do nothing to create environments where that is even vaguely likely to happen.

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  • No, Oldhead, I’m not quite saying that if you ‘quote a black survivor who disagrees with Iden or [Earl] that [you’re] being racist.’ It’s not *quite* that simple.

    What I’m saying is that – in these sorts of conversations – many people have a tendency to use the ‘going out and finding the disagreeing representative(s) of a group’ as a tactic to avoid self-examination. And that *that* does often have an awful lot to do with keeping the dominant paradigm or belief system intact, and commonly avoids also looking at some of the reasons it might be easy for one to find what they seek.

    More importantly, I’m also saying that *of course* there’s disagreement within large groups of *individuals*. And that *still* doesn’t negate the fact that – when you’re hearing from someone of color on issues related specifically to the experience of people of color or the undoing of racism, etc…. that the voice of any person of color will reflect more experience on these issues than any white person could ever have…

    That doesn’t mean that each black person is equally well informed or had equal opportunity to think through the implications of all that has transpired around them or what might be required to address it or that (even if they have) that they’ll always come to the same conclusion, but one black person still can’t give you what you need to negate the experience of another black person… because *you* are still white.

    Ultimately, it’s the *drive* to hold on to one’s own views in the face of several realities (that there are people who are being hurt by it, that Mad in America and so many other arenas in which psychiatric oppression is discussed, fought, etc. are so white), etc. that ends up looking like its playing into the perpetuation of a culture where white needs and voice are the priority.

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  • AA,

    I think there has been a great deal of good in what you’ve said. I’m sorry that I haven’t recognized that.

    It’s not so much that I see it as an ‘either/or’ situation… As in, either you’re totally racist or you’re totally not (if that’s what you mean?)… Rather, I think it’s important to *assume* that we’ve *all* been impacted by racism the prioritization of white people’s needs, beliefs, image, etc… And that it does require a lot of attention and openness to see all the ways that that shows up in ourselves and others around us. And that being ‘good’ on one issue, doesn’t negate the possibility (the inevitably, really), that there are still other issues that need more dialogue and more openness for us to uncover…

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  • Richard,

    Yes, there is *absolutely* an attempt here to get people who are white and who have no heritage that includes slavery such as it has existed n this country… to stop using that term. To call that ‘silencing’ – although technically accurate – sounds an awful lot like an attempt to keep white concerns centered and some how equate the generalized desire for free speech and to use whatever word one wants to use with the impact of racism and our country’s history of enslaving black people.

    No one – and I mean no one – attached to this blog or comments section (at least that I’m aware) is suggesting that laws be changed to make any words we’ve noted here illegal. Thus, this has nothing to do with freedom of speech. It has to do with respect, basic social justice principles, and efforts to undo racism.

    Which brings me to my second point. Yes, there is *absolutely* an attempt to attach the persistent use of this term in the face of all that to perpetuating a racist culture. It’s not so much that reasonable arguments can’t be made for why the term makes some sense… But that white people have historically had control over the way language and environments are shaped, and have been able to do so without having to consider the feelings or beliefs of non-white people, and that the insistence to use this term basically ‘no matter what’ is a perpetuation of the centering of white priorities. Interpret that how you will.

    As to your question about ‘wage slavery’… I’m not going to argue that there isn’t some sense I can make of what you have detailed about Marx’s use of the term. BUT, I am going to repeat what I’ve said when people have attempted to use Szasz to defend the term ‘psychiatric slavery.’ I would not expect dead white men to be sensitive to why such terminology is problematic. And while their statements may have some value (or even great value), I am *not* going to look to them to guide my current day language choices.

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  • No one has *ever* pretended that one voice, two voices, three voices, four… represent a whole group, oldhead. But, there are a few basic things you and others seem to be missing here…

    1. In addressing issues related to racism and white privilege in this country (I focus on this country only because I feel much less well versed in what it looks like in others, although I do believe and see that it is similar in many places), a few voices should be enough to *at the very least* listen hard, because they will *ALWAYS* know more what it is like to experience racism in this world than you… What it looks like, the overt and covert ways it takes form, what it *feels* like… Always. Even in places where one believes that internalized racism may be playing a part that is easier to see from the outside then within, there is still truth in that.

    2. The *absence* of other black voices is extremely significant. It says more – perhaps – that the voices of black people who are here ever could, and certainly supports the messages we’ve heard thus far in this blog and from people of color directly. So, these are not just a random ‘two voices’ speaking within a group that is equally equipped to have an opinion all set within a neutral environment.

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  • Absolutely, John. (I’ve really appreciated your comments here, btw.) The image we pulled re: veganism was kind of to that point. We pulled that image from an article written by a woman who’s in Scotland.

    The point certainly isn’t that this movement is the only one that has this issue.. It’s more that we aren’t at all immune to this issue. There are signs of racism and white privilege all over our movement, and we *should* and need to be better, especially if we want to access our full power as a movement.

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  • Sooooooo… I took tonight off from this blog’s comment section… I’ll come back to it tomorrow.

    In the mean time, I just want to share this:

    The absolute most telling thing I’ve seen in the last 48 or so hours since this blog was released was looking at the page of someone of color on Facebook where they posted this blog, tagged many people of color, and asked them if they’d consider coming to read the comments section here and speaking up with their own thoughts and reactions. (In doing so, btw, that person did not otherwise express an opinion or ask them to say anything in particular.)

    One of them said – without (as far as I can tell) looking at the blog itself – that they’d pretty much never come to a white-led, self-absorbed (not quite the words they used, but that was the general gist) place like Mad in America, and to never ask them to do so again.

    The other person that I saw comment thus far said that they came here, started looking through the comments, and had to give up long before they got to the point of commenting because it was just too upsetting.

    Just two more voices… But, ya know. I thought it was pretty damn telling.

    See you tomorrow.

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  • AA,

    Sorry for misapplying my response to another person… However, I don’t think it’s useful to refer to ‘color blindness’ or ‘not seeing color’ in *any* context that I can reasonably think of at the moment.

    Seeing color does *not* mean treating people differently, or not being present for their struggles, fights, hurts, etc. in the same way… It doesn’t mean color has to be the focus or topic of conversation just because you’re seeing it…

    But, is there ever really a time when it’s a *positive* to disregard or ‘not see’ an aspect of who someone is? When is it not a positive to see the whole person? It just doesn’t make sense to me…

    -Sera

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  • Richard,

    Surely you can’t be suggesting that white men (and others) are being unfairly silenced because black men (and others) have said that psychiatric slavery is an unacceptable, hurtful, and disrespectful appropriation of their experience that constitutes a perpetuation of the disregard and marginalization of the feelings and needs of people of color in favor of the feelings and needs of white people as is consistent in a racist/white supremacist culture…

    That feels really bizarre to me, and if you aren’t able to see that… I at least hope others can.

    Still interested to know why this term is so important to the white people in the room that it’s worth the continued marginalization and hurt of others.. That they feel it’s ‘true’ or a ‘valid’ comparison (or however on earth you want to frame it) isn’t an answer. LOTS of things are true that we don’t push, cling to and argue for in the way that people are arguing for this… There’s something more, here.

    -Sera

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  • Richard,

    I have read and re-read your comment at this point. I see how you are defining ‘identity politics’, but no matter what you explain on or how it does or doesn’t agree with other people’s definitions of that term, your frame ultimately comes across as a dismissal. It comes across very similarly to how people’s attempt to discredit the discussion by making accusations of ‘political correctness’ comes across.

    The other thing I find strange about your definition of ‘identity politics’ is that this is a movement of people working against psychiatric oppression who very commonly say, ‘Hey, I get to make meaning of my story.’ In fact, it tends to be one of this movement’s most fundamental underpinnings.

    Yet, you seem to completely contradict that when you say: “Identity politics” promotes a view that only if you identify with a certain group (race, sexual identity etc.) then, and only then, can you speak with authority (or with some aspect of the truth) on this issue or political struggle.

    Sure. There are complexities to all this, and nothing is 100% black and white (as noted in the blog in, for example, the ‘internalized racism’ section)… But, you’re not going to get very far with me – someone who absolutely doesn’t want someone who’s not been forcibly locked up speaking with authority about what precisely that’s like, and who absolutely has looked to black people and others of color to tell me what living black or brown is like in this nation – if you’re trying to convince me that people who’ve ‘been there’ shouldn’t primarily be the ones saying what it’s like.

    Yet, with your ‘identity politics’ attempt to discredit… you not only seem to be saying that people who’ve ‘been there’ aren’t the holders of the truth, but that they apparently have approximately equal say or room to decide what that truth is as you do… Someone who’s white, not (as far as I know) been locked up against your will, etc.

    As I said in my first response, I know you to be a good and genuine person. But, I believe it is you who’s missing the mark here… And, btw, we didn’t make ‘psychiatric slavery’ the proof or ‘PRIME’ example of problems within the movement. It was one of *several*.

    In all this, I’m still wondering if you have read my comment below that begins with: “So, there’s only so long I can keep up this back and forth with some of you.. I’m going to go back and respond more specifically to some comments, but not all. Iden or Earl may choose to do differently. I just know I’m hitting both a time and energy limit here.”

    It asks some questions I’d be curious to hear your answer to… Some questions that only grow for me as I see Iden getting dismissed left and right here by white people telling him how wrong he is about being black in this world and how he should feel about what… And how – as more people join the conversation – they appear to continue to be white men.

    (And being a white man isn’t a terrible thing, btw… Unless we’re talking about racism, and your voice is just about the only one getting heard… and you’re using it to drown out what’s being said by the only person of color in the room…)

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  • humanbeing,

    All that’s being asked of you is *precisely* to ‘listen and learn’ as you put it.. No one’s expecting you to ‘get it right’ without making any mistakes. But this blog exists because when people have spoken up, historically they are *not* listened to in this movement. Or because environments have been constructed in ways that never really gave access for them to speak up in the first place.

    Most people having these conversations (at least that I’ve heard) aren’t getting mad because people didn’t know some of these things by osmosis… They’re getting (justifiably) angry because when they’ve offered their voice, concerns, hurts… they’re getting ignored. Or they’re getting responses like so many people on this blog are offering that are basically discounting everything said…

    There’s plenty of room for not knowing. You just have to know that you don’t know and be willing to own it (including, yes, with pronouns which should be hugely important to us as a movement given the abuse of trans* people in the mental health system and beyond, and the super high suicide rates that have been documented).

    -S

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  • Matt,

    Did you look at Iden’s link about ‘Whitesplaining’? Because I can tell you that everyone who has contacted me privately about this blog has had something to say specifically about *your* posts, and the ‘whitesplaining’ tone present in them… If you didn’t follow Iden’s link, I really hope you will.

    That you call his references to your whitesplaining a ‘straw man’ argument suggests if you did look, then you didn’t understand…

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  • Oldhead,

    Iden’s response is much more important than mine, but I do want to at least draw you back to an excerpt of the blog… Perhaps you missed it in your first go:

    “And beware the urge to go in search of another non-white person to contradict the first (generally done in effort to somehow vindicate one’s self). Certainly, there are many times when people of color will disagree on such points. There are many groups, after all, that fit within the term ‘people of color,’ and even if you narrow it down to just one – Black, for example – there is no obligation to be any less varied or diverse than any other group in what individuals within those groups think, feel or say. However, our time would be far better spent examining our own motives and why it feels so important to hang on to something if we’ve been told so clearly that it’s hurting a fellow human being, especially when that fellow human comes from a group that has already lived a lifetime of being silenced and devalued.”

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  • I haven’t backed myself into any corner, oldhead. No matter how nasty and loud you get, or how much you stomp your feet, you don’t get any more right.

    We shouldn’t talk about psychiatry as if it were like the Jewish Holocaust because it *hurts* people. Because it divides us. And because there are different ways we can speak to make our point that wouldn’t hurt people. Oh, and because it *hurts* people. (Yes, I know I said that twice.)

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  • Human Being,

    Your comment confuses me. I haven’t seen *anyone* ask *anyone* to deny or play ‘who has the worst oppression story’ games… *No one* would ever expect or suggest that you would tell your friend that her pain or fight was any less real or important because it has to do with psychiatric oppression.

    Honestly, when I read those sorts of things, it feels like an effort (even if totally unintentional) to distract from the issue of racism. No one wants to *take* anything away from people who’ve experienced psychiatric oppression. We’re simply asking them to be more self-aware, and to *give* respect to people who – often in *addition* to psychiatric oppression – have also lived through a great deal of racism.

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  • Richard,

    I think you are a very kind human being who does his best to operate with a great deal of integrity. I have watched you grapple with a number of issues in the time I’ve known you related to the work in which you’ve been engaged at times.

    I recognize you put a great deal of time into your response. However, I am not going to respond to it point by point. Perhaps Iden, Earl or someone else will.

    What I will say is this:

    Identity politics is defined as: “a tendency for people of a particular religion, race, social background, etc., to form exclusive political alliances, moving away from traditional broad-based party politics.”

    That strikes me as a strange way to attempt to discredit this blog, given much of the *point* is to draw to the surface the *problem* with this movement not making space for people of color with its manner of speaking and the environments it creates.

    It seems absurd to me that asking people for basic respect, and to truly *hear* the voices of black people and others of color in this movement… To let go of some of their own attachments because they are *getting in the way* of making that space… To hear and take for truth some of the ways people have felt marginalized and not welcomed here.

    Responses to this blog have ranged from short and swear-filled to ‘whitesplaining’ like you wouldn’t believe (well, hopefully you would, ’cause it’s there for all to see…) to your response which comes across as a heavily intellectualized way of essentially doing the exact same thing: Dismissing and denouncing other voices – many of whom already feel unwelcomed here – and defending your own perspective to the death.

    I’d refer you to the post I made just below this one… The one where I ask what you and others think a black person might think if they walked into this room and saw so many white men fighting to hang on to some of these pieces… I hope you will continuing to think about this all.

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  • So, there’s only so long I can keep up this back and forth with some of you.. I’m going to go back and respond more specifically to some comments, but not all. Iden or Earl may choose to do differently. I just know I’m hitting both a time and energy limit here.

    But, several things before that…:

    1. The commenters above who are responding *negatively* are (mostly) older, (mostly… maybe all?) white, (mostly) men… Some of them have said they don’t have much time for this discussion, and then proceeded to invest an *enormous* amount of time in this discussion.

    2. The commenters above (and in my Facebook and personal world) who are responding *positively* are (mostly) women and/or queer and/or people of color… Do I think that *all* people from each of those groups will respond the same? Absolutely not. In fact, we wrote that reality right into the blog above. But… at the same time… It seems awful notable to me.

    3. I wonder what this incredible mess of a comments section would look like to a black person who just randomly wandered in here. Earl and Iden have chosen to be here in their way, and all three of us *knew* the comments section would be rough. (In fact, we did talk with the Mad in America crew before the article was published about whether or not it wouldn’t be a good idea to have *all* comments automatically set to moderate because we *all* knew it would be rough.) I *do know* that the last time I engaged in a conversation of this nature in a comments section, a black person did speak up and voice that they felt alienated by the idea of psychiatric slavery. Their concerns were basically ignored or dismissed. Haven’t seen that commenter round these parts any time recently, I don’t think.

    So, yeah, if a black person wandered in here and saw a bunch of mostly older white men feeling *so invested* in terms like ‘psychiatric slavery’ and disagreeing so vehemently (and often nastily) with the people who challenged that, and said it was not okay…

    Well, this is not to say that every black person would react or think the same about it, but is it any wonder why this movement is so damn white?

    Before you post another response about how you should get to say whatever you want, or how the black (and white) people in the room who are challenging you have no idea what they’re talking about… Just take a look around at *WHO* is posting. Especially who is posting over, and over, and over.

    Who are they? And who aren’t they making space for?

    No. No. Wait! Seriously. Give it a minute before you tell me I’m playing ‘identity politics’ or just dividing us up further. LOOK around. Who’s taking up all the space? Who are you so invested in shouting down? And who isn’t talking at all?

    -Sera

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  • This is just silly, Oldhead.

    *No one* is denying the history. In fact, we’ve quite well acknowledged at various points, including in this comments section, that psychiatry has been used as a tool of oppression with any number of groups including black people (during the era of slavery and beyond), Jewish people (certainly, yes, during the Holocaust, etc.), women, etc.

    I also wouldn’t deny (and have acknowledged) that systemic oppression itself has many common components that we can point to, and then identify within the experiences of groups who’ve experienced oppression. (One example [of many] is that a common component is that it’s a common component of systemic oppression that – at least at some points – the dominant group is willing to accept members of a marginalized group as their entertainment, provided they aren’t being asked to seriously give them a legitimate voice and spot at the same table where they sit… I think of this every time groups of providers are excited to hear me share some part of my story, and enjoy how ‘powerful’ it is, while not actually giving a damn about the implications in my story about how *they* should change or wanting to hear much out of me beyond that point.)

    This is all so fundamentally different than saying x is like x (e.g., psychiatry is like slavery), or x is x (e.g., psychiatry is slavery). So, so, SO different. And that you are so vehemently tied to not hearing that is concerning to me. That both here and on my Facebook page, the dominant group of people who are objecting to this concept – and who are objecting most strongly to this blog – are older white presenting men *is* significant to me. That they feel like their life experience and vantage point qualifies them to trample the experiences and voice of people who’ve actually directly lived through racism *is* a problem.

    We’re not fighting here to decide which systemic oppression we should pay attention to. We’re not fighting here to say psychiatric oppression should now be ignored. So, ya know, maybe people could take a breath and… just stop.

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  • Oh, Oldhead. I was going to go to bed without responding to you, but I just couldn’t quite make myself do it…

    Frankly, I’ve grown weary of this whole ‘what movement are you talking about’ line. I mean, I’ve recognized in many a blog that there are different movements or at least different fragments of movements associated with one another and psychiatric oppression in some way… And we attempted to give a nod to that throughout this blog by saying things like movement(s)… But, it surely feels a bit disingenuous in the end to suggest there is *no* ‘movement’… I mean, this site plays home base to any number of ‘usual suspects’ at this point… And we all can think of who is likely to show up to speak at various conferences… Or whose writing we follow… Or some of the historical documents and publications that have been produced… Many of us who’ve been around here long enough could name more people fighting some aspect of psychiatric oppression than we have fingers or toes… So, yeah, there’s a movement. It’s a mess of a movement.. One that’s become seriously inhibited by the ‘peer’ industry and all sorts of other things, but it seems silly to pretend it doesn’t exist at the same time you’re participating in it.

    In any case, I was certainly anticipating a negative response from you… But I do think it’s interesting that you suggest such a straight forward piece is manipulative. But never mind… As you and I have discussed before, it’s entirely different to say that psychiatry has been used as a *tool* of many different sorts of oppression then to use the term ‘psychiatric slavery.’ If you can continue to relentlessly use such a term, and think it’s just fine to explain to a host of black people why *they* are wrong to be upset by it – or historically ignorant (that feels particularly painful to me, honestly) – then you’re a part of the problem. No matter how good you might be on other aspects of this topic in the present or past, dismissing the experiences, feelings, and asks of people who’ve experienced racism directly *is* a part of the problem.

    To date, *no one* has given me a satisfactory answer to *why* is use of this term more important than working against racism and creating a movement that is welcoming to more than mostly just why people? The closest I’ve seen to a good answer has mostly amounted to, “Cause psychiatric oppression hurt *me* more, so if I have to hurt someone else with the language I use to make that point, oh well.” And, really, that kind of sucks as an answer… Because, psychiatric oppression is horrible, but it’s not slavery and hurting people who’ve been hurt by racism isn’t necessary in order to talk about just how horrible psychiatric oppression is…

    As to the Murphy Bill… I’ve printed out notices about it and urged people to call. This blog need not detract from that. However, I was struck by a Facebook post I saw from Sharon Cretsinger in the last day or so that basically said, “Uh, yeah… let’s put out another ‘call to action’ to call our representatives… because that’s really worked for us before.” (I’m paraphrasing here.) I mean, I’m not suggesting people do nothing or that people not call.. But she kind of has a point. Clearly, what we *are* doing isn’t even close to effective, and yet asking people to keep doing it is draining energy and morale.

    I wonder how we might re-evaluate all that. But, you know, meanwhile *this blog* is about racism. There is totally enough room in the world and on Mad in America for these dialogues on racism without stepping on the Murphy Bill Opposition’s toes…

    BUT, there really isn’t room in this comments section for the Murphy Bill talk. Because this blog is about racism.

    Thanks. 🙂

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  • Wow… You, like, just… basically defined systemic racism… A system designed with white people’s needs and wants in mind – often to the detriment or exclusion of others, and where they have the power to keep themselves at the front of the priority line. Well, actually, technically, that may more precisely be the definition of white supremacy, but ya know, they’re pretty closely tied.

    I guess, really, the only ‘benefit’ to following some of our suggestions would be to… you know… work toward undoing racism. But, you’re totally right… White people lack incentive to change all that… (See! We can agree on something!)

    Because, well, that’s kind of the fundamental underpinning of what keeps systemic racism intact.

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  • Matt,

    I have three pages of blogs. Maybe four of them focus on race, including this blog that I’ve co-written with two other people who – like me – spend a great deal of our time focusing on psychiatric oppression.

    However, when we write about racism, it should stay about racism, and not become some bizarre competition or diversion onto other topics. Although, that is extremely common – that people are uncomfortable talking about rape and so simply try to change the subject.

    It’s quite self evident to me why you and some others are hanging on to the phrase ‘psychiatric slavery.’ You are prioritizing your own needs and beliefs over people who have experienced a kind of oppression that you have not… You are operating in a mostly white movement, and you don’t have a life experience that allows you to understand why this is a problem… Some commenters have even explicitly said that they think that *that* is not a problem.

    We went into this knowing people would be making terrible comments, and be really invested in remaining unmoved. This comments section has been painful, but it has also done a wonderful job of illustrating why this blog exists, and why we need to keep pushing.

    Thank you for that.

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  • Matt,

    You seem *super* invested in proving that there are other kinds of slavery in existence. No one has denied that at any point. This blog simply states that using such arguments as a way to justify the use of the term ‘psychiatric slavery’ in a whitesplaining sort of way, even in the face of black people saying it’s not okay… Is… not okay.

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  • Sure, many spaces (on-line and in person) are voluntary and anyone could participate in them if they so choose. AND in a society and a movement that is guided largely by white people, are those spaces always talking about issues that are relevant to everyone? Will people see faces like their own if they go? Will they have to navigate people saying subtle (or overtly) racist things? Will they be spoken over or treated differently? Will they be able to have faith that that won’t be an issue, if the room is mostly white?

    In other words, it’s just more complicated than whether or not someone could reasonably just show up and leaving it all to who does…

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  • I’m about to leave the space where I am, so I’m going to take a break from the blog altogether for a little bit.

    Buttttt… Take a look at the faces you see writing for Mad in America. Then take a look at the faces you see representing or speaking for any other movement-related blog or website you can find. Then visit a variety of peer-to-peer or other movement related organizations across the country and see who you see. Then go to movement related events and conferences and see who you see. Then join on-line committees and Facebook groups related to the movement and see who you see. Then look at the leadership of many of the national organizations that do work within this movement and see who you see (Hearing Voices USA, most of the technical assistance centers, etc. etc. etc.)

    If you can’t do all or any of these things, then talk to people who have and ask what they have seen.

    Then get back to me about this point.

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  • No one has said there needs to be exactly x number of people of x color or background. But, the representation is very clearly skewed, and not in accordance with the actual make up of the community who are or have been stuck in the psychiatric system.

    This blog is not about dismissing the systemic oppression experienced by people in the psychiatric system (who are white or have any other quality). It is about not playing out the same systemic issues around racism in our own movement as happens everywhere else… It’s about our being stronger in fighting psychiatric oppression if we make space for everyone. It’s about being self-aware of our ‘default settings’ and listening for what we can’t see because it’s not our experience. It’s about not falling into the trap of fighting one oppression while perpetuating another.

    It’s about doing the right thing.

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  • Eh, it seems to me that we’re missing the point if we get stuck on this particular debate. My overall point is that our movement may not intend to hurt, but it has absolutely failed at becoming self-aware enough to adequately address (and avoid perpetuating) systemic racism and even begin to share power, space, and voice.

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  • I’m not seeing this blog as shutting down dialogue. In fact, several people have had something to say about it between here and Facebook… nasty and nice.

    But we may be defining ‘shutting down’ differently, as well. I think it’s absolutely okay (and even necessary) to be very clear about what is and isn’t okay in some circumstances. I do not think that all matters are matter of opinion, and the idea that opinions of white people on things they haven’t experienced being equal to those of black people on systemic oppressions they have lived doesn’t make a lot of sense. (Not saying YOU are precisely saying that, but it does seem to be a theme from at least some people who are upset with this blog.)

    I think there can be *lots* of dialogue about that.. or how to shift the balance of space and power in this movement… or so many things… but I don’t think there needs to be room for white people to keep telling black people they’re wrong about what is and isn’t racist.

    So, anyway, it seems like you feel bad about this blog and our conversation. So, I’m going to give a rest to responding, and give you some space to decide whether or not you really want to be engaged in this back and forth.

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  • What I’ve been attempting to convey is that I do not believe it is the place of people who’ve experienced the privilege side of a particular type of oppression to challenge people who’ve experience the oppression side.

    I’m white. I’m not comfortable with the term psychiatric slavery, and that was what rose up for me the moment I first heard it. BUT, that’s not what I think makes it a topic that white people need to drop. It was hearing from black people (including my co-authors) that it is an offensive and alienating term is what I am suggesting – what the blog is suggesting – makes it just not the place of white people to question… EVEN if they find other black people who are okay with it.

    It is knowing that the principles of social justice teach us to listen to those who have the first hand experience of oppression to learn what it is like and what we can’t ‘see’ or understand for not having experienced it ourselves. Because doing so perpetuates the silencing of those who have been oppressed in favor of those who are already in the dominant group.

    That’s what I have meant.

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  • I’m not sure how we could even know how our experiences, wants, needs and even ways of making meaning of some of our experiences differ entirely because white people are the ones who take up most of the air space in places like Mad in America, at movement-related conferences, in many peer-to-peer communities, etc…

    I’m honestly not sure quite how to proceed when I reach the line where you say, “I don’t see why this movement being majority white is such a problem in and of itself.”

    How could it *not* be a problem? Even if psychiatry treated white and non-white people equally, how could it not be a problem that there’s such unequal representation and holding of power within this movement? And, given that psychiatry does NOT treat people equally… given that psychiatry has long been used as a *tool* of oppression against people of color (and women, and Jewish people, and queer people, trans* people, etc. etc. etc.)… Given that black people are more likely to be subjected to orders of force, restraints, injuries in the mental health system… HOW could it NOT be a problem that there’s such unequal representation of voices?

    -Sera

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  • I simply said that I hope that whatever you find that you like better challenges you to think about these issues. Like I want to be challenged to think about these issues. Like I want *everyone* to be challenged to think about these issues.

    That I think our community needs to be challenged to think about these issues is why I co-wrote this blog.

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  • Well, admittedly (as I did say above), I’ve had difficulty trying to understand what some of your points have been. I’m sorry that you’re not feeling heard, and I’m sorry that you don’t connect with the blog.

    But, I only say that from a place of ‘Oh, I wish everyone liked me and everything I was a part of producing, and I was a part of co-writing this, so I wish everyone liked it…’

    But, then, Earl, Iden and I all knew that everyone wasn’t going to like this… But it sure still felt important to say. I feel good about it, and I feel good about the fact that so much of its content has been written by, approved of, contributed to, etc., by people of color who’ve attempted to be a part of this movement and/or have first-hand experience of what this blog speaks about.

    I hope you find something you like better… But I hope that it still challenges you to think more about these issues.

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  • Alex,

    Thank you for sharing your experience. I’m not entirely sure I get where you’re aiming your later comments, but sometimes I do worry that people accuse someone of coming across as too angry or ‘whacking’ them or ‘shaming’ them as a way to avoid conversation on a topic altogether… And that, in truth, many people feel similar amounts of shame n o matter how nicely something is said… but accusing someone else of not saying it nicely enough is a good way to just shut it down.

    Again, I’m not sure I quite know if I’m agreeing or disagreeing with you. You certainly have experiences with types of oppression that I do not, and so I’m certainly not going to argue with you on any of those points!

    -Sera

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  • That all seem so strange to me, Kayla. Because you don’t like the tone of people speaking up, it at least *sounds* like you’re equating that with the oppression they’ve experienced?

    When I hear that, I think of so many clinicians and psychiatrists and others in the mental health system who expect us to always be nice, calm, friendly, and do our best to make them comfortable when we state what is wrong. *That* feels like a common component of all sorts of systemic oppressions. This idea that we can ask for change as long as we don’t make people too uncomfortable along the way… It feels bad to me when I hear that from people in the mental health system, and I’m very aware that I’ve heard that that feels bad to many black people and others of color when they hear that from white people. (I’m not saying as a whole group, but it is a common theme that I have heard, nonetheless, and it makes a lot of sense to me.)

    I suppose if you don’t like the conversation you certainly aren’t required to stick around for it… But I want to challenge the idea that every push back or talk about racism has to come from a place of not wanting to ruffle any feathers.

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  • Kayla,

    Okay, still not so clear on what you mean at the top there… Do you have an example?

    But regardless, what I am saying is that people who hold one sort of privilege aren’t in a place to fully understand the systemic oppression that corresponds to the other side of that privilege.

    So, as the blog says, Suman is not someone we should go to to understand psychiatric oppression, because he holds the *privilege* end of that particular stick. But he *does* know what it’s like to live black in this world, and has made his career around trying to share, educate, and understand that within the psychiatric system, as well.

    *I* am on the privilege end of the stick when it comes to race in this country, as are (as best as I can tell) *most* of the people speaking up on this thread. So, I defer to him and many others of color, and work hard consistently to be aware of my impact on this movement as a white person who doesn’t want this movement to stay so white or feel alienating or not relevant to black people and other non-white people. I would expect him to defer to me when it comes to the topic of psychiatric oppression. By (hopefully) respecting each other’s experiences of systemic oppression and trying to make what is invisible to each one of us for not having experienced it first hand by *listening* to the other and accepting what they say largely as the truth.. THAT is how we come together.

    As a side note: I reached out to Suman in particular because in a previous conversation about ‘psychiatric slavery’ on these Mad in America boards, someone attempted to cite Suman’s work as evidence in *favor* of use of the term. So, I e-mailed him and asked him. That is what I got back.

    -Sera

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  • Bingram,

    I wonder what you (and others) hear when we talk about racism? I wonder how you or others might explain how white this movement has always tended to be?

    What we are talking about is – frankly – represented by a lot of the comments here. Much of what we’re talking about are *environments* where the tacitly agreed upon ‘default’ is based on the needs, ideas, vision, and voices of white people. And because that’s true and because so many people aren’t aware of that or the privilege they’re carrying or how inaccessible these environments are to others is what we’re talking about (at least in large part).

    There are – as we’ve all said – many different types of systemic oppression, and the closer you are to the white, male, Christian, educated, cis, heterosexual, non-diagnosed, able-bodied, person of (at least reasonable) means, the more these environments tend to be made with you in mind. The farther away from that, the less environments tend to be made with you in mind. This is similarly true in most environments within our movement, as it is beyond our movement.

    If we don’t get willing to take a look at that, we remain stuck.

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  • Kayla,

    I’d just like to note once again that it would appear that the people who are saying that ‘psychiatric slavery’ is okay or not racist or that it’s okay that people have different opinions about it (and that those different opinions are essentially all equal) at least appear to be white. (I don’t know this for sure, but the people who I *do* know are certainly at least white presenting.)

    So, why are the opinions of white people equal to the opinions of black people on matters that are related so directly to our country’s history of slavery and racism? How strongly would we argue against the idea that a psychiatrist’s opinion should NOT be seen as equal to the opinion of someone who’s survived the system on matters of psychiatric oppression?

    I’m not worried about alienating people, Kayla. Discussions of racism almost always bring up defensiveness, push back, and poor responses especially by white people. I *am* admittedly a white person, but I also see it as my job to get very okay with this sort of ‘alienation’ you speak of.

    Over on the Mad in America Facebook page one of the things I said I will repeat here: When people push back against these conversations in this movement, the expectation seems to be that everyone stop ‘fighting,’ but that they do so in a way that is consistent with the ‘default’ … And the default is almost always the expectations that have been set by the dominant group. In this movement, that dominant group is (like in so many other realms) white people.

    The way *together* – as far as I can tell – is to stop expecting people be okay with the default, to speak honestly about these issues that are very real in this movement, to work *through* the feelings of alienation and defensiveness, and to work toward getting to a point where we *respect* each oppressed groups voice, value, and experience in real and intentional ways.

    I can’t imagine going in any other direction. In the end I just keep wondering why more people aren’t concerned about how white this movement is… why we keep coming back to this same place.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for your comment, Stephen. I always appreciate when you speak up. 🙂

    I have to admit myself feeling ignorant to what to call First Nations people (adopting your language here). I visited a reservation in Oregon in October and was directed to use the language of American Indian (for the most part) while there, and so I’ve largely adopted that.. But I haven’t felt at all confident in my knowledge.

    I really appreciate you sharing your experience here, including the complicated experience of passing and claiming identities.

    -Sera

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  • I also just keep finding myself wondering this:

    Each and every time someone speaks out *against* a conversation like this by saying it’s an example of the movement turning on itself, I wonder why the default leaning generally seems to be toward people of color being asked to give up their feelings/wants/asks/etc. rather than white people?

    This relates back to my question above. Why does this rank high enough that white people feel so compelled to fight for it, even in the fact of the fractures and damages that it causes?

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  • That seems a really strange place to land, kayla, given where you started your comment.

    I wonder:

    1. Do you really see more people who don’t see psychiatry as a human rights issue coming around to understanding that point *because* of the use of the term ‘psychiatric slavery’? I.E., Is it effective?

    2. Do you really not believe there’s *any* alternate phrase that could instead be used toward that goal?

    3. Unless you believe 100% yes to #1 and 100% no to #2, why would use of that phrase be worth the alienation and hurt to black people who feel harmed by this phrase (especially given this movement has demonstrated itself to be largely white already)?

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  • You’re not answering my question, Frank.

    We already addressed in the blog the issue of ‘slavery’ meaning several different things…

    What I’m asking *you* is why the comparison is so important… So essential.. .That it’s worth hurting and alienating people in this country who are descendants of those of African descent who were enslaved… ?

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  • Frank,

    I’m not surprised to see you here saying this, and I’m expecting Oldhead shortly. 🙂

    However, even if you believe – without a doubt – that psychiatry *is* slavery, I continue to be left wondering why it’s such an important concept to you that you’d be willing to alienate and hurt so many people of color just in order to hang on to it?

    -Sera

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  • This ‘dialogue’ strikes me as pointless, so I’m going to bow out of it here. If I’m honest, I’m not even sure I follow some of your commentary. It seems very unfortunate that you’ve gotten to such a place where you seem to think that acknowledging, seeing, respecting and valuing people’s different ways of being in this world is a ‘sham’, though.

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  • CatNight,

    Thanks for chiming in! 🙂 I’m not personally familiar with the Tom Hanks SNL skit. I’ll have to look it up! It can indeed be a hard call when to speak up and when not to, but, of course, if our whole culture started shifting to speaking up being the norm, the personal risks would start to (I’d hope!) go down…

    -Sera

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  • Matt,

    You seem very invested in your perspective, even though it is hurtful and dismissive toward many people of color. I wonder why you feel your opinions on this matter – as a white presenting person – are equal to those who have lived black or brown in this world? I’m not speaking from a legal perspective… I’m speaking from a social justice, and a just ‘what’s right and decent’ one.

    Your thoughts?

    Sera

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  • The_cat,

    You left this comment on Noel’s post, too. I responded there, but will offer something similar here.

    The suggestion that racism was ‘dying if not dead,’ seems strange and incredibly untrue to me. What you are speaking of is cultural appropriation… the ability to take what we like, without having had to live through any the terribleness that was a part of birthing the art.

    I do not know you, and do not know anything about the color of your skin or your ethnicity. But, when I read what you write – particularly at the end there – I just want to refer you back up to the ‘color blind’ piece in the blog.

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  • The_cat,

    I guess the question is at whose feet should it most rest to make concessions for the sake of cooperation? The unspoken expectation in answer to that question – at least in this context – is most typically that people of color must be the ones to let some of this go.

    This blog, on the other hand, would suggest the reverse… Which feels most consistent with overall social justice principles in my eyes. Shouldn’t we almost always look to the group who has been most marginalized within the context of which we speak to teach us and tell us what is being asked? And shouldn’t we do our best to listen, even in advance of fully understanding?

    Sera

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  • Yeah, people have also said that when they’ve *plagiarized* me.

    The_cat, Your comment makes my head hurt… In this instance, imitation is appropriation, and a grand show of *privilege*… Privilege to enjoy what one likes from a culture – what one finds entertaining or what have you – while still benefiting from the privilege of walking through this world white.

    -Sera

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  • Nomadic,

    While I do think that many families have a role in what happens to their family members, I think it’s a vast over simplification to suggest that all bad things of this nature happen to people because their families are bad or abusive.

    Suggesting that people’s distress must either be rooted in biology or family is a false binary that doesn’t particularly do us all that much good in a world full of complexities.

    As to the rest, perhaps you should consider writing your own pieces? It seems you feel similarly about just about everything I put out there, and while it’s certainly you’re right to leave comments that are essentially the same from blog to blog and I’ve generally done my best to respond to them, I’m just not sure I have too much steam left in me for your interpretations of what I write.

    -Sera

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  • oldhead,

    I raise that question myself when I say the following in my blog:

    (This begs the question of whether or not there’s even such thing as fixing what has never been ‘unbroke.’)

    However, lots of people create things with an intent, vision or plan that are never successfully brought to life for any number of reasons… So, while it’s an interesting philosophical question, I don’t believe it’s entirely accurate to say that something needs to be fully realized in order for it to ‘break,’ at least in the sense that we are speaking. It seems a bit too literal of an interpretation of ‘break’ and I’m not sure what good that is doing us in this particular conversation.

    In any case, the system is harming people it at least claims to want to help and – even if it is accurate to say that it was intended not to ‘help’ but as a social control right from the beginning – it seems to be a machine of social control that has nonetheless run a bit amok and is swallowing up people I’m not sure its originators would have necessarily seen among those ‘to be controlled,’ and missing those it surely would have wished to grab up.

    For my part, while I think it’s an important point to call out that in *what way* it is broken *does* depend on its original (and current) intent… it is hurting people in every direction at this point.

    -Sera

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  • Lu,

    Thank you for sharing. The complaint process is SO frustrating, and most complaints – as I’m sure you know – never get filed at all either because it feels useless to do so or people are (justifiably) afraid to speak up.

    I’m glad that you did, no matter what the outcome, but I am curious to hear if you get any satisfaction out of it. Right now, DMH is proposing changes to its complaint and investigation process that have the potential to make it all even more ineffective.

    People have the opportunity to give feedback on the proposed changes until September 16.

    More about that is available here: https://madmimi.com/s/2f1498

    -Sera

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  • Hi Kelly,

    Thanks for reading and commenting. Tara has mentioned you, I believe. : )

    I can only imagine what your experiences at Laurel Ridge must have looked like. I’m sorry you ended up there, though I imagine your experiences back then may help inform your contributions now.

    I hope your move goes smoothly! I imagine our paths will cross once you’re up here, so I’ll look forward to meeting you in person. Tara will be a good ‘partner in crime’ to show you around and opportunities to get involved. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Rachel,

    Eh, I agree it’s not as bad as the first two… *AND* it continues to use faked statistics, terribly dramatized stories designed to shock and scare, and seems to be supporting force and mocking Massachusetts for not ‘getting with the program.’

    I tried to be clear above that they make a valid point about loss of funds in the system… but beyond that I still think they fail to understand what that means, what should be done about it, and how they are *adding* to the hurt.

    Nonetheless, thanks for taking the time to read and comment. : )

    -Sera

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  • BPDTransformation,

    Thank you for your comment. Unfortunately, I fear your message of ‘doom’ is correct unless people/the ‘system’ are really willing to change directions. And, unfortunately, I think we sometimes find ourselves pitted against those who believe all of what they’re told about psychiatric diagnosis because they’re often coming from a desperate place and need to believe that they’ll find the answer in something so concrete as the system appears to be…

    I, for one, am not interested in taking ways of making meaning away from people, but it’s hard to feel hope for a system that takes meaning away (or forces meaning on) so many people so much of the time.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for your impassioned reply, Stephen. I hope it was clear in what I wrote that I see the ‘slow death’ (to which both you and I referred) as quite commonplace… I know the job you hold to be a painful one, as I’ve found myself in a similar place at times (watching spirits be crushed). I share your fear that we’re not winning this battle, but I appreciate your willingness to stay in the fight.

    -Sera

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  • s1w2f3,

    I agree with you that part of the problem is that people are starting from the wrong assumptions! For better or worse, there are a number of people out there who will say that the system saved their lives… But if we were able to explore the elements of internalized oppression involved in those feelings, and weed out people who are answering slanted questions (like ‘which would you have preferred… prison or hospital’…) those numbers reduce dramatically. More than anything, and regardless of whether or not the Globe can find people who credit psychiatry with their success, I wish they were open to the full volume of people who have been harmed (or at least, not helped)… Or even the people who went to the system in desperation and found some little piece helpful, but had to weed through lots of pain to get there.

    -Sera

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  • Hey Iden,

    Just got a chance to read this. 🙂 Thanks for calling out the Western Mass Recovery Learning Community. We are *for sure* still trying to figure out how to ‘show up’ better, but I continue to feel baffled by people who seem to think these are all totally ‘separate’ issues that shouldn’t be addressed together. I remember the comments I got of that nature when I blogged here about Michael Brown, and Baltimore, etc. It’s so incredibly discouraging.

    Looking forward to working with you more in this direction 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Hi Michael,

    Thank you for taking the time to respond.

    I’m also stunned by how obvious it all seems, and how people bent on defending the conventional paradigm are so vehement and likely to accuse us of anti-science ‘crazy’ talk, in spite of so much science actually being on our side.

    There was just an article about the Western Mass RLC and Hearing Voices work published in the New York Times on Tuesday, and the comments section is as shocking in this way as it is not surprising, given it reflects the ‘normal’ response in society whenever this comes up.

    Thanks for taking the time to read and comment. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Nomadic,

    I honestly grow weary of these posts that accuse me of asking people to identify as ‘mentally ill.’ I’m pretty sure my perspective is clear, and that if not as much in this one, than other blogs have surely made it evident that I do not think in that manner.

    When I speak of ‘us,’ I’m often speaking of those of us who the Globe and others *believe* they’re speaking for… Calling us ‘the mentally ill’ and accepting that paradigm on our behalf, is but one of their many affronts.

    -Sera

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  • Chrisa,

    Sometimes I’m aware there aren’t easy answers and that is painful and I am sorry for that. And by saying this I do not mean to say that certain situations are hopeless or should be ignored… Simply that I’m aware that people are lost or in despair somewhere every minute of the day, and we have not yet found enough answers to go around.

    That said, your suggestion that anyone who gets classified among the ‘4%’ hasn’t found their way back out with the sorts of supports and perspectives offered on this site is just blatantly inaccurate. I know MANY people who’ve been diagnosed with what are seen as the 4%’ers diagnoses (schizophrenia, etc.) who are leading full lives specifically because they followed paths outside of the mainstream system. And I’ve seen many who would also be so classified who have died because they were trapped in the system.

    You do not know what would have saved any particular person or prevented them from doing something terrible, and the suggestion that you have such predictive powers seems dangerous… Especially since there is a growing body of evidence that some people who have done some of the terrible things to which you refer were driven there in part *because* of the psychiatric drugs they were taking.

    You and others keep speaking as if that group that makes up the 4% is somehow this alien body of people writing somewhere away from any of these conversations. I can only assume that your refusal to see and hear that some of ‘them’ are also some of us is based on a deeply entrenched belief that people who look ‘that bad’ could never again be capable of having voice in this way.

    But, as I say above, not all opinions are created equal. In truth, it is not simply opinion that people who you and others would group into that 4% are hear and speaking for themselves. It is fact, and you’re just not listening.

    -Sera

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  • Hi oldhead,

    Thanks as always for popping in. 🙂 Murphy definitely remains a topic on the forefront out here, including at this protest… Though I’m losing optimism there, for sure.

    I know there is so much truth in this:

    “They’re polling the audience to see what they like to read and believe and pandering to that to stay in business. I remember journalism but it is rarely found in corporate outlets like the Globe. If they reported this accurately they’d be in trouble with their corporate pharmaceutical sponsors. Period.”

    And yet, I do keep hoping there’ll be another Whitaker or what have you among the bunch… They certainly did have to push back against the powers that be to write their piece on the church as they did…

    But in the end, regardless of what they do, this was something that energized a relatively large group of people and informed hopefully at least some of the public a little bit more!

    -Sera

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  • rasselas,

    I feel confident that it is my responsibility – as, yes, a white woman – to speak to other white people such as yourself and say why ‘All Lives Matter’ *is* a problem. It is wrong to lay that responsibility solely (or even primarily) at the feet of people of color. That you don’t like hearing it from me does not particularly change that fact.

    ‘All Lives Matter’ is a problem… because it distracts from the issue of racism, silences people of color, and serves as a denial that – while yes, all lives do matter – some lives are not treated as such. It repositions white people in the conversation, and suggests that not only do their lives matter equally, but that white and black lives are currently valued the same. Perhaps that’s not what everyone means when they say it, but impact is often more important than intent, especially when intent is based in misunderstanding in the first place.

    I do not wish to over take Iden’s blog with a back and forth, but I do feel these points are important and again hope you will reconsider.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Speaking ‘for’ is a tricky concept, here. I have no interest in taking up space speaking where someone of color has something to say on this issue.

    AND

    I have no interest in staying silent and acting as if people of color should be the only one’s speaking, or as if race is just a black person’s issue and all the weight of it should rest on their shoulders.

    AND

    I have no interest in failing to recognize that much of racism is actually a *white person’s* issue, or at least that it is in our hands to take responsibility for and change many key pieces that support it, and to educate one another as fellow white people.

    As a white, middle class woman, I do not need to be speaking for, but I do see myself as having a responsibility to speak at times, nonetheless… And not because I seek to win acceptance, but even in the face of continued, justified anger.

    To be clear, I’m not calling *you* a ‘racist,’ but I am saying that you are using language that is generated by a racist system that sometimes seems to be willfully misunderstanding ‘Black Lives Matters’ and actively seeking to distract from it.

    I hope that you will take time to reconsider.

    -Sera

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  • Circa,

    I’m sure Iden can speak for himself on this point, but as a white person trying to be an ally I want to speak up, too… I think there’s a substantial difference between recognizing parallels and intersections (or even how psychiatry has been used as a tool of social control within the realm of racism, and so on) and appropriating language and experiences.

    In general, I really do believe that it is problematic to take and use as our own the language of experiences we have not gone through… Or to recognize the similarities without also recognizing and respecting the differences.

    I do think it is upon us to find our own language for this movement and these struggles, and so I’d vote against using that title, for whatever you find that vote to be worth.

    Sera

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  • ‘All Lives Matter’ has its roots in racism and privilege, rasselas. I know that people who say it don’t overtly, necessarily mean harm (although some of them do). But it is nonetheless a statement that distracts from the discussion of race and really misses the point of why we’re having the conversation at all.

    If you’re willing, check out a portion of our (Western Mass Recovery Learning Community) last newsletter that focuses particularly on this issue: https://madmimi.com/s/a4dc78

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  • Sorry, Circa, but Inman is – as you say – aligned with Jaffee, Torrey, and so many others that are doing harm with their extreme force ridden views… Inman openly criticizes everything from the Hearing Voices movement to Open Dialogue, and seems just as stuck on a one-note portrayal of these experiences and what is needed to help people who are having them as the next worst person I wouldn’t want to run into in a dark blog alley…

    It’s certainly your choice to appreciate what she says, but I’m not interested in making friends with her.

    Sera

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  • Thank you, knowledgeispower. I appreciate your recognition of the impact of the various societal ills on the emotional state of those most directly impacted. It is a part of what I find most painful about this work… Being told we’re to support people to move through emotional crises that supposedly come out of nowhere, when we have little to no control over (but all too much awareness of) so many of the environmental conditions that are often at the root.

    -Sera

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  • Already been doing that, Circa… In fact, I’ve spent literal hours talking directly with various Globe staff… As did many people attempt to talk to Globe staff before the article I’m rebutting here was written…

    You seem to have landed here with a particular axe to grind that has little to do with what I’ve written. I wonder if you could take at least that part elsewhere?

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Sa!

    I hope they are reading on the one hand… Although, on the other hand, I’m in talks with them to get an op ed in their paper, and also hoping that this blog doesn’t put them off to wanting to include the op ed. 🙂 But, I figure they got to know me because of these blogs, so it wouldn’t make much sense if they stopped being willing to publish me because another one of them!

    -Sera

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  • I’ve offered plenty of alternatives in the past as have others, and already explained that I am not opposing help, but simply the type of help that is given (and the way that both the need and the treatment are being portrayed by the Globe).

    From your remarks about self-harm, I can only assume that mik is correct and you are someone who is using a new name, but has been around before.

    Given your nastiness and refusal to hear what’s actually being said, I’m going to stop responding to you now.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Gosh, this all seems a little nonsensical to me, liberalminority.

    You say: “Are you going to talk to everyone who has or is experiencing past or present abuse, addiction, bad family relationships, unemployment, about your alternative? Are you going to pay their bills when they don’t have any income due to mental illness? Are you going to offer good suggestions to someone in a bad family relationship weekly? Are you going to help people detox from their addictions? Are you going to show love to people who experienced past abuse, and offer advise on how to deal with present abuse?”

    Why would I do any of these things, and what do they have to do with anything I have said?

    I mean, I’m not arguing against SSI or SSDI for people who are unable to work, although I would *very much* argue for a change of frame so that the reason doesn’t not need to be medically justified as I do not believe that psychiatric diagnosis, on the whole, is a medical issue. That’s very different than saying that someone’s suffering or inability to work at that point in their life isn’t real… But, research sure does seem to tell us that the US way of ‘helping’ at present is *increasing* long-term dependency on SSI/SSDI…

    I mean, I’m just not sure what else to say in response to you. You seem to be arguing in favor of a system without understanding the research that says it’s killing people and just overall not working…

    So, I’d suggest you take a look at some of that before criticizing me.

    -Sera

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  • Liberalminority,

    It’ strikes me as really strange that I should need to be responsible for all the fixes, or otherwise need to remain silent about something so terrible. I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works in most cases.

    If you look at some of my other blogs, you’ll see that I do sometimes also suggest alternatives… but in this instance what I am suggesting is that the Globe stop doing damage and talk with people to learn alternatives… both alternative understandings and alternative approaches to supporting people.

    Honestly, this seems like a really (to use your own word) ignorant and reductive statement:

    “How else do you expect to help these people if not by providing them with a therapist to talk about their problems too, a medical Doctor to prescribe them medications that will help them cope with their problems”

    I use neither of those things and know so many who have moved through their distress in similar ways to me…

    But more importantly, I know people who have died or lost years off of their lives because of the mainstream belief that those things are necessary and ‘the only way.’

    There is much to speak out against in what the Globe offers. The idea that any media is good media if it ‘starts a conversation’ is foolish. I hope you’ll take a closer look.

    -Sera

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  • Oldhead,

    Fair enough. On one level I quite agree with you. Except I think these news reporters are just another example of people caught up in a bad system. I don’t imagine they as individuals are invested in nothing but corporate greed and pharmaceutical interests, although I do think they are being used as a tool of that… But if Whitaker could shift, is it not reasonable to have hope that others might, too?

    -Sera

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  • Yes, ‘all police aren’t bad…’ neither are all psychiatrists.

    They have to make really difficult decisions sometimes.

    And besides, at times ‘the mentally ill’ are doing some really crazy things. If they weren’t, the police wouldn’t have to react that way!

    I’ve heard it all before (as has everyone), and it all misses the boat on the fact that the *system* is the issue and good people in a bad system can still end up perpetuating terrible things.

    These sorts of comments derail important conversations, and need to be shut down as soon as they crop up.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, randall. Here is a post on that particular topic that I made yesterday to the Facebook group that has been set up by the Globe to address their article:

    Okay, Laura Amico and others, I’m *NO* math expert by *ANY* stretch of the imagination, but help me out here. What am I doing wrong?

    For one moment in time, I am going to *completely* radically accept the following:

    1. There is such a thing as ‘mental illness’ as it is being defined by the Globe and many others in this group. (Okay, I don’t really… but only just for this moment…)

    2. NAMI is correct in their statistics that, during any given year, 18.5% of the population will experience this thing that I’m accepting exists (for the moment) called ‘mental illness’

    3. The Globe is even close to right that about 10% of the murders in the state are attributable somehow (by magical arithmetic and amazing reporter sleuthing skills) to those so-called ‘mentally ill’ (never mind for now the weird and ominous assertion that there untold numbers more that they simply haven’t been able to identify)

    So, let’s say we have 1000 people. Assuming the above (that 18.5% are ‘mentally ill’), then that means 185 of the 1000 are so diagnosed, leaving 815 who are apparently just A-okay.

    Then we have 100 murders, and that 185 is responsible for 10% of them.

    Now, that would mean that 5.4% of the ‘mentally ill’ group are murderers, whilst 11% of the ‘non-mentally ill’ have also committed the same crime.

    Of course, this is assuming that each person only murders one person which is a silly assumption on both sides, but I’m not sure how else to approach this for the moment, so give me a bit of a pass if you would… (Side note: If I am to believe the media, all the mass killers are most likely to be ‘mentally ill,’ which would actually only serve to lower the percentage of that group that is violent in that way.)

    So… like… if all that’s true… if I haven’t somehow seriously screwed up the math (which *is* admittedly entirely possible), why are we even *having* this conversation or asking questions like the one above which implies that unchecked ‘mental illness’ is a serious public safety problem.

    *Is* it a serious public safety issue? Is it just the one that we feel we can somehow best control, even if it’s not the biggest or the baddest? Or is it just the easiest one to look at… the easiest group to blame?

    Yes, I realize this is an over simplification in some ways… And, no, I’m not saying that violence that happens at the hands of someone who is in a very altered state shouldn’t matter. But I am wondering why our attention is being diverted in this manner…

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  • Bpd,

    Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts… I certainly agree that apparent goal of most hospitalizations seems to be control in the moment, and that the impact is often more trauma and little long-term help. Agreed, as well, that so many who get diagnosed have simply been through terribly difficult things in life. I think profit is a piece of the puzzle, but not the whole thing… So much scapegoating and control and denial of other issues is also involved, I believe!

    -Sera

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  • Anonymous2016,

    Your comments are all welcome, and I appreciate and agree with particularly your comments about the problem with using diagnosis as a measure (given its moving target and ability to be applied as makes sense to those in power), and the strange storytelling element to the article.

    Thank you also for your plan to write the Globe. It’s so important that they continue to hear these critical voices!

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, knowledgeispower! It sounds like you know Massachusetts (and all its acronyms!) well. 🙂 I do just want to add that voices and visions that tells one what to do (what you referred to as ‘command hallucinations’) do NOT mean that someone is particularly likely to act out violently. I’m not going to say that never happens, but I just want to be clear that that sort of experience is much more common than people realize and not at all impossible to resist (just like it’s not impossible to resist the various ridiculous ideas that float through all of our heads on most days)…

    I had visions telling me to hurt my daughter for the first two years of her life… Although I’m not much of a support group goer, I attended a training for Hearing Voices groups and in the mock group I had enough space to think of what was happening for me in a different way, and I realized what that experience meant and the visions dissipated. I know of many people who have had similar experiences to that…

    Anyway, I know you didn’t intend for your comment to suggest that that experience is something terrible and always dangerous, but I just felt I should elaborate. 🙂

    Thank you for taking the time to read and speak up!

    -Sera

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  • sarahhrh,

    I think we have a *lot* to learn from Open Dialogue and Soteria models where psychiatric drugs and so much else is concerned. Are you familiar with either of those? If not, it might be worth checking into them…

    I don’t think that either one provides the *whole* answer, but if we could implement truly informed consent, and fully fund alternatives like Soteria, peer respites, Open Dialogue, etc. that’d be a good start!

    -Sera

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  • Hi Frank,

    Thanks as always for taking the time to read and comment. Yes, I know the Globe is far, far, far from the only problem. It’s the whole power structure of the media in general (which is part of what I was getting at with the opening piece of the blog), and so very frustrating all around. Hoping we can find a way to make a dent in the alternative media where we do at least have some voice!

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Greg,

    In all honesty, I guess I have two reactions to what you have to say:

    1. You’re right. It does give people permission of a sort to ignore me, or write me off, and had I pulled some of that out, they’d at least have a less obvious excuse. And, perhaps, they’d even have heard some of it a little more clearly.

    2. Eh. There’s plenty of people writing more mild responses out there, and frankly, even when I have written extremely diplomatic pieces on these sorts of topics (in other realms… I don’t tend toward super diplomatic here 😉 ), I’ve still been discredited for… challenging much of anything. Because people are *super* protective of this paradigm, and I simply haven’t seen ‘nice’ go very far. Sure, the conversations are more pleasant in a way, but they usually lead to a pat on the head. I also just am not sure that it’s fair to expect people who’ve experienced a particular type of oppression to always be ‘polite.’ I know how I’ve approached this will make some people uncomfortable. I also know it will give some others more confidence to speak out for themselves. I’m honestly more concerned with the latter.

    So, in the end… I suppose I agree with you to some extent, but I’m not sure I agree enough to change. 😉

    Either way, I appreciate your reading and offering the feedback.

    -Sera

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  • dsd,

    I’m glad there are some things it appears we agree upon. However:

    1. Good to hear that you have some of your own experience upon which you rest your voice. I wonder what you see as being a ‘good way’ to speak for other groups? And why you think they can’t speak for themselves? Now, I’m totally all for ‘allyship’ which can sometimes include speaking with or in support of others, but *always* guided by them… Not by your own perceptions.

    I also appreciate your consideration of how you may be impacted by now working within the system. I don’t think that people who work in the system are inherently bad, but I do believe it requires an *incredible* amount of intentionality and checking in on one’s self (and with the help of others, to keep one honest) to make sure you do not lose sight of where you meant to be heading.

    2. *So* interesting. Especially since you seem to be painting the people who have psychiatric histories as being the ones who do *not* have the kids, the jobs, etc. As someone with a psychiatric history (including forced hospitalization and several of the types of diagnoses you mention in that paragraph) who also has a job (more than one, actually), a house, and kids… I wonder why that is?

    3. Why are you combining people who are struggling with substance use and people with psychiatric diagnoses? We already know the research supports increased risk of violence for the former, but not the latter. It seems a bit of a misdirection to conflate them.

    I also wonder about lumping together ‘risk to self’ and ‘risk to others.’ Are you aware that there are *many* people who feel quite insulted when their existential crises and considerations of ending their lives are tossed in the same pot with those who are threatening to harm others?

    Finally, I won’t argue (as I note in my original piece) that there aren’t people who are experiencing emotional distress of some sort who become a threat to society. That seems a little silly, since it seems obvious that many people who are violent are off balance in some way… but how does that equate to psychiatric diagnosis, specifically? Or relate to the *treatments* of the system that are violence and throwing people off balance themselves? How do you separate all that out and decide that it really just is some sort of internal ‘dis-ease’ that’s the root?

    This article is not leading to dialogue. It’s opening the doors for things like the Murphy Bill, silencing so many of us who have been harmed by the status quo system, and giving misinformed people more to wave around as their ‘proof’ when arguing for further oppression.

    Even if that starts a *few* conversations, it’s not the sort of ‘conversation starter’ that we need…

    -Sera

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  • markps2,

    Thank you for again highlighting the issue of psychiatric drugs and whether or not they are helping or hurting. I’m not one to ever tell someone who says they are helping them that they are wrong (I know that bugs some around these parts, but I think people have had enough of being told that they are wrong about themselves)… But it seems incredibly clear (and yet so ignored) that psychiatric drugs are *hurting* many people in many ways.

    -Sera

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  • dsd,

    I find *absolutely no* benefit in an article that focuses on a ‘marginalized and downtrodden’ population only to tread on them further. Where is the benefit in speaking to an oppressed group only to further *oppress* them by a) speaking for them and b) scapegoating them and c) suggesting that even more of the same terribleness befall them?

    I am under no obligation to find the good in something so terrible (and I’m really not sure it’s there to be found).

    As to your other point, the world is a stressful place and we are all under the tremendous pressure of joblessness, racism, homelessness, poverty, overcoming past traumas, violence all around us, war, etc. etc. etc… Could you please let me know why you suppose people who have been given some sort of diagnosis are automatically more prone to the difficulties you describe than others who are nonetheless facing such massive turmoil around them?

    Now, I do think that violence happens in the system, and that people who are locked up against their will, restrained, institutionalized, drugged with drugs that are shown to sometimes increase violence, etc., may be more prone to violence… But does that mean that they were more prone to violence because of some subjective diagnosis, or because of the *violence* done unto them (that so conveniently is not generally called violence)??

    I can tell you what *I* think. You?

    -Sera

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  • Hi Boans,

    I don’t follow them too much myself (in spite of living in the same state!), although I’m told that they are usually ‘better than this.’

    I remember that headline (Ike/Tina!) And love the Marx quote 🙂 It often does seem that people are willing to deny what’s right before them… because it’s easier.

    Thanks for reading and commenting 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, AA! 🙂

    I also looked up the e-mails for all the people listed on the article as writers or contributors and sent it to them 😉

    Here are those addresses if anyone else is interested:

    [email protected]
    [email protected]
    [email protected]
    [email protected]
    [email protected]

    I think it’d be great if people sent them all as many e-mails as possible (as well as to the [email protected] e-mail), even if it is just additional copies to this or other relevant responses! 🙂

    -Sera

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  • givemeyourking,

    Thanks for taking the time to read and post. I wonder if you *actually* read the whole article, though?

    What I am suggesting, at least in part, is that some of the violence that *does* exist as committed by those who have been diagnosed is the *result* of the system and the way it is set up… Violence (force, etc.) begets violence. Psychiatric drugs – certainly the way they are currently prescribed – seem to lead to violence in many situations.

    And yet, the Globe appears only to want to perpetuate the misguided, Treatment-Advocacy-Center-driven notion that more of the *same* is what is needed to prevent all the terrible things happening… And not even *all* the terrible things happening, just a faction of them… Because it’s more sensational and to dramatically demonize the so-called ‘mentally ill’ than to look at the bigger picture and the other 90%… Or all the ways we could likely make this society *less* violent by taking more compassionate and *less violent* measures to help people who need support.

    I wonder if you might do what the Globe reporters chose not to, and look at all the facts?

    -Sera

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  • Jackdaniels,

    If you can’t see that your perspectives on self-injury are insulting, condescending and completely off-base, well… to quote one of your own statements to me: “I am sorry that someone who is responsible for your care has not explained that to you properly.”

    I realize that this is the nature of comments sections, but I find it truly unfortunate that you have chosen to post some of the things you have here that re-enforce so much harm done to others. In effect, you have said that I am ‘incompetent,’ and should be silenced. This is the perspective of some of the most harmful ‘mental health professionals’ that have intersected with my life – the ones who locked me up against my will precisely largely *because* I self-harmed.

    If you have any care in the world about what you are encouraging in this society, I hope you will one day reconsider that perspective – or at least the voicing of it in public forums.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks Jasna… (And if this is the Jasna I suspect it might be, then good to hear from you!)… I like that paragraph, too…

    And actually, I’ve been thinking a lot about my concession on the point of ‘violence…’ On the one hand, I agree that it’s a circular argument (he committed violence because he was violent), but on the other hand it’s also true that one of the greatest *actual* predictors of future violence is past violence, and so I think it’s meaningful on some level, all the same.

    In any case, thanks for reading and overcoming your reluctance to comment. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Ragnarok,

    It’s complicated, eh? I would hesitate to say there’s *any* yes and no when it comes to ‘mental illness,’ because … well, what is that after all. Surely, anyone who is responsible for a mass shooting is in an emotional space that I would consider to be highly off balance in some way, but this idea that there is membership to this club called ‘mentally ill,’ and that people who participate in mass shootings may somehow be a part of it is… well… just as manufactured of an idea as anything else to do with psychiatric diagnosis.

    The rest, well, yes, again… It’s complicated. What is the ’cause’ is complicated, and even asking that question in that manner suggests there is a clear cause that we can point to in some instances… and that often just confuses the matter more. Access to guns is certainly a *part* of it for me, but not even close to the whole. What the person said they heard is meaningful, but I’m not necessarily sure that what someone says in the midst of conducting a mass shooting will offer the full picture, either.

    But you’re right… And you’re bringing up an angle that’s not getting much attention at all. It’s easy for us to say ‘terrorism’ and act completely innocent, failing to look at the way the United States has participated in this ‘War on Terror,’ and what responsibility our country has for how its military has behaved… Both what we’ve ignored, and what we’ve invaded.

    Thanks for taking the time to read and comment.

    -Sera

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  • Frank, I certainly agree with you that any effort to implement gun control based on attempts to predict *who* is likely to be violent are discriminatory and incredibly harmful. Never mind that they seem to ignore qualities that actually appear correlated with most gun violence… It is, as you suggest, an effort to scapegoat which is much of the point of my blog.

    Sera

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  • achris,

    Thank you for your comment. On the whole, I agree with you that any one ‘it was because of x’ answer is an over simplification that feeds the fire (one fire or another).

    On the other hand, I don’t feel comfortable dismissing homophobic elements of this, particularly for this reason: How people are attempting to classify this person and his motives is based on guesses, assumptions. conjecture, latching on to one piece of the story, and so on.

    However, there is no getting around the fact that his target was a gay club and that all the people he killed were at a gay club and a part of the LGBTQ* community. I feel as if it would be a real act of disrespect to so many people who died, their families, and anyone else connected to the LGBTQ* community to ignore or diminish that fact in any way. It’s real, and it *is* political when put into the larger context of a society that has been so hateful toward people who are something other than heterosexual (including all of those who have come forward since this happened saying terrible things about them having gotten what they deserved).

    Honestly, as much as I agree with what your saying in some ways (particularly around needing to be able to see the complexity of any one picture which was one of the underlying points of my blog), I’m not sure how any of this can be depoliticized.

    -Sera

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  • As aforementioned, the ‘he’ through much of this article refers to the many ‘he’s who have committed these violent acts and not any specific one.

    However, to your point specifically: This particular person made all sorts of different references to different terrorist groups, as best I can tell… Not one consistently.

    And what *is* ‘mental illness’ precisely? There is no test for ‘mental illness’… There is the observation that some people are struggling, in distress, in altered states, suffering in some way (all varies with the person), and that is what earns them the label… But what does it REALLY mean? Someone may earn such a label for being suicidal, but the underlying issue is homelessness (for example), and not a brain disease. Others may be labeled as ‘mentally ill’ simply because someone in power doesn’t like or is uncomfortable with how they are living their life (e.g., diagnoses that have existed in reference to trans people, individuals who are something other than heterosexual, or enslaved people who tried to escape, etc.).

    We can certainly say that people who do these things are ‘unwell’ on many levels, but suggesting they are ‘mentally ill’ suggests that they are of a specific group that is clearly definable and not subject to interpretation… It suggests that we *know* what ‘constitutes’ mental illness and thus leads us to the (erroneous) belief that we can identify such people in the future and prevent them from doing such things (a belief that leads society to hurt many people)…

    In some ways the terrorist designation is similar… It can be applied by people in power in ways that make sense to them, but can be based on wildly disparate characteristics… Is this guy a terrorist because he called himself one at some point? Eh, maybe. But what does that really mean?

    THAT is the point of this article… That these things are ALWAYS more complicated… That these labels people feel free to apply with such confidence do not have very clear definitions, and their application leads to two great harms: The abuse of and discrimination toward all people who are apart of the same group or possess characteristics that associate them with that group in some way… And the unspoken permission given to society to ignore some of the societal ills that are really to blame …

    -Sera

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  • Lenora,

    I am concerned that the article to which you link – at least at a quick skim – comes across as quite Islamaphobic… I am not personally comfortable saying that this tragedy was about radical Islam.

    Honestly, my own article was about steering clear of pat answers that are so often filtered through skewed lenses and that avoid taking a hard look at society…

    The article also wasn’t about trying to play the ‘whose fault was it’ game at all… If I’m honest, I wish people could just be allowed the space to be present and grieve and not be having all these side arguments and competitions to place or avoid blame. I wrote this article because it felt important to respond right away that scapegoating people called ‘mentally ill’ is a serious problem… I wish that hadn’t been necessary.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Lark.

    I do feel compelled to add that I always find the term ‘the mentally ill’ to be a disturbing one, and used it in my blog (in quotes) only to reflect on a problem in society. I worry that – even if they were some clear group of people – any term that starts off with ‘the’ like that serves to distance one group from the rest of the population more than it serves any other purpose.

    But perhaps why I wanted to say something more than anything else is that speaking of ‘the mentally ill’ as if they’re truly some specific group with clear membership is a substantial part of the problem I’m referencing above… It’s easy to keep up the scapegoating if you forever hold the power to define someone as ‘mentally ill’ after they’ve done something you don’t like… Or even if they simply – at some point – got a diagnosis in the past. It’s also easy to steer people away from the often much more complex reasons someone may have been so angry or distressed or what have you, many of which point the finger at society’s various constructs and failings.

    I think there’s an element of that you’re representing above when you refer to how different cultures regard what we call ‘schizophrenia,’ but I just wanted to make mention of it as there have been several posts in this thread now that are using that phrase.

    Thank you for taking the time to post at such length. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • It’s always hard to tell in these forums, but I feel a bit like you might be trolling here, so I’m going to let this sit other than to say the shift I speak of in Finland has nothing to do with changing labels. It has to do with people being supported in ways that they often move through extreme experiences and on with their lives in ways that is far less common in other areas *because* (it would appear) of the way they are supported…. Which puts a bit of a big hole in the whole ‘schizophrenia’ is a clear thing/brain disease assertion.

    -Sera

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  • I don’t believe that anyone is suggesting people’s communities ignore violence or violent talk, etc. It would be great if people would take that much more seriously, and really take the time with their co-workers, family, friends, etc. to explore what is meant and hold people accountable for what they say and do.

    However, that is a far cry from blaming so-called ‘mental illness’ for violence.

    I also wonder what you consider ‘schizophrenia’ to be? In societies where they seem to have a much more attentive, holistic model (like Open Dialogue in Northern Finland) the diagnosis of schizophrenia has miraculously dropped… Which suggests that it has so much more to do with society’s responses and perceptions than anything that is internal.

    I’m not sure what to say about your personal experience and what you report has happened to you as a result. But I stand by what I say in this blog about the application of psychiatric diagnosis and the conflation of diagnosis and violence.

    Nonetheless, than you for reading and commenting.

    Sera

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  • Truecelt,

    I am in absolutely *no* position to tell you why you have experienced the things you have experienced… but I just want to make certain that you are aware that many people experience disruptions when they first go on or off psychiatric drugs… And that those disruptions commonly have far more to do with the chemical changes related to the drug than anything to do with the individual themselves… Even though it’s very commonly used as proof of need of those drugs, which is quite unfortunate.

    Again, no idea what that means for *your* situation, and I make no recommendations about what you should do… But just wanted to put that out there.

    -Sera

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  • jackdaniels,

    I’m honestly having a really hard time with your responses, and so having to think before I ‘type’ to not come across too harshly.

    I genuinely do *not* need anyone else to explain to me what self harm means. When I do ‘self harm,’ it is mostly burning myself, and I’m pretty okay with that. I don’t need anyone’s pity. I don’t need anyone to define what it means for me. And I don’t really feel the need to stop it. Anyone who approaches me with a focus on stopping it loses my interest and trust pretty quickly. If you’re interested any further in my thoughts on this, I suggest you read my blog on the topic which can be found here: http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/11/p-s-sometimes-still-hurt-p-p-s/

    Similarly, I have a blog on ‘stigma’ that you may want to check out here: http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/04/false-arguments-part-2-anti-anti-stigma/

    And I do not identify as ‘mentally ill,’ and I wonder you feel empowered to identify me in that way, or what it means to you when you say those words?

    -Sera

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  • I find your assertions about self-harm fairly insulting. No one is ‘responsible for my care.’ And even if I decided to go back to the system for support (fat chance of that, but let’s say I did), it *still* wouldn’t be the case that someone else would be in a position to explain meaning to me.

    Just about everyone ‘self harms’ in some way… Too much food, too little sleep, too much work, too much exercise, drugs, alcohol, etc… Tattoos and piercings are also often (certainly not always) used as a method of self-harm. Those who hurt themselves in ways that are socially accepted or valued get excused or even rewarded. Those who self harm in ways that scare others or that are less socially acceptable get ostracized or even pegged as ‘sick.’

    And yes, there is an issue with people demonizing outward shows of distress and rewarding inward ones. But there are both highly valid and problematic sides to that. The problematic side is this: Pain is pain and disregarding that pain because someone is containing it to their own detriment and then demonizing healthy anger causes problems. However, on the other hand (and this is very important): Stopping someone from harming others represents a PROTECTION OF FREEDOMS AND RIGHTS (of others). Applying (misguided) definitions and preventing self-harm often represents a VIOLATION OF FREEDOMS AND RIGHTS (of the self). That’s a pretty enormous difference.

    I would appreciate if, in the future, you would not suggest that others are somehow ‘responsible’ for me and ‘my care.’ It feels very condescending and invalidating.

    I do not look at stigma, which often amounts to a painfully misguided campaign to ‘stop ostracizing those mentally ill people so they can get on with accepting their illnesses and getting treatment.’ It completely ignores the harms of treatment and of the disease model itself. Instead of ‘stigma,’ I look at discrimination and oppression.

    I stand by what I say in this article and all the past ones I’ve written.

    -Sera

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  • jackdaniels,

    If you took anything I said to mean that those who are being treated are less violent, then you’re absolutely misunderstanding what I’m saying. I actually see *many* examples of treatment *leading* to violence… because people are acting in self defense in situations where ‘treatment’ is being forced on them… because psych drugs can sometimes *lead* to violence… and because oppression in general leads to the sort of alienation that I think can also potentially feed into despair, anger, and isolation that could be contributing factors.

    What do you even mean when you say ‘He was mentally ill?’ How do you know this, and what specifically do you mean? The idea that ‘the mentally ill’ are even a finite, definable group is misguided and part of the problem all on its own. As we’ve seen historically, who is ‘the mentally ill’ is a moving target based on societal norms of the moment, who is in control, who we want to control, and so on.

    There’s so much more to say in response to what you’ve offered, but most of it has been said before. I’m just left struck by how you’re even defining ‘mental illness’ and particularly what you think you’re accomplishing for all of us who have been so diagnosed and had ‘treatment’ forced on us for precisely the mentality you’re expressing here… I stand by my point that scapegoating people who’ve been giving psychiatric diagnoses and increasing force and ‘treatment’ against people’s wills will lead to *more* violence and tragedy, not less.

    I also really object to your lumping in self-harm to this broader conversation about violence. As someone who still periodically self-harms as a way of coping, I don’t want anyone trying to ‘treat’ or stop me at all, or associating me in any way with people who would go out and murder or hurt others.

    Nonetheless, thanks for reading and posting.

    Sera

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  • Hmmm… I asked:

    “Could you point me to the scenario where someone arrives with the intent to gun down as many people as possible, and some citizen who was legally carrying a firearm while out on the town stops them?”

    What you offered doesn’t really counter that…

    I don’t know that I really have the energy for a full on gun debate. Honestly, I wish people could just have the space to grieve all that’s happened without needing to have any arguments at all… But it seemed necessary to put something out there to counter the scapegoating.

    All I know is that the stats from this country verses other countries just doesn’t seem to hold up the arguments you’re offering, and in order to change the direction in which we seem to be heading, *multiple* things need to change…

    -Sera

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  • truecelt,

    I’m in no position to tell you that your story and experiences aren’t real. Thank you for sharing them.

    However, I don’t think that changes the fact that what gets labeled as ‘mental illness’ isn’t really a finite *thing* that can be said to be the cause of anything in particular, and that it’s always more complicated than that. We don’t really know what brings people to the point that you describe having experienced or that there’s really any one clear reason. We do know, though, that violence driven by altered states is really rare and (when it happens) often not driven by those states alone, and that psych drugs often don’t help, don’t help enough, or can make things worse…

    Most importantly, the blog really is more about the reality that it is all most often way more complicated than pegging some simplistic cause, that we need to stop ignoring our societal ills and biases in how we identify what is ‘wrong,’ and that scapegoating a group in the way that is so common when bad things happen is not only misguided and harmful.

    Thank you again, though, for being willing to share so much of your own story.

    -Sera

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  • Cat,

    Do I think guns are the whole issue? No. Do I think they are a part of the problem in many of these scenarios? Absolutely.

    I hear this argument about our need to have guns so as to not be helpless and be able to defend ourselves… But, could you point me to the scenario where someone arrives with the intent to gun down as many people as possible, and some citizen who was legally carrying a firearm while out on the town stops them?

    Again, I find this comedy routine to be a useful reference:

    https://youtu.be/0rR9IaXH1M0

    -Sera

    And, could you explain to me why the land with so many legal firearms is also the land with so many of these sorts of shootings?

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  • Becky,

    Thank you, and the trouble with all this is that I do best when the energy builds so that I feel like I just *have* to write something to get it out of my head. And other topics have felt more pressing than going back to that one, so I’m just kind of waiting to be re-inspired to return for Part 2. 😉 Hopefully you’ve found some value in the other blogs I’ve posted. 🙂

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • I have to disagree, oldhead.

    Comments on Facebook (such as the only I attached to this blog) mention it… Articles from the ex-wife mentioned it, and even a diagnosis has been named… It’s not been as bad as it could be, but it’s circulating.

    Also, I’m not sure how it could not be about guns? People have been murdered without guns, but not generally at the volume as those incidents where there are guns (yes, I know there are exceptions to this, e.g., the planes on 9/11, but it’s a rarity)…

    I appreciate what this Australia comedian has to say on the topic:

    https://youtu.be/0rR9IaXH1M0

    Well… I like his second-half less as he goes down the ‘crazy’ path in the second half and some other offensive bits… But worth a watch where guns are concerned.

    The only thing I can agree with you on is that we will never be able to predict and stop all violence, and frankly our efforts to do so (much like the suicide prevention industry’s efforts where suicide is concerned) cause more harm than good in so many instances…

    However, I absolutely do think that there are things we can look at that are societal influences that may have impact… For example, would this guy have done this if he didn’t live in a society that was so conflicted and violent toward people who identify as something other than heterosexual/cisgender, etc? Maybe… Maybe not, but it seems worth our energy to move toward a less hateful society and it seems inevitable that doing so would at least reduce violence.

    -Sera

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  • BPD,

    Fair enough. I more or less agree with you on the ‘violent’ part… That sentence was more about *access to guns* then being violent/why he was violent. That’s how I meant it, anyway. (I.E., As a statement about access to guns.)

    I also agree that there’s much more that can be said about why someone becomes violent in terms of their upbringing… I’ve written about that before, and just made a decision here to focus more on the what it’s NOT about then write at length about what it *is*… The isolation, alienation, and hate in heart pieces are meant to allude to much of what you write about more expansively here.

    Thanks for expanding upon it!

    -Sera

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  • Hi Boans,

    Some of the more heated discussion (which really isn’t so much about the blog but the comments in the comment section that took things in a different direction) has been confusing to me, too. You are right, I’m certainly not attempting in any way to deny your experiences or trauma or that rape and rape culture are a part of the systemic oppression of women in this culture… Nor am I trying to deny that men can also experience and be impacted by rape.

    I think I’ll be coming back to the issue of slavery/psychiatry in another blog, so we shall see how that goes. 🙂

    Thank you for reading and taking the time to share your thoughts.

    -Sera

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  • Frank,

    Okay, I think I follow what you’re saying… Although, I’m not sure I agree that it’s all that straight forward. I was over in the UK working on a film project a couple of weeks ago, and someone we interviewed had this to say: Psychiatrists are trained to diagnose… And when they are faced with people who are fighting against psychiatry they don’t quite know what to do with them, and so they diagnose them, too, and often that diagnosis is ‘anti-psychiatry.’ Then they feel like they know what to do with them, and that is (basically) to ignore them. (I’m paraphrasing.. These weren’t his exact words, but the general gist.) He said a bit more on the topic, but that was the part I remember best.

    In any case, I can see some truth in what you say, but also in what was said in that interview.

    -Sera

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  • Hi Steve,

    I appreciate what you’re saying, but I guess I just want to offer this:

    If we were talking about *other* language preferences and bickering over semantics I might agree with you… although I’m relatively well known around these parts for seeing the deeper importance of word choices in many instances.

    And, I agree with you that – no matter how we cut this conversation – all of these things represent oppression and damaging (often deadly) systems.

    However, in this particular instance, I do think it’s a mistake to call this a semantic difference and say that it’s okay for each of us to just go our separate ways. The appropriation of the word ‘slavery’ by white people, particularly in instances where they are being told by people of color that it is offensive and yet they still feel empowered to take ownership of it, represents a continuation of practices that are a part of systemic racism (taking ownership of certain aspects of someone else’s culture while still denigrating others, taking power to define the meaning of those elements even over objection of those from whose culture they are being drawn, etc.).

    So, if it weren’t a matter of systemic racism and accessibility of this space for people of color, I’d agree with you… But given those points, I have to come at this from a different direction.

    Although, I will say this (which is consistent with what you say): I am puzzled by the insistence I see on the part of people who want to claim the term ‘slavery,’ when that argument surely does nothing to forward what our goals are in fighting oppression (and also clearly alienates a part of the community that we’d be strongest if we stood beside)…

    -Sera

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  • Oldhead, I’m not moving anything. The *entirety* of the argument here has been about the problem with saying psychiatry is slavery, referring to ‘psychiatric slavery,’ or saying psychiatry is ‘like’ or ‘equal to’ psychiatry.

    I do not believe anyone I know would take issue with saying that psychiatry has been used as a tool of oppression within systemic racism (or slavery), or that psychiatry was used as a tool of oppression during the Holocaust. Those are factual statements about the relationship between two separate things, how they intersect, and so on.

    It is *completely* different than appropriating the language of slavery and applying it to psychiatry.

    -Sera

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  • Oldhead,

    I hadn’t intended to continue to reply to this thread, but your referencing Suman pulled me back in.

    As it turns out, I spent several hours with Suman Fernando a couple of weeks ago. I’ve shared with him the basic argument that is ensuing here, and that one of his articles has been used as a reference point in defense of ‘psychiatry as slavery’ arguments. I’ve asked him if he has a moment to comment or share his thoughts, so I’ll let you know if he does.

    In the meantime, I will say that this same argument has also been taking place on my Facebook page, and the only people of color who have chosen to participate (both people who are also activists with histories in the psychiatric system) have been very clear that saying that psychiatry is slavery (as either analogy or proposed factual statement) is not okay and is received as offensive.

    Now, I realize that two people do not represent all people of color, but it is also my experience that the only person who identified themselves as a person of color the last time this conversation took place in the comments section of one of my blogs also stated that they felt alienated by it.

    All of this is consistent with my experiences and conversation elsewhere, as well.

    Meanwhile, when I skim through Suman’s article that you posted, I still am only seeing him speak about the ties, intersections and relationship between racism and psychiatry which, again, is quite different than saying psychiatry is slavery.

    I hope this does not continue to throw this blog off track, but I just couldn’t quite resist responding. I’ll let you know if Suman has something to share.

    -Sera

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  • Steve,

    That’s a great quote from the kid you mentioned above (particular as someone who is currently working on a film about the chemical imbalance myth)!

    In any case, thank you for taking the time to respond, and also to share your own experiences working in the foster system. So many terrible and often overlapping systems. 🙁 It’s hard not to feel a little hopeless about it all much of the time.

    -Sera

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  • yeah_I_survived…

    Is this a reply about the slavery comparison in the comments above? It’s not attached to that, but it seems like it might be…

    In any case, I am still very firmly opposed to that comparison, but there are still terrible, traumatizing, oppressive and abusive things that happen in the psychiatric system and I’m sorry that you are among those who have had to know that first hand.

    -Sera

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  • Dkjamil,

    I appreciate your taking the time to respond, and I can appreciate what you’re getting at. But, I think you and I have talked about this to some extent before.

    I find it this comparison really problematic. I believe that force and oppression in psychiatry is terrible enough without us needing to appropriate other experiences.

    I wonder if the comparison is truly worth alienating and diminishing the histories and experiences of so many people of color?

    I have to believe there is a better way to make these points.

    Thanks

    Sera

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  • Hi Julie,

    Thanks for sharing your experiences. It seems like you’ve seen a ton that can give us insight into the state of our society and the way we treat one another (as well as how privilege can play out and push out people with less). 🙁

    Obviously, what you describe goes way beyond the issue of housing… but still captures so much of our basic human needs, including the ability to *communicate* with others, and basic human kindness.

    Thanks again,

    Sera

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  • Oldhead,

    Overall I tend to agree with you which is why we (RLC) dropped the term ‘peer’ from any job title and use the term relatively minimally in relational sorts of ways.

    I’m in a bit of a rush at the moment, but have you read my ‘Cheers for Peers’ blog? It probably best describes what I mean about the term ‘peer’ as a way of relating rather than as an identity. When anyone refers to me as ‘a peer,’ I basically want to kick them. 😉

    -Sera

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  • Hmmm… So, Daniel is out of the country right now, and not particularly on top of the on-line world while gone, i don’t think… Just figured I’d mention, since it seems like a talk so specifically about him might be worth engaging him in directly. 🙂 This also does seem relatively off topic, though I can appreciate wanting to find a place to disccuss. 🙂

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  • Seltz,

    Well this certainly isn’t about forced housing, and I’ve know people on (rare) occasion who have a similar approach to life… BUT that really is the rarity (unless you’re speaking about people who’d prefer to live without shelter than go to some of the shelters that exist due to the conditions therein)… So many more resources needed!

    -Sera

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  • Oldhead,

    Yes, actually I’m in Europe right now working on a film about the Chemical Imbalance Myth and interviewing several people, and the person we interviewed yesterday morning had some great things to say about the rise of the disease model as it relates to the rise of economic systems such as we currently have now.. so I’m glad you mentioned that.

    As to ‘peers’ I typically try not to use the term ‘peer’ to refer to *people*. If you’ve read some of my earliest blogs on here (eg ‘cheers for peers’), I imagine you’ll already know that. I see ‘peer support’ as much more of a way of relating and connecting with people than about some bizarre identity some individual person might take on. There are so many things that have made ‘peer support’ problematic in our culture… more than I have time to name here. However, briefly, part of it is the phenomenon of people who have been so oppressed by the psychiatric system now being paid directly by that system, and the reality that becoming dependent on that system tends to ‘soften’ (read: erase) any motivation to fight that oppression (and avoid assimilation) for having become dependent on the paycheck and wrapped up in the industry of it all. Another part is the weird identity of ‘peer’ that so many people take on, and how it can hold them in some strange ‘mental health system defined’ bubble… and so on.

    Again, we ( me and the place that I work) define it as a way of working with one another and a type of connection (as absent of power imbalances as possible, etc) we might develop, and that is what I speak of here. I’ve seen people do tremendous good coming at it from that direction, but frankly, it is much rarer than the standard way of things where ‘peer’ is concerned right now.

    Sera

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  • Hi Bpd,

    Hmm… i’ll check on the link, and see about getting it fixed.

    You make an important point about not just poverty, but inequality, btw. Indeed, the impacts of poverty seem greatest in places where there is also significant *inequality*. (In other words, not where most people are living under the same impoverished conditions, but where people are living in poverty alongside those who clearly have great financial resources.)

    Thank you for that reminder, and for taking the time to read and comment, as always!

    -Sera

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  • Thanks so much, Madmom! That’s a lot of information and resources you provided, and I look forward to reading about each of them. I love the ‘respectexistence’ website domain name! 🙂

    I also really appreciate your success and sharing about intersectionality of issues and successful collaboration. It’s so frustrating to me how so many different groups experience and focus on similar issues related to oppression, but miss so many opportunities to band together and make their voices louder.

    I’m glad that your community is an example of doing things differently in that way!

    -Sera

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  • Hi Nomadic,

    Thank you for taking the time to share so many different thoughts. Interesting that you say Daniel (a friend of mine, actually) doesn’t go far enough with his ideas around parenting. Many are actual critical of him for taking such firm and strong opinions on the matter… But that’s an aside…

    I guess more importantly, I agree with you (if I’m understanding your correctly) that the concept of ‘recovery’ can be victim blaming at times, in that it still seems to be based in a framework that sees the problem having originated within the person… I haven’t thought about this within the context of the ‘original sin’ (religion is not really my world), but it’s an important point overall.

    Thank you again for taking the time! 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Julie,
    Not only did they really not talk about struggles with food at the level to which you’re speaking, but they really didn’t acknowledge the importance of people getting their basic needs (shelter, food, sleep, etc.) met at all… I brought the point up, including how lack of basic needs being met can impact one’s emotional state.. which they didn’t deny, but it certainly doesn’t seem to be a conscious concern of the course itself.

    -Sera

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  • Lauren,

    Oy, I don’t know what I would have done with myself if they were promoting ECT in this class… Having no real frame of reference to what it used to be, I can’t really say much about how it’s changed or what it may have integrated in an effort to cover up it’s terrible… but overall… it’s for sure still terrible!!

    Thanks for reading and commenting 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Belinda,

    Wow, Mental Health First Aid in Australia does indeed sound worse than I went through!

    And yes, the instructors of my course mentioned at least once that it was an ‘evidence based’ course, and I did want to ask (though ended up forgetting to do so)… But I was kind of suspecting that it probably meant that people were more likely to go into ‘treatment’ or what have you…

    Here’s the link to the USA ‘evidence’ page, which seems to mostly be citing Australian studies and does seem to largely be about being more able to identify diagnoses and places to send people off to…

    http://www.mentalhealthfirstaid.org/cs/about/research/

    And more from several places around the world here:

    http://www.mentalhealthfirstaid.org/cs/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/MHFA-Research-Summary-UPDATED.pdf

    I guess it’s easy enough to prove you are successful when you get to define what ‘success’ is in the first place…

    -Sera

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  • Dan,

    Yes, I actually mentioned eCPR several times to the trainers or whenever I heard people justifying the whole of Mental First Aid for the sake of the ‘compassion’ it claims to be trying to teach….

    That said, I’m also concerned with how eCPR has come to be marketed (beyond as a basic tool for first responders, general public and as a counter to Mental Health First Aid)… But you’re right that it is certainly successful at teaching people to seek to connect and present with people who are struggling without all the counterproductive and damaging crap that comes with MHFA!

    Sera

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  • For those of you who make it down this far in the comments section, there’s so much I could have included in this blog that I didn’t… Here’s one additional ‘tidbit’… In one of the packets we were given, there’s a ‘Who Am I’ game with substances… Here’s my favorite (I think it will be yours, too):

    Who am I? ___________ I am a stimulant and i come in many forms: power, tablets, capsules, crystals, or liquid. I am known on the street as ‘crystal,’ ‘speed,’ ‘base,’ ‘ice’ or ‘shabu.’ I can cause ‘speed psychosis,’ which involves symptoms similar to schizophrenia. The only proper use for me is for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), under the direction of a physician.

    Oy.

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  • Hello again Oldhead,

    1. Basically it seems to come down to whether or not you’re seeing any ‘signs or symptoms’ of various diagnoses, which they do spend a fair amount of time reviewing via slides and their fab book of which I now have my very own copy…

    2. Yep, there are even comments in some of the films about how it’s critical to get help as *soon* as possible, though they’re not too clear on what doom befalls one who does not… But lots of emphasis on ‘professional help’ for sure…

    3. Well, yeah, there’s lots to be said about the acronym and the mascot… Oy. The whole thing started in Australia, so that’s where it comes from but beyond that I don’t know what to say about it other than ugh!

    -Sera

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  • BPD,

    Well, I definitely said on multiple occasions that psychiatric diagnoses are not founded in science, pointed out the research on people being most likely to kill themselves after forced hospitalization, and that psych drugs can contribute to many problems… Gave details about the Open Dialogue system, along with encourgement to go watch Mackler’s film on Youtube… Spoke specifically to my concerns about the threatening nature of the video about the man referenced above… And lamented out loud the lack of ‘risk factors’ that were environmental (like discrimination and failure to meet basic needs)… I also gave a lengthy description of an alternative way I may have supported the man in the video that included asking him about his sleep and food, *entering* his home rather than luring him out, engaging in conversation to explore his fears and voices, etc…

    In truth, I was actually making a conscious effort to not throw the whole thing off too far because – while I often do go places just to heckle and counter their material… in this instance, I really just wanted to know what the deal with this whole MHFA thing was…

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  • Let’s see… Here’s a few more:

    1. You’re at home watching a favorite movie whe n your ex calls sounding really upset and making statements about wanting to kill him/herself.

    Do you:
    a) End the call quickly, this is not your problem. People who threaten suicide rarely go through with it. Your Ex can take care of him/erself, and you are no longer together.

    b) Ask your Ex if s/he has a plan or has made any prior suicide attempts and consider if s/he has the resources to attempt suicide now. Discuss ways s/he can stay safe, such as calling a suicide hotline, a mental health crisis team, or 911.

    c) Ask how s/he intends to kill him/herself. If your Ex doesn’t hav e plan s/he’s probably not serious and so you can go back to your movie without worry.

    I answered d) And said something like ‘None of the above. I’d talk, ask what’s happening, what they’re feeling, if there’s anyone they trust they might want to be around, etc…’

    2. You notice that a family friend who is a college sophomore has been functioning less well as the school year progresses. At the beginning of the semester, she was vibrant and seemed to enjoy her classes. Now she has clearly lost weight, seems depressed, has a hard time paying attention, expresses odd ideas sometimes when you talk with her, and seems to have lost her motivation.

    Do you:
    a) Tell her she needs substance abuse treatment and you are sorry she succumbed to the drinking and drugs that are all too common at most colleges.
    b) Suggeste that she get academic counseling or tutoring to help her get back on track.
    c) Express your concern and offer to help her get an appointment at the college counseling center or other service.

    I don’t remember quite what I said, but it was another ‘D) None of the above’ response…

    There were others, but I didn’t do as good a job as I might have of capturing them all with pics on my phone!

    The two worst ones were the ones I included in the blog above, but as you can see – there is a trend toward assess and push into ‘professional services’…

    -Sera

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  • Hi Nomadic,

    Thanks for reading and commenting… Technically, Mental Health First Aid isn’t about psychotherapy either… Rather, it seems largely about pushing people into drugs, therapy, and so on…

    But I do agree with you that the fact that so many people start from a point of not believing that what people say has meaning (including those trained by Mental Health First Aid) is a serious (and ‘crazy’-making) issue!

    -Sera

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  • I’m certainly aware of Kevin, but don’t know much about what he has to say… And, admittedly, I worry that the media seems to give voice to people who make suicide attempts that seem more sensational (e.g., jumping off the bridge), sometimes to the exclusion of those whose actions were quieter and less ‘exciting’ to hear about, but who have a ton of wisdom to share… I’m sure I’ll get a chance to hear his message soon enough.

    -Srea

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  • Hi Rooster,

    Thanks for takign the time to read and comment… I completely agree that it is all very sad, and yes, that sometimes just leaving people alone would be better than dragging them into a system that is prepared to do little more than cause harm.

    I tried to have a bit of that conversation with another participant in the training who was defending the threat of calling the cops if the man in the video didn’t agree to meet with crisis… I asked him how he would feel if someone lured him out of his home when he was posing no threat to anyone and then threatened him with police or hospital… Momentarily acknowledgement *seemed* to flicker across his face, but then I think he settled back into ‘well, that wouldn’t happen to be because I’m not like THAT guy.’ (He didn’t say anything of those things… It’s just what appeared to be happening based on his facial expression, and other things he said…)

    -Sera

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  • amnesia,

    Good luck on convincing them of that one. 😉 Though, in truth, I’d vote for taking some things *out* before I’d necessarily vote for putting other things in… In my experience, adding a few good things in amidst a bunch of terribleness usually still means that people only hear the terribleness (if for no other reason than it sends a message that already fits with what the person believes or has heard before)…

    -Sera

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  • Jayasree,

    Thanks so much for reading and taking the time to comment! It was fascinating (and frightening) how much ‘double speak’ there seemed to be in the Mental Health First Aid training. For example, they do say multiple times that as a ‘non-professional’ it is not your job to ‘diagnose,’ and yet so much of the training is spent ‘training’ people to recognize which ‘mental health problem’ is at hand.

    Similarly to the links being made between psychiatric diagnosis and terrorism, I’ve even begun to see links be made by some between psychiatric diagnosis and extreme racism. It is indeed truly terrifying.

    -Sera

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  • Bpd, Oldhead, Frank, etc…

    This is going to be my last post on this topic, I think…

    I’m finding it upsetting, but also just think I’m about out of time for this one right now.

    Bpd: I certainly don’t know the race or skin color of many commenters. However, some who have been a part of making this analogy have pictures next to their names or are people I know in ‘real life.’ They are white. That certainly doesn’t preclude others being of color, which is why I’ve said ‘most’ and ‘to the best of my knowledge.’

    What I *have* noticed, though is the *one* person who has clearly identified themselves as a person of color is someone who said that they found the analogy upsetting (which has appeared to go completely unrecognized by others engaged in this conversation).

    Oldhead, I’d also agree with you that ‘black people,’ ‘white people,’ and so on do not and should not be expected to think as ‘one,’ and that expecting them to is an issue. HOWEVER, what I *do* know is this:

    1. Many people of color do find it to be an upsetting analogy, just like many people of Jewish heritage object to the many Holocaust references that get made.

    2. While there may be other people of color who do *not* object to such comparisons, it is *not* my place as a white person (nor is it the place of any white person or group of mostly white people) to decide it is okay, even in the face of substantial objections.

    3. As should be true of any oppressed group, we should look to those who do have that direct experience to make the judgment call on these sorts of issues, and should respect those calls that get made.

    4. We need to accept that even if some people of color decide that it’s okay *for them* to make a slavery analogy, that doesn’t then necessarily make it okay for others to follow suit (much like the use of the ‘n’ word by people of color, or the use of terms like ‘crazy’ or ‘mad’ by people who have experience psychiatric oppression, and so on).

    While there may be *some* value in the analogy between slavery and oppression, I can’t fathom that that value outweighs the value of showing respect for people of color by *not* using that analogy.

    We can still speak to some of the overlaps, and common ways that oppression plays out across different groups… And there are enough analogies to go around.

    -Sera

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  • oldhead,

    Eh, three points:

    1) I think we (I) can say that ‘mental illness’ absolutely does NOT exist as people have purported it to exist, and *still* leave room for what we do not know about the potential of any sort of biological component for *some* people… It feels silly to me to claim that *I* would ever be able to know what is leading to the distress of every single person on the planet…

    2) The medical model of mental illness is (or at least usually is/has been) an absolutist approach that says *everything* is ‘mental illness,’ and doesn’t leave space for anything else. I can say, without doubt or hesitation, that THAT is wrong.

    3) But perhaps most importantly, my stance is largely about a lack of investment in controlling what people believe. In other words, even if I vehemently do not believe in the medical model of mental illness, I simply *have to* let go of forcing others to believe similarly to me or else I perpetuate certain aspects of the system that I very much want no part in. Sure, I think it’s *essential* that many of us are out there arguing #1, #2, and so many other critical points about which people are so misinformed (and that prevents them from being able to make any sort of legitimate choice about anything), b ut in the end… I have to let go of what they believe from that point on.

    -Sera

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  • BPDTransformation, Frank, Oldhead, and others commenting on this piece:

    While I continue to understand what you all are getting at with the slave analogy and do think there are some important overlapping concepts, I also continue to see this comparison as potentially problematic.

    While – yes – many people of color are now subjected to oppression within the psychiatric system, and yes there is the substantial issue of how our prison functions, and so on…

    I’d also like to point out that the vast majority of writers on Mad in America are white, as are (I think) the vast majority of commenters on this topic.

    And when I’ve seen comparisons come up (to slavery, to the holocaust, etc.) in other forums where there are people of color, people who had ancestors that died/survived the holocaust, etc… I’ve often seen reactions that are not terribly favorable to these sorts of links.

    I am *all for* learning about the different components of oppression and how they’ve played out for different groups. I think that is so important (as I noted above). And yet, I wonder what we may unintentionally perpetuate when we start claiming close associations to slavery? Are we continuing to make this space one that is unwelcoming to people of color? Are we distracting from issues of racism and turning them back to those issues that are more personal to us?

    I hope you can hear my concerns and my points, and separate them out from the fact that I otherwise agree with all of you about the oppressive nature of the psychiatric system, and how it takes power away from so many people, etc.

    I do not think suggesting that we may want to take care in comparing one to the other needs to, in any way, lead to the denial of the very real exploitation and damage of the psychiatric system.

    -Sera

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  • Zagoorey,

    In truth, I’ve had multiple experiences with sexual abuse, and while I’ve named some of this to psychiatrists they honestly just haven’t asked me for the details of what/where/when/how. Others in other roles have to some extent, but always as something separate from my ‘mental health’ issues – at least that’s how it came across. For what it’s worth, my experiences with rape and sexual abuse have always been with people I know to varying degrees.

    -Sera

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  • Hi Julie,

    Sorry for taking so long to respond (and this will be short as I’m in a rush at the moment)! (I’ve been having trouble logging on this site from home for some reason…) I like the image of the fish on bikes. 😉 That’s an interesting point… the ‘learning about me’ being in line with feminism. I’ll check out your blog!!!

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Hi dkjamil,

    I feel really cautious about making comparisons between psychiatrist and patient and slave/slave owner. I don’t want to do *anything* to downgrade or distract from the terribleness of slavery.

    I do, however, understand what you mean and yes, this world does seem to re-define and shift around *how* people are oppressed without ever fully coming to terms with the components of systemic oppression and how to really undo it on a broader scale.

    -Sera

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  • Sana,

    No, I’m definitely NOT saying that all psychiatric diagnosis or related distress is the result of trauma. I’m really not a fan of stepping out of one box (it’s all brain diseae/medical model) *only* to step into another (it’s all trauma)… (I actually was a part of making a film ‘Beyond the Medical Model’ that makes this point precisely…)

    Moreso, my point is that our culture currently conveys that there is only one way, and they do so to such an extent that they often don’t even TALK about the ‘other ways’ and that that has been damaging on so many different levels to our culture as a whole and to people individually.

    In the end, I think there’s so many different reasons people have these experiences from trauma, to nutrition, to spiritual emergency, to a whole host of other possible explanations… Some of which make more sense to me personally than others. But in the end, I don’t think they need to all make sense to *me*… What’s important is that people have choices, opportunity to make their own meaning, and a chance to see how the meaning they’re making is actually impacting their life…

    -Sera

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  • Sana,

    I actually don’t hear *most* people around these parts taking an absolute perspective against the medical model… Most of us are arguing most strenuously against the fact that the medical model is portrayed as the *only* option as an absolute truth. I think you may be misunderstanding some of what is being said… At least by me!

    -Sera

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  • jackdaniels,

    Sometimes that’s a bit of a trap, though, isn’t it? Part of my point – as you must realize – is that I’m speaking to ‘liberals’ here precisely *because* they SHOULD be allies for so many of their other beliefs and actions… And yet, largely, they’re not.

    It’s ridiculous that one should need to take psychiatric drugs in order to access benefits like housing, job benefits, social security disability, and so on… But that’s exactly what some of these programs require (varies somewhat from area to area on how much is required).

    Sure the programs are good in many ways for many people.. Yet, NONE of that addresses what I speak to in this blog. And, surely, if you’ve read through my blog and comments, it should also be clear that I’m not suggesting that medical model options be taken from those who truly want them, either…

    Ultimately, it all just brings me back to my earlier point about well meaning people bring about the worst kind of tyrranies…

    -S

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  • Rooster,

    It seems very common to me that people who hold power and privilege are offended when that is called out… Because they have trouble seeing it (such is the nature of privilege), because they hear it as their being a bad person individually (rather than a part of a bad system), and so on…

    It’s also very common for the response to be to demand that those in the role of ‘the oppressed’ are asked to be more ‘polite’ or to stop calling things what they are because it’s ‘too harsh.’

    And yet, I haven’t seen much come out of not calling things for what they are, either… Except for a reduction of tensions… that is often accompanied by an increase in internalized oppression.

    So, yeah, I’m not entirely sure that calling it something else and asking people to water down the truth is right, or even fair to ask?

    -Sera

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  • jackdaniels,

    “You’re making a false equivalency with systemic oppression in the mental health system with other forms of systemic oppression. This is a system designed to help people, by definition it can’t be ‘oppressive’.”

    That just seems so incredibly naive and misguided to me. And, it’s just flatly not true… But I’m not sure I have the energy or time to lay out the why of it right now… So, I’ll hope someone else might step in and do that, while I just leave you with the following quote:

    “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

    C. S. Lewis

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  • Frank,

    I don’t disagree with you here, and that is why I fear that psych drugs could never be used responsibly within this society…

    However, I also see people use marijuana, psych drugs, various foods, exercise, herbs, and so many other things to impact the biologic and chemical make up of their minds and bodies, and if they do so knowingly, I’m not terribly inclined to stop them…

    And perhaps more importantly, I really do think there’s something important about separating out the tools from the perspectives … The medical model suggests that psych drugs are targeted chemicals treating specific chemical imbalances. That’s a dangerous and untrue theory. Being able to say – hey, even if you think this chemical is helping you somehow – it doesn’t mean the perspective itself is accurate is an important step in breaking down its power. Otherwise, every time someone says ‘hey this drug works for me,’ people continue to think ‘drug works’ = medical model proven true.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, ConcernedPartner 🙂

    All your points seem valid… And yet, if we have to wait for people to have just the right kind of personal experience to bring them around, I think we’re pretty sunk. Hoping to find another way! I’ve heard from a few that the prison abolition movement is more open than most.. thanks for reminding me of that. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Oldhead,

    I guess my point is that I *could* say – hey, I realize that x experience is totally (or nearly so) connected to this trauma I experienced, but the reality is that when I take x drug, it helps me feel better and I like the effect… So, while I have a non-medical model perspective on why I’m experiencing distress, I want to use a medical model tool… because chemicals have an effect on our bodies, regardless of why our bodies are the way they are and the medical model’s ever-perpetuated myth that the psych drugs work because they somehow are targeting ‘what’s wrong’ on a physical level is bs, but also doesn’t need to be true in order for those drugs to still have some impact…

    I’m not making an argument for mass drugging, or intending to ignore the substantial dangers of these drugs (and I question if our culture could ever really use them responsibly on the whole), but I do think it’s important to at least think about separating out the various ‘tools’ from such embedded model relationships and myths…

    Sera

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  • You simply canNOT equate the perspective of seeing a psychiatric diagnosis as emotional distress/trauma with ‘chemical imbalance’… One is a perspective and the other is a thoroughly debunked piece of misinformation. If you want to leave space for some people to see some diagnoses as biologically based (in part or whole) verses trauma based, etc, that’s one thing but perpetuating the chemical imbalance myth is just misinformation.

    Additionally, you seem to misunderstand the concept of systemic oppression. Systemic oppression exists regardless of what people believe at an individual level, and in spite of some people feeling they’ve had good experiences in that system.

    Take sexism for example… Even if I were a woman who felt I hadn’t been held back one bit by male privilege or systemic issues that favor men in power over women, that would do absolutely nothing to change that that systemic issue exists and impacts many, many people.

    An example from the psychiatric system: Even if I personally had the best psychiatrist on the planet who shared full information on all the perspectives, didn’t try to convince me that ‘mental illness’ was the only way and that I needed psychiatric drugs for life, and always prioritized my voice and listened to what I wanted to do… It would do NOTHING to change the fact that there is a *systemic* issue of promoting ‘mental illness’ as the only way of seeing things, that kind of the status quo is to talk about people without them and often make decisions for them, and so on.

    So, yeah, arguing that some people appreciate the medical model or have had good experiences in the mental health system (and never mind the added complexity and reality of internalized oppression in some of those instances) isn’t really connected to the idea of systemic oppression at all… The two aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, I’m pretty sure there have *always* been people saying ‘hey, my experience has been good! this isn’t an issue!’ in just about every civil rights movement for every marginalized group ever…

    -Sera

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  • Nomadic,

    In fairness, I may want to keep a little alcohol 😉 Thank you for reading and commenting… I wish more people would see the environmental/social justice issues as primary, rather than – at best – a secondary issue that can sometimes serve to inflame someone’s biological problems. Sounds like you’ve got quite the track record with various forums… Glad you’ve stuck it out here! 🙂

    -Sera

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  • jackdaniels,

    You’re applying things to me that I did not say. This particular blog isn’t about psychiatric drugs, so much as it is about systemic oppression and the absence of recognition of systemic oppression within the psychiatric system by those who generally seem to see themselves about most enlightened and aware of these sorts of things. It’s about our needing allies, their being what would seem to be relatively obvious candidates, and the ongoing blindness that keeps them from fulfilling that role.

    For what it’s worth – while I do not take psychiatric drugs and have enormous issues with how they are used and forced in this world – I also do not believe that there is a straight line or necessarily a direct association between the use (or lack of use) of psychotropics and a belief in the medical model.

    Let me briefly explain: The vast majority of us use drugs of one sort or another. One example I’ve used in the past is caffeine. I don’t personally drink coffee (and only rarely drink soda or anything else that has caffeine in it), but many people love it… And, the fact that they love the impact of caffeine on their bodies bears absolutely no relationship whatsoever to whether or not they suffer from a ‘caffeine deficiency.’ If they like the impact (or at least like the positives more than they dislike the negatives) and are aware of the risks, more power to them.

    Similarly… One doesn’t need to accept that they have a chemical imbalance or any sort of inherent biological issue to enjoy the affect of certain psychiatric drugs… And so if someone finds it helpful and chooses that path in an informed manner, okay. (Although, while I say this on an individual level, I seriously question our culture’s ability to make real space for people to actually do that, and so still can’t help but question whether or not these chemicals do more harm than good in the broader scheme of things…)

    In any case, overall, my point is that our culture’s approach is oppressive. We don’t actually need to take *away* choices or tools in order to make it less so.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for your thoughtful response, SA. You offer a number of good points. I also find that even many of those who recognize that *a hospital* treated their loved one badly are still caught up in the idea that that’s just an example of someone doing a *bad job* of *the right thing.* In other words, they hang on to the idea that the hospital and general approach is right, and someone is just doing it in the wrong way…

    -Sera

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  • SaraTonen,

    There’s so much to respond to in your post. I don’t think I could possibly respond to it all…

    First, thank you for reading and writing such an extensive response…

    Now some points I do want to clarify:

    1. I’m less arguing the ‘rightness’ of a particular political (liberal, in this case) perspective than I am pointing out the incongruities. People in this group really *should* be our quickest allies, but they just aren’t. It’s incredibly frustrating and baffling (though I’m not without the ability to come up with reasons).

    2. I really worry when you say that there is no discrimination in the mental health system. There’s actually a ton. People of color (for example) are more likely to be given the more ‘severe’ psychiatric diagnoses… they’re more likely to be put in restraints, restrained for longer, or end up injured (or dead) once in restraints. They are more commonly committed to ‘forced’ treatment… etc. etc. It’s fairly well documented. People who are trans*, gay, etc. also experience discrimination in the system. It’s actually quite profouned.

    3. I’m actually someone who *does* believe in people being held responsible for what they do. I find it incredibly frustrating – for example – that if someone in the mental health system hits someone else, the immediate reaction is to ‘section’ (force hospitalize) them, rather than to report them to the police for an assault. While there are nuances and contexts to be considered, in general, I think this is a terrible trend. HOWEVER, to suggest that the criminal justice system isn’t incredibly corrupt and biased is extremely problematic to me. For example, just look at the penalties for drugs common in communities of color verses white communities. Or look at how often people of color are killed by the police. Or look at sentencing practices. Or look at police profiling practices… or… so many other things. There’s SO much more to this, but if I continue down this path I’ll be writing a whole ‘nother blog in the comments section. Ultimately, I just want to say that a) I do not intend to suggest (at ALL) that people shouldn’t be held responsible for criminal behavior and b) so much of who/what/how people are held responsible IS based in an incredibly discriminatory system (that is also influenced by other discriminatory systems). It seems impossible to me to deny that.

    I also worry about the references to ‘reverse racism,’ which really can’t exist given that racism is not simply prejudice, but prejudice PLUS (systemic) power, and I have yet to see people of color have the kind of power in this culture (again, not talking about individual verse individual but whole systems) to make that even remotely possible… But again, I don’t want to go too far down this path.. And yet i couldn’t go without commenting at least briefly.

    In any case, thank you again for responding. I’m glad that we at least seem on the same page that the lack of allyship and understanding about psychiatric oppression is a real issue!

    -Sera

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  • bcharris,

    Thanks for taking the time to read and comment… I’d argue that the most complicated of all is to diagnose the *societal* ills behind psychiatric diagnosis, and that that certainly dissuades some from taking part… Though, again, when talking about people who are *all about* identifying the societal ills, their blindness to this issue remains a frustration.

    -Sera

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  • BPD,

    I feel reluctant to write this all off as an issue of intelligence. Some of it is certainly an issue of access, and how all sorts of oppressions play out and impact people and whether or not they’re supported to question or not question, conform or not conform, and so on… And then there’s also the reality that many people who are very highly educated and clearly able to entertain complex thought are some of the most invested in this system remaining as it is… for reasons of power… for reasons of ego… and so on. So, yeah, I guess I’m sticking with my ‘it’s about systemic oppression’ rather than intelligence argument… 🙂

    But, either way, in this particular article, I’m also talking especially about people who commonly tend to see themselves as among the ‘better educated’ and more ‘thoughtful’ on these topics, anyway… Specifically, this blog is about wondering how on earth those who see themselves as so well-informed can possibly maintain such a disconnect or blindness when it comes to the psychiatric system…

    Thank you for writing and sharing your thoughts, regardless of whether or not we land on the same page. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Bradford,

    Just about anything is possible. Much of my point when I write these sorts of things is that everyone gets so fixated on knowing ‘why’ that they end up just making assumptions and speaking of them as ‘the truth’ in order to soothe (frankly) themselves.

    We’d all be so much better off if we could accept that we don’t know, and that even in knowing for one person, we do not know for anyone else.

    -Sera

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  • Richard,

    Thanks for signing. I do ultimately agree (as I noted above to oldhead) that everyone deserves to be heard, and that many people don’t speak up because of what’s been done to them, etc. etc. *AND* as also mentioned above, I also feel like I’ve seen so many people choose silence (or even blindness) because of where they work, and so on…

    Here’s the full scope of what I said to oldhead above:

    I certainly would *never* say that people who’ve been beaten down by the system, or who are just standing on their own, or who have been abused, or who haven’t yet found their voice, or who don’t have the dollars and reach and privilege to be able to organize, or who are still too drugged to even begin to think about all this, or who have to worry about where they’re going to eat or live, etc. don’t deserve to be heard. They do. Without a doubt.

    *AND* I think there’s a huge number of people who are just choosing to look away because it’s easier, or because they now have jobs that depend on system dollars or not ‘stirring the pot’ too much, or who don’t want to spend time thinking about why it’s important, etc. It’s to that group I am mostly speaking…

    We’ve lost a lot of our fight to industry and so on… It’s very, very frustrating.

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  • Hah, Thanks for the amusing review, oldhead.

    I do think the whole channel deserves protest, and my original blog on the matter was focused on the whole channel (http://www.madinamerica.com/2015/11/the-mental-health-channel-beyond-what-does-it-really-mean-to-present-a-well-rounded-point-of-view/), but again… I’m going for a real concrete little chunk to focus on, and this film is just so blatant it’s baffling to me why anyone fails to see the racism, sexism, and psychiatric oppression that it represents…

    I should add that the filmmaker is also black (the filmmaker… or the writer of the story, or whatever her official credit may be) is actually the woman who plays Sirah and this whole mess is supposed to be a ‘gift’ to her real-life brother. To be clear, I don’t think that makes the film’s stereotypes or impact any less racist, but I do struggle a bit with being a white woman critiquing a black woman for creating a film with such racial issues! Oy.

    -Sera

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  • Someone Else, Thanks for trying to sign! (What happened when you did try?) Also, I’m not sure I followed your disagreement with the second point? I was saying that Jay saving Deji at the end WAS totally feeding into racism and stereotypes, and I think that’s what you’re saying, too? So, just wanted to try and understand?

    You can also definitely e-mail your comments to [email protected]!

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Oldhead, Oh, of course it’s due to much more than our negative assumptions about our own power… But I see that play a role all the time.. And when I speak of apathy as a problem, I don’t mean it in the sense that I believe people don’t care. But I *do* believe that apathy comes with many layers, and there are certainly many people in our world who aren’t taking action of any kind because they feel it’s just pointless… not because they don’t care at the root of it all. I guess you could say that the cause of that is ‘frustration’ rather than ‘apathy’… but either way, the end result is undercutting our own power.

    As to my statement on ‘not deserving to be heard’, I know that a number of people are finding that challenging, and here’s the thing… I agree both with what you (and others) are saying on that point… AND I still agree with what I said, too.

    I certainly would *never* say that people who’ve been beaten down by the system, or who are just standing on their own, or who have been abused, or who haven’t yet found their voice, or who don’t have the dollars and reach and privilege to be able to organize, or who are still too drugged to even begin to think about all this, or who have to worry about where they’re going to eat or live, etc. don’t deserve to be heard. They do. Without a doubt.

    *AND* I think there’s a huge number of people who are just choosing to look away because it’s easier, or because they now have jobs that depend on system dollars or not ‘stirring the pot’ too much, or who don’t want to spend time thinking about why it’s important, etc. It’s to that group I am mostly speaking…

    We’ve lost a lot of our fight to industry and so on… It’s very, very frustrating.

    And yes, in the grand scheme of things, this film and the Mental Health Channel itself are just a drop in the bucket… Yet, it’s something tangible and concrete, unlike so many of the other much more important battles (changing the overall paradigm, getting people to stop medicalizing our every experience, etc.). And, I guess I think that trying to accomplish something truly tangible and concrete – that also happens to be super easy and requires very little energy to take part in – would be a HUGE step in the right direction.

    In any case, thank you for your reading and commenting, as always, Oldhead. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • While I can appreciate what you’re getting at, it feels misplaced here. This is not a story that is being told by someone who’s been through the experience themselves. It’s being told by his sister.

    And it’s not being told simply as a personal story, but within the frame of truth for everyone (as is the habit of those who so strongly support the medical model). Not only are there ‘facts’ about ‘schizophrenia’ in broad frame at the end of the film, but Italome makes statements like, “Just like with schizophrenia, this story can’t have a happy ending”… on her website.

    Moreover, I wonder if it totally makes sense to excuse racism, sexism and dangerous stereotyping because it happens around the centerpiece of someone’s story? At what point *do* we get to call someone on those points? Does even Tim Murphy just get to say, ‘Hey, this is my experience’ and be excused and being reproach for that while he attempts to force his oppressive laws on us? Where’s the line?

    And, once again, ultimately this isn’t about telling Italome she can’t make the film… It’s about telling the Mental Health Channel that they’re doing damage by promoting it. Isn’t there a difference there?

    -S

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  • Alex,

    I honestly am at a loss for what else to say to you and others who are speaking up in defense of this film… I hope you and others will understand that it is not just the existence of this film, but the elevation of it that is a part of the problem.

    The messages come from a perspective that is riddled with racism, sexism, and psychiatric oppression. Excusing those things with good intentions (even in the form of compassion, understanding, and love) seems to me to be what has gotten this system in so much trouble in the first place.

    What if the film ended with a lobotomy? Or a forced marriage? Or something else that was easier for people to ‘see’? Would those other things still seem like they mattered as much?

    -Sera

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  • BPD,

    By statements in this blog, I’m certainly not suggesting that people who are too beaten down to speak up (or who simply aren’t being given the space) don’t deserve to be heard. My point is more geared toward those who just read but see it as ‘not their problem’ or who don’t see the point in taking any action and so do nothing instead…

    In any case, thank you for your contributions.

    -Sera

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  • Naas,

    I feel genuinely confused by your response. I’m not interested in seeing the film burned or re-edited which is what I think of when I hear the word ‘censored’. But it seems completely wrong to me that a film that portrays every worst stereotype of women, people of color, and people with a psychiatric diagnosis (and conveys the worst possible messages about the diagnosis both at the end of the film and on the website)… is given an award… by a white male jury of two… and posted and distributed by a website that claims to to be ‘changing the conversation’ on mental health. And that they continue to do so when many people (who are of color, female, and/or have experienced psychiatric diagnosis) have expressed that they find it oppressive.

    The ‘#DrowntheMermaid’ tag is directed only at the film. Not any of the people in it.

    I guess I’m not sure what else to say in response… You’re certainly entitled to your opinion.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, John. I wish I knew the right next move. I see so many FB groups, etc. that just seem to be cycling the same information (e.g., I get 10 notifications that the same person has posted the same thing in 10 different groups that I was somehow added to by whoever set it up)… So, I feel a little stuck on what won’t just create another point of inactivity… But there must be something?

    -Sera

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  • Thank you for sharing your experience, Alex. I wonder what the psychiatrist was trying to accomplish by such repetition. It’s so strange to me how firm and cold people who are ‘helping’ can be when they believe they are ‘doing the right thing’… A sort of ‘I’m saying/doing this for your own good’ sort of approach without any self-awareness as to the actual impact… In any case, thank you again for sharing. It was powerful to read.

    -Sera

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  • Jeanane,

    I think these are useful points, and I have heard them before although I haven’t read the book you mention. However, they will inevitably work for some and not for others, and can have the potential to be used in both positive ways and negative, I think. For example, I could easily imagine (and have in fact heard, although not in the precise words you offer above) such arguments being used as judgements or ‘how could you’ sorts of statements… Even then, for some, perhaps they’ll make an impact, but I guess I’ve personally found (both in my own struggle and in supporting others), that those ideas held in curiosity and question and mutual exploration tend to be more effective… But in the end, of course, so much of this comes down to how many common threads there are between people who think about or kill themselves *and* how individual their struggles can nonetheless be.

    I’m glad they’ve had meaning for you… I saw a presentation comparing suicide to ebola at a conference, and I found that image/comparison to be a little over the top, but the idea was basically what you describe and focused on how knowing someone who kills themselves may make it feel somehow ‘easier’ or more ‘real’ to think about it for yourself. That does make some sense to me in a sort of existential sort of way, and it’s definitely something i’ve thought about particular in regards to my children.

    -Sera

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  • Jeanane,

    So, I don’t disagree with you, but here’s the thing:

    I think what you bring up and what I’m speaking to are somewhat different things. ‘Micro’ and ‘Macro’, if you will… Ultimately, I agree that fundamental changes need to happen in order to stop driving so many people toward hopelessness and feeling completely devalued and that really should be – as you suggest – the primary focus of so much of our energy.

    *AND*, If someone is in front of me and in deep pain, I don’t think that I should walk away from them and go fight the social justice issues that may not be solved until long after they’re gone (although, sometimes I’ve found it to be hugely helpful to fight alongside someone who’s trapped in that situation… That that can reignite a sense of purpose and value for them, just in the knowing that people are fighting and that they can be a part of that)… All I’m really saying with those two questions (which I definitely agree aren’t any sort of bigger ‘fix’ and don’t do anything to directly address so many of the real underlying issues) is that in a moment where you are with someone in such pain that those *sorts* of questions can be far, far, far more useful than any assumptions or assessments that otherwise might guide someone on what ‘to do’.

    I don’t know if any of that resonates for you, or if I might have missed some aspect of what you meant, but it’s what occurs to me in the moment.

    Thanks for reading and commenting and for sharing your experience so honest even in the midst of trying to make your way through. I’ve not been in a place with great internet connection since this blog went up, but I will try to make note to read your blog when I’m back in the normal ‘internet’ world!

    -Sera

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Katie! Lots of great thoughts in your comment… I absolutely agree that the violence/psych diagnosis thing is just as meaningless… Though I’d say it’s an assertion that gets made not just to absolve people of blame, but *also* to be able to claim we ‘did something’ about that terrible thing that happened.. (i.e., politicians etc get to say they ‘did something’ with the new law or policy or whatever targeting people with psych diagnoses, and so they get credit for having ‘acted’ and no one really pays attention to whether or not what they did actually made any sense below the surface…) *and* it carries forth an illusion that ‘we are safe’ in a way that also lets people get back to their lives… I.E., The responsible politician/lawmaker acted, now we don’t need to be paralyzed by fear and we can return to normal… voila.. It seems to have become a sort of personal ritual that is all about that process and has nothing to do with what’s actually going on.

    Also a good point about the 10% … I’ll have to see if I can find out who those 10% are (supposed to be)… I’m definitely interested to know!

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Stephen. I really appreciate that his blog has drawn people to share so much personal experience, yours included.

    So often people are looking for the next training on what to ‘do’ to someone to ‘fix’ them, and as the holders of the ‘way’ and the ‘knowledge’… I wish instead we could revision this whole system as if we’re all stuck in a series of dark tunnels, and our job is to be together (rather than alone) in the dark, to feel our way along the edges *with* each other and support one another to find our ways out… knowing that the tunnel out for one person may be blocked off or too steep a climb (or what have you) for another but that there’s always another tunnel to find and explore, and that none of us are operating with the knowledge of which one is ‘right’…

    -Sera

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  • Hi JanCarol,

    That sounds really hard, JanCarol. Even with on-line connections, it can be so hard (at least in my personal experience) to not wonder what you ‘could have/should have’ done, and hard to not look at it as some sort of personal failure on an individual or group level.

    I’m glad reading this was useful to you, and hope it has been to others as well.

    Thank you for taking the time to read and comment 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Sinope,

    Thank you! I love what you shared, because anger is so often pathologized, but it’s been lifesaving for me, too. And yes, I think it’s so common that people go through a sort of grieving process when they hear that there is something else, and could have been something else for them through some of their hardest times… Such important points. 🙂

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Celestevt, I relate greatly to how you describe the source of some of your emotional pain. I’ve never been good at making friends or feeling comfortable in social situations, and sometimes feel most alone when I find myself in groups and realize that everyone else seems at ease and connected and I’m… just not. I can also appreciate what you describe about it getting a little easier somehow as you age, not because it’s actually easier but because it’s a little clearer what it means… Thank you for sharing.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Fiachra. My problem (with thoughts of killing myself) has never been psych drugs (though they did bring on some other interesting effects that I’m glad to be long rid of!), but it’s been really interesting to see just how many commenters on here and on Mad in America’s Facebook page have noted that that was the issue for them, and so frustrating that so many would deny that. Thank you for taking the time to read and share!

    -Sera

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  • Robert, I am not sure the quote you offer is all that much better. I still find it to be highly problematic because, well… what is ‘mental illness’?? If it is simply the existence of pronounced suffering, then that most people who kill themselves experience pronounced suffering is certainly true… however, the problem is thatg mental illness tends to much more specifically mean a medical condition in the brain…. and if the only proof of a medical condition in the brain is the act that people are saying is caused by that medical condition (or the feelings of distress leading up to it) then that seems the epitome of circular reasoning to me… and seems particularly problematic when one considers that there are about a zillion reasons why someone might contemplate intentional death that have nothing to do with disease in one’s brain….

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  • Hi Frank, yes, the circularity seems so obvious and yet people keep throwing it around like it’s some big meaningful fact. Oy. The conversation you bring up about assisted suicide is an interesting one and one I’m planning on getting at to a certain extent in a later blog… it’s definitely complicated by a number of factors… do you feel the same even in situations where someone is dying or deteriorating due to a physical illness?

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  • The cat, yes, that’s a really important finding… that suicide risk is at one of its highest points immediately after being ‘helped’ in a hospital. It speaks to many interesting subpoints like does ‘safety’ only matter as long as you think you’re liable/responsible? Does ‘safety’ only mean preventing someone from taking lethal action in a given moment? At what point is ‘safety’ ever defined by the person deemed ‘unsafe’? And you’re certainly right that there’s a complete failure to respond with any seriousness to abuses that do happen… laws are violated on a daily basis in the name of ‘safety’ and with impunity with the Same justification… it certainly is maddening.

    Sera

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  • Yes, in fact I think most research will ultimately acknowledge that people with psych diagnoses are more dangerous under the influence of certain drugs/alcohol…. but no moreso than anyone else.

    The insanity defense speaks point you make also speaks to a much broader issue of people in the system not being held responsible for anything negative they do because their ‘illness’ made them do it… and then the providers aren’t responsible for any of their violence or wrongdoing either because, well… the person’s illness made them do that, too! Oy. What a mess.

    Sera

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  • Thanks, Someone Else. Yes, obsessed indeed, I agree with you… While I believe people do care on a human level in many instances, I think so much of this comes out of liability… If you die slowly on our psych drug prescriptions, we can avoid blame… But if you die quickly on our watch, it’s all our fault. That thinking drives far too many things…

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Robert. You say a lot of important things here one of which (in particular) I didn’t address in the blog which is that sometimes people are moved toward suicide specifically because of psychiatric drugs… I’m hoping to focus a whole piece on that issue as a part of this series, but I’m really glad you brought it up here!

    Thank you for sharing a part of your story. It illustrates so very much of what’s terribly wrong with this system in a really concise and clear way. I really appreciate it. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, drt!

    What fit insides the so-called ‘normal’ pot certainly seems to be shrinking, and the chasm that is ‘diagnosable’ widens to swallow up all kinds of previously ‘normal’ variances… And it is indeed frightening.

    It’s definitely the parents who don’t understand that I worry about… And why should they understand? No one’s giving them enough information. Very frustrating!

    -Sera

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  • Joe,

    Good questions you ask… I’m aware (as noted in my blog above) that panels have testified that screening is not very useful and potentially harmful… Common sense (as you note above) also suggests it would not be a very promising initiative… But I’m not aware of research that’s really studied the question you raise.

    A quick google search brought me to this:

    Am J Psychiatry. 1997 Oct;154(10):1391-7.
    Effectiveness of community-based screening for depression.
    Greenfield SF1, Reizes JM, Magruder KM, Muenz LR, Kopans B, Jacobs DG.

    Abstract
    OBJECTIVE:

    The effectiveness of a voluntary depression screening program was assessed by determining 1) whether participants in the 1994 National Depression Screening Day went for recommended follow-up examinations and 2) the characteristics that differentiated those who did and did not return.
    METHOD:

    Randomly selected participants (N = 1,169) from 99 facilities completed a follow-up telephone survey.
    RESULTS:

    Of 805 people for whom follow-up was recommended, 56.5% (N = 455) went for an appointment. The severity of depressive symptoms in these subjects ranged from severe (33.4%, N = 152) and marked (41.3%, N = 188) to minimal (17.1%, N = 78) and normal (8.1%, N = 37). Subjects with marked or severe depression were more likely to respond to the screening recommendation than were those with minimal depressive symptoms. However, at each level of symptom severity, subjects who had received previous treatment were more likely to adhere to the screening recommendation than were those with no previous treatment. Of those who returned for a recommended follow-up, 72.1% were diagnosed with depression. Of those who did not return, 29.5% cited lack of insurance, under insurance, or inadequate finances, and 38.0% felt they could “handle” depression on their own.
    CONCLUSIONS:

    Voluntary screening for depression is an effective way to bring certain untreated depressed individuals to treatment. Inadequate insurance and the belief that individuals can manage depression on their own continue to be barriers to seeking treatment among some depressed individuals who attend a depression screening program.

    However, that research is NOT answering the question of whether or not people who go through screening and are diagnosed are actually *helped* or experience improvement in their life…. It’s mostly just answering the question of whether or not people who went through screening actually listened to the screening recommendations of going for treatment at all… Oy.

    -S

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  • Squash,

    I don’t think I’m saying that it’s terribly different… Really, it’s just an example of one in a series of terrible things.

    Yet, pointing them out individually also feels important, because the general public still doesn’t seem to realize it … or realize why it’s bad.

    So, my son’s school Principal says ‘this is important and effective’, and most people won’t know that pharmaceuticals are behind it, and thus the marketing tool is all the more effective for that reason.

    That’s also true of many other tools used for childhood (and beyond) screening, and so on… But we need to keep naming it and saying why it matters.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Erin, Oh, yes, the screens as the pediatricians are terrible… When my son was a few years younger we switched to a new pediatrician and (either because of his age or the different practices of the new pediatrician… not sure which!) when we arrived for his annual physical, they handed us a mental health screener… I refused to complete it, and the doctor told me that it was okay, we could not fill it out and they could just miss getting PAID for it!!!! ugh. They get some sort of extra FEE when parents fill out these damn mental health screeners… So frustrating.

    Anyway, thank you for reading and sharing your experience!

    Sera

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  • Hey Oldhead,

    I sure hope you’re right (about the ability of young people) to see through all this crap. I fear that there are still many people (and their parents) who won’t, though. In some ways, I want to send my kid to the stupid event just as a plant to be a pain in the ass and challenge them out loud in front of the other kids so as to help with that process… But I don’t really want to put my kid (who is fairly shy and struggling in school) in that position. It’s not fair to him. I have, however, e-mailed the school this blog and basically stated to them that they have a responsibility to either pull this crap entirely or, at the very least, give full disclosure to the parents… (Perhaps send them a copy of this blog!?!?) about what they’re asking their kids to participate in….Oy!

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Someone Else. Yes, I have to imagine at some point its desperation for lack of the necessary tools to do the job well that sometimes pushes people to ‘look the other way’ when stuff they wouldn’t ordinarily agree with – but that allows them to do the job at all – is going on … It’s a terrible bind, and speaks to the elements of the ‘system’ that make it so damn difficult to effect any real change.

    Anyway, thanks for reading and commenting 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Elizabeth. 🙂 I’m really interested to see if the school responds *at all* on any of this… I’d *like* to believe that some of what I’ve written here will be some surprise to at least some of them… But what that means they’ll do, I just don’t know… For me, who ends up being a part of this grand web of complicity in the brainwashing and funneling people into the system is a quite distressing piece of it, and I know that some do it simply out of ignorance… But what they do when they can no longer say ‘we didn’t know’ is the big question… Thanks for your own work in speaking up : )

    -Sera

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  • John, Yes, pharma definitely invests money in making themselves look like ‘good guys’ with things like the ‘Peer Specialist of the Year award’ and there various small grants … “Hey, we’ll give you this tiny fraction of our profits, so that we can post on our website that we supported your great cause, and that will distract at least some people from what we’re really spending our big bucks on…” I wasn’t thinking of this quite in that light, because it feels so much more like building their customer base, but I suppose you’re right that there’s an element of the other involved, too.

    In any case, thanks for reading and commenting 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Sure thing, Stephen. I hope it ends up being useful… And yes, it’s such an important point that voice hearing is not necessarily bad, as well as that – even in instances where it’s disturbing for someone – the goal doesn’t *have* to be to try and get rid of the phenomenon to help someone improve the experience. I wish you luck in your efforts.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Someone Else… For sharing so much of your own story, and particularly for highlighting the potential impact of psych drugs in being at the root of these experiences for some people. That is not the first time I have heard that story (and of course, Elizabeth Kenny speaks to it quite well in her show ‘Sick’), but it runs so counter to the accepted narrative that people seem to need to some how ‘unhear’ it or see it as ‘symptom’ most of the time.

    Thanks again, Sera

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  • BPD,

    I don’t disagree with what you’re saying regarding what we know from a group/community perspective, but I think you are misunderstanding some of this article or applying it in ways I didn’t intend…

    For example, I am definitely speaking from an individual perspective and not a group one.

    Additionally, I’m definitely *not* suggesting that ‘I don’t know’ be used to argue with individuals who DO feel like they know. In actuality, the whole point of much of this approach is about supporting whatever meaning people come up with individually *whether or not* it fits with the what we believe generally, *whether or not* it makes us uncomfortable, and so on… And I really don’t mean that to be coming from a patronizing place, either. It’s coming much more from a ‘I can’t possibly know where this is coming from for YOU, so my job is to support you to make sense of that for yourself…’

    I also don’t think that starting from I don’t know means that we can’t offer all of that information… In fact, there’s a part of the blog where I speak specifically to ‘I don’t know’ not being the end point, but rather a beginning point to collaboratively supporting someone to explore options (which can certainly include sharing what we know about research, and so on as you suggest above…).

    I don’t entirely disagree with the rest of what you write (particularly with introducing people to some of the most common and useful frameworks such as a trauma-based one), BUT I do to some extent… Because I’ve seen the harm and alienation people have experienced by having a ‘trauma’ framework pushed, as well…

    As I noted in the blog above, the people asking this question most frequently in training settings are NOT people having these experiences themselves, but parents… If I were having this exchange with someone who was hearing voices themselves and it was clear that they were frustrated with the ‘I don’t know’ sort of answer, I *may* very well shift to one that is more along the lines of, “While I don’t know for you specifically, I do know that framework x [trauma-based] has been really helpful for many people…” and go from there. But it feels pretty important to me (and most consistent with the HV approach) not to start there…

    Regardless, thanks for taking the time to read and comment 🙂 There is much that I find true about what you offer!

    -Sera

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  • I did just one to add that like Jonathan above, I love the recognition that ‘reduction in relapse’ is NOT necessarily the best and most important goal and may, in fact, not be worth it at all… That’s a fairly radical shift for many that bears much further discussion.

    Thanks 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Jill,

    While I don’t disagree with some of what you say in other parts of your response, I’d just like to note that I find it a bit disturbing that you seem to have boiled down Sandy’s talk of extreme states in general as sometimes being ‘scary’ (for the person and/or those around them) to ‘voices are scary’.

    While it’s undoubtedly true that some people are scared by some voices they hear some of the time (and that others around them may be scared that it’s happening, and so on), it still feels somehow dangerous to me to translate all that ‘extreme states’ can encompass into ‘hearing voices’ (since hearing voices, in and of itself, doesn’t have to be and often isn’t scary, too).

    What is behind that, I wonder?

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for writing this, Sandy. This – in a way – gets at what I was also trying to get at with my Mind the Gap blog from a while back (http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/12/mind-gap-space-alternatives-force/)… That gap that exists between the wonderful alternatives so many of us are creating and the people who are doing okay in the world on their own… That gap where people who don’t want to engage in an alternative (or can’t due to lack of access, lack of ‘fit’ with the alternatives self-designated guidelines, etc.) but who are very much not moving through the world with ease seem to fall…(Of course, my blog is about that, but also pushing to not lose sight of the impact of reverting back to force at the same time…)

    I actually tried to push for a lengthy conversation about this at a group gathering once, and it happened a little bit, but not fully. I’d be interested in coming together around that conversation moreso, though. It’s a really tricky one (wrapped up in civil rights and discrimination and so much else), and one that I do think gets ignored more often than not.

    Let me know if you see opportunities for that conversation to happen somewhere 🙂 I’d like to be involved.

    -Sera

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  • Sorry for asking you to think so late on a Sunday, oldhead. 😉

    I haven’t been following Bonnie’s blog discussion, but yes, for sure, much of this is about ‘decontextualization’ of ‘behavior’ (or ‘experience’, I’d prefer to say).

    Interesting comparison with the search for why someone is ‘gay’. I think there are some crossovers there that are worth consideration… In fact, I almost always find that the crossovers between movements and oppressive processes have many similarities worth exploration.

    Thanks for reading and responding 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Hi Transition,

    Thanks for reading and commenting. Video game learning would be right up my kid’s alley, so I hope you’re successful on that particular journey. 🙂

    I did – as a process of this whole evaluation mess – get to meet one teacher who seems to be much more creative and flexible than others with whom I’ve crossed paths. He’s not *my kid’s* teacher, but there does seem to be some potential to access him more moving forward, so that seems hopeful to me…

    In any case, thank you for your suggestions. Since I posted this, a lot of people have made suggestions from homeschooling to various creative ways I could get involved with the school… If I’m honest, it all feels a little overwhelming because I feel pretty ill equipped both from a time and knowledge standpoint to jump in and ‘be the teacher’ with most of these subjects, but definitely hoping to figure out some creative ideas that may work for him. 🙂

    Thanks again,

    Sera

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  • Thanks, John. No worries about not being able to offer something more optimistic. I think I might be more inclined to doubt what you offered altogether if you were too upbeat about this scene. 😉

    I think you’re (unfortunately) absolutely right about the frame of focusing on delivering a product rather than focusing on the *impact* one is seeking to achieve… And where outcomes are the focus, they are commonly shaped into something that is still quite distanced from the bigger picture impact (e.g., ‘increase in med compliance’ vs. ‘increase in satisfaction with life’).

    That is true for so many reasons, I think, including what is easier, more likely to make things look ‘under control’ in the moment, and (annoyingly) what is most easily measurable.

    In any case, thanks for reading and joining in the frustrations. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Someone Else. It sounds like you found some good alternatives to support you and your child getting through. Unfortunately, at least in this area, alternative schools are not particular accessible on a number of levels… Money is one level, but even if you can get your child in an alternative school financially-speaking, it also often requires a great deal more flexibility to support getting them physically to and from the school every day and so on. At least at this point, we haven’t had much luck. We tried to get him in one school that would have been free and nearby, but it was by lottery system and I think we ended up something like #68 on the waiting list. (Sigh.)

    Thanks for taking the time to comment 🙂

    -Sera

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  • John,

    What you write makes sense (and is what I was trying to get at with that one line “And who do you turn to for support when you realize you are also being force fitted into doing your job in ways you’d never imagined?”). It’s so like the mental health system and what happens to anyone who enters trying to do that work differently, as well.

    I’ll check out the play-related article you linked.

    Thanks as always for reading and commenting 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Richard,

    I had heard you weren’t working there anymore, but not all the details. Thank you for your bravery, and for laying out what happened here. These are some of the stories that make me feel most hopeless, but at the same time, I find a sense of hope for knowing that there are people like yourself who can work in the system in some way and still come out of it being clear on what you believe.

    -Sera

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  • Bpd,

    I suppose you’re right that I can’t be *sure*, but actually my opinion of her is based largely on her Facebook page… which is *full* of stuff about ‘anosognosia,’ E. Fuller Torrey’s messages, the Murphy Bill, Involuntary Outpatient Commitment, her perceived limitations of respites as an alternative to hospitalization, and so on…

    So, while I can’t be sure… I feel kinda confident that I’m not too far off the mark.

    Sure, people can and often are afraid when they experience those types of voices… But even if she meant what you suggest, I still wouldn’t go as far as to say *should* be afraid. Often and for so many people, these sorts of voices have *meaning* and many people who come to see them as such and look for and understand their meaning don’t necessarily need to fear them forever…

    -Sera

    -Sera

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  • Margaret,

    I’m still at a loss as to why you are so invested in this site, given how invested you seem in promoting the Murphy Bill and all… But that said, I’m going to respond to this at least briefly:

    Lots of people have thoughts about things that they never do, and aren’t even remotely considering following through on. I, for example, frequently think, “What would happen if I pulled the hair of that woman sitting in front of me?” when I’m stuck in some boring conference… You know, just give it one good yank and see what happens! That’s just one example. In fact, I have all sorts of thoughts about things to randomly say, yell or do all the time. (Don’t you?) Some of them are more persistent and invasive than others. But they’re just thoughts. Passing ideas.

    At one point in my life, however, it became more than just a thought. I was having visions that I took to mean I should hurt my baby girl. I didn’t understand why, but they came to me repeatedly for the first couple of years of her life, sometimes more strongly than others. I had nightmares about it. But I didn’t ever come close to acting on it, and eventually I learned that it was connected to the two miscarriages I’d had before I was able to carry her to term, and that when the visions were at their strongest, I was in the building where one of the miscarriages had started.

    Not unlike me (both my visions and my thoughts), many hear voices telling them they should do something to themselves or others. However, instead of suggesting they should automatically be feared, perhaps we’d do better to understand how these experiences are often just another variance of the thoughts I mentioned earlier. Instead of perpetuating such a negative response, perhaps we should suggest that people ask questions like, “Do you feel you need to do what that voice is telling you to do?”

    There’s so much between hearing voices and fearing them, and you seem to have lost that sense. Unfortunately, it’s the people who lose that sense who often do the most harm.

    -Sera

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  • Malia,

    I appreciate the intent of your first article here, but also take several issues here, some of which are similar to other posters above and some of which are different.

    First, I can start by saying that I *agree* with you that if we’re going to have formalized peer roles within the system, that those roles should be supervised by individuals who also identify as having experienced psychiatric diagnosis, hospitalization, trauma, or some other aspect of the system and life-interrupting emotional distress themselves.

    I agree that to suggest otherwise not only diminishes the overall respect for this type of work simply by the inequality of practice (most people working in highly respected professions can generally anticipate at least some supervision and support from others who are closely familiar with their work), but brings about a bit of a set-up and barrier to do the job being done well at all. That funders and policymakers often do not understand any of this does not bode well.

    Perhaps a first difference between you and I, though, is that I don’t think it’s just about the supervisor having some sort of ‘lived experience’, but also that they’ve been exposed to similar trainings, concepts and values, are extremely familiar and invested in peer-to-peer approaches, and have ideally worked in such a role themselves. Simply having had some sort of ‘lived experience’ doesn’t really say much about how that experience has impacted that person, or what they understand it to mean at this point in their life.

    Some other differences/concerns:

    I think there’s much graver concerns than the supervision issue. First of all, I personally recommend highly that people working in peer roles *NOT* be employed directly by conventional mental health organizations. Given that part of their charge *should* be to be a change agent within that organization, and to (in the vast majority of situations) hold to very different values and priorities… It’s just a bit of a (huge) set up.

    So, for example, a local hospital where I live sub-contracts to the Western Mass Recovery Learning Community to hire, train and supervise people working in peer roles who then spend the bulk of their time working in the hospital. Although this brings its own set of challenges, it’s been hugely important to supporting people working in that role to hold to the integrity of peer-to-peer support and feel confident that someone has their back when they challenge the systems there.

    Then there’s the training. Like some of the commenters above, I think most of the certification trainings available out there are *terrible*. They use ‘mental illness’ language, teach psychiatric diagnosis, and (as noted above) sometimes even teach pharmacology. Virtually all of them (of which I am aware) promote referring to people as ‘clients’ and ‘consumers’ and rarely do they do anywhere near enough to challenge conventional perspectives.

    That said, unlike some commenters above, I *do* support the idea of training. I am a part of the Massachusetts Certification program (which I sometimes feel better about than others, admittedly) and I can offer that we *never* teach diagnoses. We also introduce critical resources like Mad in America and texts like Anatomy of an Epidemic, directly challenge the chemical imbalance theory and the idea that psychiatric drugs are the answer to all (or that there shouldn’t be support to people who want to get off them), and really push the idea of *not* indoctrinating people into system language. Additionally, we screen ‘Beyond the Medical Model’ and encourage conversation about completely non-medicalized ways of making meaning of our experiences. Overall, we spend a lot of time emphasizing the idea that it’s *essential* to the peer role that people be given the information and support they need to come to their own understandings and make their own choices (and that we have a responsibility to make sure they know what those choices are, to the very best of our abilities), and so on.

    So, I guess that brings me to my next point which is I *do* think training is important. Sometimes, I think that people who push that there should be *no* formalized training for peer supporters are missing the fact that *so many* people who’ve been hospitalized, etc. have internalized oppressive ideas. I see some *really* terrible stuff (actions, ideas, etc.) from people who’ve ‘been there’ almost as frequently as I do from people who haven’t…

    It’s not just the supervision that needs to come from people who’ve ‘been there’… It’s also the training. *AND*, the people who develop and offer the trainings need to not just have ‘been there’, but also have already been supported to understand not just their personal experience but the oppressive nature of the system before they’re in any way qualified to do that sort of work.

    One final note: I also find it troubling when peer roles are boiled down into ‘those who share their stories’ verses ‘those who don’t’. While there’s a certain reality to that right now, I do think it’s best when individuals in traditional roles are willing to ‘get human’ and share of themselves, too. So, if the story-sharing bit is all that separates us, then we’re in trouble… And, ultimately not doing our roles justice.

    There’s so much more then becoming walking, talking storybooks to all this work we’re doing. Far more of it is about not having to be immersed in the power systems (writing notes, giving psych drugs, assessing, goal planning, etc. etc.) to which the rest are so beholden. So much of it is about not being a part of someone’s ‘team’ (who is never really able to be legitimately on that person’s ‘side’, per sey), and really being there – unconstrained by all the other crap – to make sure that person knows their choices and rights and that they are getting their voice heard.

    Honestly, the ‘sharing your own experiences’ part is important in certain contexts, but – in some ways – it’s really not the most important at all.

    I wonder why you’re not replying to commenters? It would be good to hear your further thoughts.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • JohnnyBoy, I think you misunderstand the intent of the blog. I’ve *always* maintained in all that I write and say that people can and should be supported to make their own choices, and that I don’t find particular value in trying to force people to believe in NOT taking psych drugs.

    The objection I much more typically express (against NAMI, MHA, DBSA, and the system at large) is in regards to the way they convey that there is only one way, and they do it often *with* pharmaceutical dollars. Really, there’s more objections than that, but none of them are about individual people and what choices they make for themselves (beyond wanting them to have full information with which to make those choices).

    Interesting, this claim you make about evidenced-based practices. I wonder what you mean? First of all, most ‘evidence-based practices’ tend to be the ones offered by those who had the money to pay for the research that could manipulate the data in the first place. It’s often a status symbol of sorts. It often doesn’t mean as much as we want it to mean.

    But more importantly, exactly what evidence-based data are you claiming that NAMI, et al are operating with? And what data would you like to see that supports the perspectives I’m offering? I’ve actually found that there’s a (growing) boatload of data that supports what I’ve offered here and in other blogs, but it gets routinely ignored by the general public in so many instances because it doesn’t fit the expectations. Additionally, calling people’s personal stories ‘anecdotal’ as if they’re worth less than other types of research isn’t fair. I often find much more value and truth in people’s real life experiences, and there’s a growing movement toward using and raising up that sort of research with more frequency as well.

    Great that you’ve found support through NAMI, and as with all national groups, you’ll find some people/offerings that are better than others. However, have you looked at their websites? When I say they push one model over another, at least a part of what I’m referring to is their consistent use of ‘mental illness’ terminology and promotion of medicalized ways of understanding people’s experiences. I’ve looked at many NAMI websites and brochures, and that is what I consistently see. Nevermind what I know of their ‘In Our Own Voice’ program and their support of the Murphy Bill… Lots of people used the term ‘recovery’. I actually don’t myself, but when I hear it, I find it tells me very little about what people actually believe is possible in the lives of those who have been diagnosed/hospitalized/etc. So, I wonder what you mean when you say that they are open to all approaches?

    I’m sorry that you’re so upset by this, but many of us are watching people be hurt emotionally and physically and live limited lives and/or die early as a result of not knowing there’s anything else. And we’re being further threatened with worse versions of the same terrible things through the Murphy Bill, which both NAMI and MHA seem to be supporting.

    Anger seems appropriate given all that.

    -Sera

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  • It’d definitely an alternative I use at times! Though, I think the complication comes in with the fact that not all cognitive processes are clearly related to emotion? For example, when disconnecting from my general annoyance and discomfort with the term ‘mental health’ based on how it’s been abused in the ‘mental health’ system… I *would* consider, say, my memory and ability to call upon and express what I know and think as related to my overall sense of ‘mental health’, but it doesn’t completely resonate to think of it as related to my ’emotional’ health for me… Cognitive health, maybe? I don’t know… It’s complicated, but the term ‘mental health’ has certainly been corrupted by the system.

    -Sera

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  • Schac,

    I actually had been avoiding this particular piece of the debate, but wanted to chime in briefly…

    I particularly want to challenge the idea that one *must* use labels if they’re going to speak to a class… I’ve definitely spoke to class, written grants to traditional funders, etc. etc. without doing more than saying things like, “What may sometimes get labeled as x” simply to help them draw the connections. I hear people say all the time that, if they’re going to “write a grant, work in a hospital, talk to a class, write a paper, etc.” then they have to use the language of the system, etc., and I’ve just routinely found that not to be true…

    This is less about you and what you’re saying than my wanting to be sure to name that for others who may read this, I guess.

    In any case, I hear you (and have heard from so many others) that some people feel that psych labels are useful to them at least some of the time. I’m not here to do what the psych system has done to me and tell any person they’re wrong about that.

    *BUT*, I do wonder if there’s a way for you to – when you present to classes – both present that sometimes people find psych labels useful, and that even when they do, it’s possible to see both the *positive* and struggle in the associated experiences (which is what I think I hear you saying you are already doing) *AND* talk about the fact that there isn’t actually conclusive evidence to suggest that those psych labels are the only way to look at things at all, and share some of that information, as well?

    It’s not so much when the medical model is presented that I cringe, but primarily when it is presented as the best, obvious, or only choice…

    Thanks! 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Steve. It did occur to me even as I was writing that statement that the truth was far more complicated (or less, depending on how you look at it)… That all that we experience emotionally, physically, and so on has some biological/body/mind component because it’s all connected… For example, when Eleanor Longden came and spoke within our community and someone asked her about hearing voices and biology and genetics, she made a point to say that the idea that ‘Schizophrenia’ is somehow biological or genetic is *very* different than saying that perhaps the experience of hearing voices might have some biological or genetic connection…. I’m not sure everyone understood her point, but I did, and I think it relates to what you’re saying… I just didn’t want to tread in that direction with this post that was already so long , so I did indeed (right or wrong) stay more on the surface of that point… 🙂 Thanks for taking that particular piece of the conversation deeper. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Bpd,

    I think it’s a fair fear, depending on what you came out with… As much as I’d like to encourage you just to be free and fearless about it all. 🙂 It’s fair to want to protect what you’ve fought for…

    I did consider suing them afterward, but employment law is hard and often in the favor of the employer… I ended up taking a severance and signing what was essentially a ‘hush, don’t talk about this’ contract to receive that severance (a decision I certainly made out of survival of myself and my young family)… But people on the other end of that contract haven’t held up their end of the bargain, so I have felt less pressed to uphold mine…

    -S

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  • Bpd,

    Honestly, I don’t know why *anyone* listens to that damn interview, but apparently a lot of people have… 😉 I’ll see if I can dig through at some point and figure out where in there I talk about that, so I can use it as an easier reference point in the future… Though I kind of hate the sound of my own voice!

    In brief: When I did the whole ‘coming out’ thing, I didn’t just do it quietly… I was on leave at the time (I’d been holding it together for quite some time, but I’d just had a baby and then the pipes in my house froze and basically tore the house apart when my baby was three weeks old and I kind of just felt apart for a while after that…), and decided – with a co-worker – to start up a website specifically for people who both worked in the system and had gotten services in it… And we both posted our stories, mine included stuff about self-injury and some challenging ideas (though not as challenging as what I’d likely write now!)…

    It freaked people the hell out because a) I was in a leadership position at the org b) I was challenging some of their basic ideas c) I was talking about some of what they considered the ‘scariest’ stuff (cutting, etc.) way out in the open… And I basically went from one of the most praised employees with lots of credibility (which meant they largely left me alone to do what I wanted) to ‘is she competent to return to work’ in a matter of days…

    I didn’t get fired right there, though… It’s just that after that, without any real credibility left, *everything* I was doing got questioned and all the alternative stuff I’d been bringing in (acupuncture, yoga, etc.) was scrutinized like it had never been before, and… Well, there’s more to the story, but I’m out of time at the moment, and you likely get the picture…

    In the end, I can make the argument from both sides. Yes, some people (like me) really do end up losing their jobs… But truly, that ended up being a good thing for me because it opened the door to a place where I *could* talk about it… And once here, it’s been absolutely *critical* to my feeling okay about the work that I do that I again be willing to lose my job to be able to do the right thing.. and because of that very attitude that i have and that I’ve supported in others, we’ve gone way further than we otherwise would have…

    Complicated. I totally understand your own struggle.

    -Sera

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  • Schac,

    I’m sorry that you found my comment demeaning. I was speaking for myself, though, and that’s the reality of my experience… That I have spent a *lot* of time (still do… just not with NAMI) trying to change existing parts of the system… and what I’ve found is that they may start to *say* different words, but that they’re not actually changing anything underneath all that…

    In fact, they have gotten congratulated for bringing me or others who speak a different message in, because it makes them feel more progressive and because they can point to us as examples of being more progressive… But when we actually start pushing for them to *really* change and not just hold us up in tokenistic ways, they get uncomfortable… And as a part of that process, they take from our culture only what *is* somewhat comfortable and essentially co-opt it so that it loses it’s meaning and nothing has really changed in the end.

    I’m not speaking for what’s happening for you, and I am speaking in ‘broad strokes’ that are often more complicated in reality… But that is my experience of what happens when I spend too much time trying to change of those systems by participating in them… I just make them *look* better and contribute to the illusion of change, when underneath it, things are still pretty much the same (but now that fact is harder to see)…

    I agree with you that people get into a place of learned helplessness… It’s similar to some of what I was saying in my last reply to bpd…

    -Sera

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  • Bpdtransformation,

    For the record, I did do much of that when I chose to ‘come out’ as someone with personal experience in the mental health system while I was working in a relatively senior role *in* the mental health system… I’d already been trying to integrate different perspectives into my work… but once I ‘came out’, I did indeed end up fired. 🙂 (http://www.madnessradio.net/madness-radio-politics-language-sera-davidow/ for a bit on all that if you’re interested)

    Anyway, yes, you are speaking to what I mentioned in a prior comment… That systemic oppression is re-enforced by industry, and by (justified) fear of speaking out. I believe it to be one of the *greatest* losses that has come with the industrialization of peer roles… This movement did indeed used to be much more vocal in some parts, but as more people have come to work *for* the system and become dependent on it financially, we’ve lost even more steam in that regard. It’s not something to blame the individual for… Just one of the many deeply challenging issues that we face.

    That said, I will offer this: There are actually multiple ‘Recovery Learning Communities’ in the state of Massachusetts and all of us are funded largely by the state Department of Mental Health… But, not all of them do much to particularly challenge the medical system. In fact, some of them collaborate quite closely with NAMI and have centers hospital basements.

    We’ve even gotten calls from some of them that are totally out of our area and go something like this:

    (WHISPERING) Other RLC: “So, there’s someone in our community who wants to get off their meds, but we’re not allowed to talk about that here…. Can you talk to them?”

    There’s a number of reasons why those RLC’s are different… But I gotta tell you, one of the reasons is they disempower themselves. We consistently speak up more than most of the other RLCs, have more controversial events (in fact, I tend to bring our controversial events to other parts of the state whenever I can, because most of the other RLCs aren’t going to offer such things themselves), say more controversial things at statewide meetings, etc. etc… And one of the biggest differences is that we basically *do* have a couple of beliefs we keep in mind:

    1. If we just act and speak like our approach and what we’re doing is unquestionably the way it’s supposed to be, more people will believe us than not, and few will try and stop us. (A play from the medical model’s playbook, if you will…)

    2. We are willing to lose a contract or have a complaint placed against us (I’ve had a formal complaint filed against me with our funder since I’ve been in this role) if it comes down to it, because to be doing anything else would be such an ethical loss and injustice that couldn’t stand it.

    While there’s other factors involved in our success, the reality is that – at least at this point in time – we are the largest RLC (we started at the same time as two of the five others), have a great relationship with at least the local representatives for our funders, and are certainly the best known beyond the borders of our state.

    So, it’s a complicated picture in many ways.

    -Sera

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  • Schac6,

    That’s great that you’re having impact and that people in your corner of NAMI were receptive to the ideas… I still find it to be a bind on my end, because even if I find such receptivity, I would worry that they would only use the fact that they’re doing something progressive in one little corner to fend of critics and bolster their overall presence. That is also one of many reasons we won’t take pharmaceutical funding.

    For the record, I *never* tell people they’re wrong for wanting to use medical labels for themselves or finding something helpful (in full or in part) about the medical system… In fact, if you look at my other writing, there are places where I try to be very clear about that: That it’s not about getting out of one box, only to step in another, and that one of the biggest problems inherent to this particular system is how it *tells* people what their story is… I’m not interested in replicating that problem… In fact, ‘Beyond the Medical Model’ – the first film I made, is largely about that underlying message…

    But given the medical model is currently elevated, most of my time and energy is dedicated to raising up other options and pointing out why the medical model should *not* be elevated about all others (which is different than saying it shouldn’t be an option at all)…

    I agree with you that organizing is a problem… Although I’ve never posted on Icarus, I’ve seen the phenomenon you describe elsewhere… Unfortunately, I think this is part of the self-feeding system of oppression, I believe. It’s hard to gather energy from people who’ve been beaten down, are feeling hopeless, have no resources, are just trying to get by day-to-day, are afraid of the consequences of speaking up beyond a computer screen, etc. etc. I think it often says more about the impact of oppression then about, say, the skills of people at NAMI or in other settings… But of course, it’s more complicated than that, and I have no real answer for it.

    I just know that the path you describe as being right for you is not right for me, as I fear it only gives an oppressive system more power and that so much of the change it brings is illusory in nature. I hope, however, that you find continued success on the path you have chosen.

    -Sera

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  • Shac6,

    I definitely do not have the answers to all your questions, but I wonder if you’ve by chance read one of my older blogs that addresses some of my bigger issues with NAMI? It’s here, if you’re interested: http://www.madinamerica.com/2014/03/dear-nami-apologies-ive-unfair/

    I agree that not all people (or groups) associated with NAMI are bad. I agree that many are – as you suggest – simply desperate and/or hurting family members and others who don’t have anywhere else to turn.

    HOWever, I also agree with what I wrote in the blog I just cited above… And what, apparently pharmaceutical reps also agree with… Which is that NAMI and other organizations like it that have such a huge reach and so relentlessly promote the medical model as the absolute truth do HUGE damage. (Actually, the pharmaceutical rep I cited in the article above doesn’t say that they do huge damage… His frame is that they are the biggest help the pharma industry has to recruiting more people to take their psych drugs….)

    Meanwhile, NAMI (along with MHA’s current head) is one of the Murphy Bill’s most vocal promoters, and the New York chapter even gave Tim Murphy an award at their annual conference last year.

    While it may be a losing battle in some ways based on the power structures that be, given all this, I do not think that it’s fair to ask people to simply give up and play nice with NAMI…

    I’m happy to invite *people who are associated* with NAMI into any discussion, event, etc. that I have to offer… But I, for one, can’t ever imagine joining or standing with them, given that they would rather hold up the perspectives that are killing so many of us and elevate people like Murphy. It’s just too much to ask.

    While I’m with you on the idea of creating community, I actually think we need *more* first raising. When it comes to stepping out from behind computer screens and on-line pseudonyms, *FAR* too many of us now feel beholden to paid peer roles and other positions that are at risk if we speak up and unite around some of our beliefs in a wholehearted and outspoken way. Too many people are afraid to speak up truthfully for fear of losing their job, or have convinced themselves they agree because of the pressures of assimilation that exist for anyone who is a part of a historically disempowered group…

    Corporations will certainly always exist, but pharma doesn’t have quite the power in some other countries that it holds here, and so I also think there’s room for change. NAMI’s greatest source of power is the lack of access to the ability to get heard for the rest of us, and I have to believe there are also ways to change that. I see joining with NAMI to beg for their ‘getting heard’ scraps as doing nothing else other than increasing their reach and their voice…Although again, I understand why people who are just desperate for support turn that way and don’t think less of them for doing so.

    So, I really don’t know the answers to your questions, though I do think we have more power than we make use of if only we’d each find ways to strategize and get different perspectives into our communities, even if its only to submit something with alternative ideas to local public access or local colleges or what have you…

    But I guess i have a question back for you… As much as I can appreciate a good portion of what you’re saying, when I hear, “I wish we as a community in some ways would stop blaming others for our problems” I feel a little uneasy… Because I think we’re up against systemic oppression that is much like racism, classism, sexism, etc. in so many ways… And when put in that context, it feels really hard to me to suggest that people in the non-dominant group should stop blaming the dominant group for all their power and privilege or asking them to be accountable to the wrongs that have been done and to recognize the need for change…

    I wonder if you believe that this is an issue of systemic oppression? If you do believe that, then there’s room for lots of well intended people and even good doctors and good NAMI employees, but there’s still a ton of power imbalance and privilege and abuses and need to unpack and change all that.

    Thanks for reading and writing! 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Frank,

    I wish ‘mental health’ didn’t need to be such a corrupted phrase… physical health and well being isn’t, after all, just about conquering sickness, but also about nutrition, exercise and just simply taking care of one’s self and being attentive to one’s needs… but in the end, I agree with you that it is (in most circles, anyway).

    Thanks for reading and writing, and for your justified outrage as always. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Hi Snowyowl,

    I do remember that element coming up in ‘Orange is the New Black’ (all seasons of which my husband and I just made our way through this past year). I don’t otherwise know much at all about the main character, or the woman (Piper Kerman) upon whom the Piper character is based… A quick glance at her webpage does certainly suggest that she’s pretty politically involved in some realms!

    I don’t know enough about Kerman to know if she’s reachable or truly interested in this topic, but I do certainly think that engaging voices that have more social capital than we do (celebrities, etc.) would be great if we could accomplish it!

    -Sera

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  • zrbialk,

    I’m sure you’re right that they will feel defensive, but part of my point regarding the blog is that we invested a fair amount of time *not* attacking and just offering information to them in 2013. I spoke on the phone with them. I e-mailed with them. I tried to help connect them with people at the Alternatives Conference in Austin that year. What I also did not include in this blog (there’s a lot that I cut because it was just getting too long), is that we also invited film producers who were working with them in 2014 into our community to meet with a few people, *and* we tried to offer them some content that we’ve produced to include on their site earlier this year (though admittedly, none of it is anywhere near the production value of what they do post… we just don’t have that sort of budget).

    Pleasantly offering our information and resources up, however, has gotten us nowhere and likely for a mix of reasons… But, as I said toward the end of my blog, I do think that this is ultimately a part of the picture of systemic oppression and I’m not sure it’s fair to require those in the non-dominant group to forever be nice and non-confrontational until those who hold the power simply voluntarily decide to listen. At some point, I think we just get to speak our truth and demand that things be different…

    The problem, of course, is I’m not seeing *either* way be particularly successful at creating actual change… I think there’s a number of reasons for that, but that’s a whole ‘nother blog (or 10) right there.

    Thanks for reading and commenting!

    -Sera

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  • Bpdtransformation,

    Yes, I had poked around to try and find out more about their funding and backers and advisors, too, and hadn’t gotten much beyond where you did. I did see the same statement about the foundation that is funding them…

    I also did find mention in some early e-mails that I received that they do have some sort of advisory board and that Tom Insel (formerly of National Institute of Mental Health) was on there, but couldn’t find who else may have or have had membership there… I’ve e-mailed to ask, but don’t know that I’ll be getting much of a response on that point… I also found that something called mydna.com used to have something called the ‘Mental Health Channel’ too and that they also appear to have been based in Austin, Texas and that John Grohol (founder of psychcentral.com) was on (is on?) their medical advisory board… I have no idea if those are all connected, but I believe I included that question in my e-mail to them, as well.

    It seems to be a trend on many levels that the US attempts to spread its ‘right way’ (beyond just the issue of medicalization) to other countries… I do hope there is something to interrupt that somewhere along the way… Good, common sense would be nice, but it doesn’t appear that that’s happening. 🙁

    Thanks for reading and writing!

    -Sera

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  • Margaret, I feel confused about what it is you are looking for here in this post and on this website. It seems clear from information you have posted publicly elsewhere that you are pro-Murphy Bill, terms like ‘anosognosia’ as applied to ‘mental illness’ and so on…

    While that’s all your choice to make, I feel confused about why you’re investing so much time on this website or what you’re actually seeking.

    Sera

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  • Hi Fred,

    Thanks for taking the time to read and comment.

    IT’s so interesting that – in so many ways – those lands that we would often be quick to deem ‘behind us’ or ‘under developed’ are – in some pretty meaningful ways – actually head (or if not ‘ahead’, then at least… less corrupted for being ‘behind’)…

    Thanks so much for your $ support to the RLC, as well. I very much appreciate it. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for reading and responding, Elizabeth. You know, I put that chart (and this blog) together so quickly that I thought I might look back at it and regret having sent it out so soon… But I’m kinda liking the chart, too… I guess it came as quick as it did because it’s just that true. 🙂

    And yes, for sure, I think the learning/unlearning piece is something that’s true for most of us, I think… Not just providers in the system… Otherwise, it wouldn’t be quite so hard to undo the damage many of us have experienced therein, or so I believe.

    In any case, thank you again for reading and taking the time to comment 🙂

    Sera

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  • Steve,

    I don’t disagree with your overall point, but for what it’s worth, I did try to encompass the point you’re making in what I wrote… For example, I was getting at some of what you were saying, here:

    It’s funny, though, that some of these concepts are so hard for people to take in…Funny because they apply so readily to any and every life. As best as I can tell, the disconnect comes from the fact that we’ve all been taught to think about people who’ve been given psychiatric diagnoses or who are acting ‘crazy’ or who are hospitalized because they’ve been deemed ‘out of control’ as other. When those parts of ourselves get so big and colorful as to lead to some such grand intervention, we seem to intentionally blind ourselves to their much more readily relatable roots – the points at which we could see ourselves reflected back.

    However, I only did so somewhat vaguely and in a way that is easy to miss, so your feedback is certainly valid. 🙂 Thank you for adding this important point to the conversation!

    That said, I’d push back a tad and say that even if tomorrow they discovered it’s all ‘mental illness’, there remains a boat load of evidence to suggest that the medication and various other ways the system responds to that distress isn’t effective.

    -Sera

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  • Hey oldhead,

    I don’t honestly know how soon, I’m afraid. I just found out about it a day or so ago myself, but yes, it’d be great if there was an easy to spot place on this or another site that offered a sort of ‘call to action’ to people to respond. Unfortunately, I’ve found that far fewer people than I’d wish tend to respond to those calls… I think it just gets so exhausting after a while. One of the many reasons why oppressive systems (of all kinds) tend to stay in power.

    I do think you can find at least some of what you’re looking for, though, over on the Campaign for Real Change in Mental Health Policy website which you can find here:

    http://realmhchange.org/

    Thanks as always for reading and commenting 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Bpdtransformation, There’s a very general formal study that looked at all six RLCs across the state, but the reality is they’re SUPER different and the results were largely combined so I’m not totally sure how representative it is… We also do our own annual reports for the peer respite that include reports on results/surveys, etc…

    But on the whole, the research thing is hard because we really don’t want to damage what we offer by being invasive or making people feel observed or invaded or used in that way… So, we’ve tended to steer clear… Which has its up and downsides, of course.

    “It’s grimly entertaining to read people refer to “anosognosia” in people with “mental illness.” The irony is that people like Jaffe and Fuller are much more deluded than those people they believe to have brain diseases, because those people have no such thing and are actually correct to deny that they are (medically) “ill”.”

    This coincides nicely with my blog about whether or not NAMI and MHA suffer from anosognosia themselves 😉

    The NYT article is so frustrating.. I wish we could avoid that sort of thing altogether, and yet at the same time, I wish many more people were reading it and taking the time to flood it with comments so at least it’s clear that they really aren’t representing even close to the whole truth!

    -Sera

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  • An open and final letter to all who have posted on this blog (or may come to read it later),

    First, thank you to all who took the time to read what I wrote, whether you agreed with it or not. At the time that I write this, the blog has surpassed 2,000 reads and is closing in on 200 comments. It has been on Mad in America’s ‘What’s Hot This Week’ list for three days and now sits at #2. You helped keep the blog visible (whether you loved it or hated it), and I appreciate that. Some of you have also helped give a ‘live’ demonstration of sorts as to precisely why this blog *is* needed right here and right now, so thank you for your (unintentional) efforts in that direction, as well!

    A special thank you to those of you who stuck the dialogue out through its many ups and downs, who did your best to keep turning it back to what was originally posted, and who supported making way for those in this on-line community who have lived as women to be heard. This looked took many forms throughout the course of the blog’s twist and turns, including men stepping up to challenge other men (rather than assuming that to be ‘women’s work’), men stepping back to leave space when women were talking for themselves, and women stepping up to speak out. Thank you all.

    To those few who got stuck in the deepest mire, and felt it necessary to attack the blog’s foundational concepts, I have a few last things to say:

    First, it makes total sense that you might not totally be able to see the existence of male privilege. As I said in an earlier response to a commenter:

    “It’s sometimes the difference between recognizing the concrete barriers on the road in front of you verses the air on an entirely clear path…”

    It’s hard to see what you don’t experience. It’s hard to see what’s not standing in your way.

    Yet, that’s why it’s so important that individuals who don’t have to live the lack of male privilege (or white privilege, and so on) step back and listen. Even when they disagree. That doesn’t mean you’re to be silenced forever, but it does mean that when you have not had to deal with a particular type of oppression first hand, that you won’t have any shot at all of ‘getting it’ if you can’t stop reactively responding long enough to really hear the experiences of others. And, that you’ll be a part of perpetuating the silencing of those who have lived it if you don’t at least try to be quiet and hear them out.

    I’m not one to write attacking comments nor to encourage them from others. But, when the dynamics of sexism are playing out before our very eyes in the comments section of a blog about which sexism is the very topic at hand, doesn’t it make sense that some would respond angrily? Is it fair to expect that people who’ve experienced a particular type of oppression stay wholly calm in such a discourse?

    And to those who felt the need to soothe the men in the ‘room’ who were told to step back because they were taking up a lot of space, is that really an ‘attack’? Or is it simply a statement – clearly made – by someone who sees an imbalance being replayed and feels that the only right thing is to demand that it be corrected? Anger is justifiable when fighting systemic oppression.

    Furthermore, while I’m not suggesting that these forums be allowed to collapse into a sea of insults, I think we need to question what shapes that which we each see and ‘hear’ as an ‘attack’? Why was one person’s demand that a man stop taking up so much space on a blog about male privilege an ‘attack’ when so many sarcastic, dismissive, and repetitive posts from some of those men who seemed so intent on deriding the topic itself was not seen as such (by some)?

    I also feel that, before closing (for now), I must come back to the truly misguided idea that this blog (or any of the subsequent comments speaking to the realities of sexism) is somehow denying other people’s realities or suffering by discounting the idea of sexism as a two-way street or asserting that ‘male privilege’ does indeed exist.

    It would seem that some commenters are unable to hear that sexism (and racism and so on) are not just about personal biases or wielding of power between individuals. They are about personal biases mixed with the power to shape an entire culture or nation.

    And male privilege (and white privilege and so on) is not about where we’ve landed (or all the good and bad that’s happened to us along the way), but about the barriers in (or not in) our way simply because of some quality we possess (such as our gender, the color of our skin, our sexual orientation, our socioeconomic status, and so on) and that – in most instances – we were born into.

    This is about the shape of a whole system and who is primarily in charge of shaping it (most often in their own image and based on their own needs and perspectives and understandings of what’s ‘right’ and ‘wrong’). By that definition, there cannot be sexism against men because we live in a male-dominated culture, and there cannot be racism against a white person for the very same reason.

    It is not about one individual, or a group of individuals, and thus cannot be denied by them even if they are definite that their experiences differ from the majority for whatever reason. One woman cannot claim that there is no sexism even if she feels she’s not been impacted by it and therefore has trouble seeing it herself. (And a man certainly can’t deny it, either.)

    Would those of you who felt so vehemently about arguing against these concepts or who suggested that they are simply ‘opinions’ or ‘theories’ react in kind to a commenter who came in to a different blog and said that the idea of oppression within the psychiatric system is absurd because they’ve received services and believe the mental health system is a-okay? Would you not also be appalled if a provider of mental health services felt they were in a position to speak for someone who’d been forced into services, or denied their realities of psychiatric oppression simply because they – as providers – didn’t believe it?

    I can only hope that the answer to that is a resounding ‘no’. Because I think that most of us know – objectively speaking – that oppression is rampant within the psychiatric system and against those who have been psychiatrically labeled. I think most of us know that – just because one (or several) people say they don’t ‘see it’ because they had a good experience – this is a fact that really isn’t particularly deniable.

    And, if you can see that, then hopefully you can also see what I am saying in regards to sexism, racism, and beyond.

    All that said, and to quote (again) from another one of my earlier responses, male privilege and sexism do NOT mean:

    • That lots of men haven’t had terrible things happen to them
    • That men who are successful haven’t had to work for what they have
    • That some men haven’t had WAY harder lives than some women
    • That some women aren’t terribly mean toward men • That no women ever behave in the ways described in my blog (the reasons why get super complicated, though, and can be for any number of reasons, but INCLUDES in some instances how women have learned they need to behave if they want to be successful in certain roles in a male-driven world) And so on.

    …None of what this blog has had to say is intended to negate your struggle, your suffering, or your accomplishments.

    But nor does your difficulty in understanding that negate what sexism actually means, or the existence of white or male privilege.”

    I think that one of the greatest mistakes we can make (and have, in fact, been making) as various activist groups or individuals wanting to see things be different is to believe that we should only be focused on fighting our own brand of oppression. The power structures around us are not just based on one type of privilege. They are based on many from gender identity to race to sexual orientation to socioeconomic status to religion to how able-bodied we are seen to be to psychiatric diagnosis and so on. The bulk of the people in power (in this country, at least) are cis males who are white, heterosexual, come from some degree of wealth and educational access, Christian, not seen as disabled, and carry no psychiatric diagnoses.

    They have structured our systems around their beliefs, perceptions, and goals and in ways that prioritize keeping them in those positions. They don’t often leave room for others to be heard, largely because they often don’t particularly understand why they should. They often aren’t interested in becoming aware of what they don’t know, because they don’t know that they don’t know it.

    We are stronger when we stand together across all types of oppression. (After all, many of us have experienced more than one kind).

    We are stronger when we take the time to learn from one anothers journeys and stories of oppression, even when they are very different from ours.

    We are also stronger when we are willing to truly step back and hear directly from those who have been there themselves.

    This blog’s comment section should close with women’s voices being heard most loudly. To leave it any other way would be unjust.

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  • Nick,

    As you may have noted, the bulk of my last response was a cut and paste (as I said) from an earlier response to Bradford that I felt was almost equally as applicable to you… So, I’m not sure why you’re responding to it as if it were written directly to you given the defensiveness piece. However, I will say it does seem applicable, as you, like Bradford, seem to be spending an inordinate time on a blog that you don’t seem to like and with no particular responsibility to keep coming back unless you so choose.

    A couple of things:

    I have to believe that you don’t actually believe that women are more or even equally safe when compared to men in walking down a street alone. I can’t imagine you really believe that you’re accurately applying statistics about men and violence here. I have to wonder if you’re simply arguing for the sake of arguing?

    I said the part about not needing to defend being a man not in the general conversational way, but in references to when one is running for public office… It was simply an example of how when men are running for public office, they are simply a candidate for public office, but when women are running for the same public office they are a WOMEN running for public office and need to defend that… This is most relevant because it is just one example among many of the judgements and beliefs about women in our most powerful roles (often roles responsible for leading or shaping our society)…

    I did explain the intersectionality piece. I’m not going to repeat that here, but you’re welcome to go back and read my previous comment again.

    Your saying this website is not about gender is essentially the same as the commenter who said that this site is not about race and that I was detracting from the site by posting about that here, as well…

    You’re both welcome to those beliefs. I, on the other hand, believe that the intersectionality of all of these issues (how they relate and impact one another, or how we all each often belong to multiple groups, etc.) is critical and that our lack of attention to them can and has harmed us and our ability to fight psychiatric oppression effectively.

    Sexism and racism are issues in this culture, and undeniably so. Perhaps there’s more of a debate to be had about their place on this particular website, but the fact of the matter is that we don’t need to agree.

    And, incidentally, you don’t need to read my blog. There are plenty of blogs that get posted to this site that I choose not to read, or don’t like when I do read them. There are even some that I felt have been potentially harmful, and I wish had never been posted.

    Yet, when I look at the bulk of responses to this blog, I feel reassured that this is not one of them, so I’m just going to hang on to that for now.

    I’m not going to keep responding to this because, while I do feel committed to responding to comments on blogs I write, I don’t feel that this particular dialogue is where my time is best spent, but thank you once again for reading and commenting.

    -Sera

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  • bpdtransformation,

    I get what you’re saying, and I think there is an unfortunate aspect of both the mental health system *and* some parts of the movements intended to change the mental health system that all somehow think that EVERYONE should still be involved somehow if they’ve ever been ‘in’ it…

    While this blog was NOT meant to just say ‘give up on it all, get out, go your separate ways’… After all, I’m still ‘in it’ in my own way and HAVE seen some really great things happen in certain circles, and lots of strength and growth and commitment in many… I think it’s *great* when we’re reminded that people can sometimes (often, if the system were set up differently), go through it and just move on with life.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Nick,

    Thank you for reading and replying. I think some of your reaction is based on not fully understanding the concept of male privilege and sexism and all… I don’t have time to reply in depth, nor am I sure that it would be terribly helpful if I did, but I am going to cut and paste part of a reply from me to Bradford above in response:

    “I do realize that sexism, racism, and the related privileges are complicated conversations with many layers and opportunity for misunderstanding, but let me offer this:

    Sexism is *systemic* discrimination against women and misogyny. It canNOT go ‘both ways’ because our culture is set up in a particular way that does NOT change based on individual or even small group interactions. Because those smaller interactions cannot change how society is set up, or how that society has impacted individuals over time. (It’s the same with racism.)

    Male privilege is the result of how society is set up, and also doesn’t speak to individual interactions or specific groups within that society. It is about the *starting* point. For example:

    Men are generally able to walk down a street and feel safer and have fewer people feel they are somehow entitled to make comments about or touch their body.

    Men are more likely to be expected to enter into fields that involve math or science

    Men don’t have to defend being male, nor do they have to expect that the fact that they are male will be a major topic of discussion if they run for public office (especially the higher up ones)

    Most traditional ways of speaking match the male gender (policeMAN, mail MAN, ‘all men are created equal’, etc. etc.), and most history of this nation focuses on the accomplishments of men

    Note that these examples generally refer to ways in which men have greater access to money, powerful roles, or general safety and control over their bodies…

    Perhaps this is nonetheless where you’re getting stuck in defensiveness, particularly if you’re not understanding that male privilege and sexism do NOT mean:

    * That lots of men haven’t had terrible things happen to them
    * That men who are successful haven’t had to work for what they have
    * That some men haven’t had WAY harder lives than some women
    * That some women aren’t terribly mean toward men
    * That no women ever behave in the ways described in my blog (the reasons why get super complicated, though, and can be for any number of reasons, but INCLUDES in some instances how women have learned they need to behave if they want to be successful in certain roles in a male-driven world)
    And so on.

    There’s also all the intersectionality that comes along with this. So, for example, black women have a particularly difficult place in our society because of both racism and sexism. They are marginalized in ways I could never fully understand. On the other hand black men may benefit from male privilege, while being incredibly negatively impacted by racism. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.

    And then there’s all the trauma and abuse and psychiatric labeling and forced drugging and so on that so many of us have experienced who blog and read this website. And regardless of the color of our skin, our gender identity, our class, and so on… We’ve been devastatingly hurt in many instances (though gender and race and class certainly play a role in the system, too).

    None of what this blog has had to say is intended to negate your struggle, your suffering, or your accomplishments.

    But nor does your difficulty in understanding that negate what sexism actually means, or the existence of white or male privilege.”

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  • I am certainly not placating. I am looking for the truth and/or what resonates for me in what people say and responding to that.

    I’m sorry that that approach doesn’t work for you, but it does for me… particularly in this context.

    Thank you for explaining your interpretation of my approach and for your gender-based analysis of my word choice, though.

    It seems to me that you’re quite defensive and spending an inordinate amount of time in this comments section, and at some point, I have to begin to wonder why.

    This is my blog, and whenever I put a blog out there, I feel a real responsibility to follow it for *at least* the first week or two and respond to as many comments as I possibly can, even if it’s just to recognize that someone has commented.. because I do value that.

    So, I know why I’m spending so much time here. Why are you?

    I’m not saying, ‘get out’, but I am questioning what is driving you at this point, and – at least at a glance – it does appear that it is that aforementioned defensiveness.

    I do realize that sexism, racism, and the related privileges are complicated conversations with many layers and opportunity for misunderstanding, but let me offer this:

    Sexism is *systemic* discrimination against women and misogyny. It canNOT go ‘both ways’ because our culture is set up in a particular way that does NOT change based on individual or even small group interactions. Because those smaller interactions cannot change how society is set up, or how that society has impacted individuals over time. (It’s the same with racism.)

    Male privilege is the result of how society is set up, and also doesn’t speak to individual interactions or specific groups within that society. It is about the *starting* point. For example:

    Men are generally able to walk down a street and feel safer and have fewer people feel they are somehow entitled to make comments about or touch their body.

    Men are more likely to be expected to enter into fields that involve math or science

    Men don’t have to defend being male, nor do they have to expect that the fact that they are male will be a major topic of discussion if they run for public office (especially the higher up ones)

    Most traditional ways of speaking match the male gender (policeMAN, mail MAN, ‘all men are created equal’, etc. etc.), and most history of this nation focuses on the accomplishments of men

    Note that these examples generally refer to ways in which men have greater access to money, powerful roles, or general safety and control over their bodies…

    Perhaps this is nonetheless where you’re getting stuck in defensiveness, particularly if you’re not understanding that male privilege and sexism do NOT mean:

    * That lots of men haven’t had terrible things happen to them
    * That men who are successful haven’t had to work for what they have
    * That some men haven’t had WAY harder lives than some women
    * That some women aren’t terribly mean toward men
    * That no women ever behave in the ways described in my blog (the reasons why get super complicated, though, and can be for any number of reasons, but INCLUDES in some instances how women have learned they need to behave if they want to be successful in certain roles in a male-driven world)

    And so on.

    There’s also all the intersectionality that comes along with this. So, for example, black women have a particular difficult place in our society because of both racism and sexism. They are marginalized in ways I could never fully understand. On the other hand black men may benefit from male privilege, while being incredibly negatively impacted by racism. The two aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.

    And then there’s all the trauma and abuse and psychiatric labeling and forced drugging and so on that so many of us have experienced who blog and read this website. And regardless of the color of our skin, our gender identity, our class, and so on… We’ve been devastatingly hurt in many instances (though gender and race and class certainly play a role in the system, too).

    None of what this blog has had to say is intended to negate your struggle, your suffering, or your accomplishments.

    But nor does your difficulty in understanding that negate what sexism actually means, or the existence of white or male privilege.

    -Sera

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  • Snowyowl,

    Thank you for all the kind words 🙂 I think my 4-letter-words come most freely when speaking. When writing, I tend to shift into another part of my brain, and while my words can still be very pointed, they include less of the 4-letter variety. 😉

    I’m not sure how I’ve developed my ability to think clearly in difficult times. Honestly, there are still plenty of times when I kick myself for not saying what I should have said during difficult interactions, or taking too long to process them! But I guess there was a point, for me, where I knew too many opportunities were passing me by for fear of saying what was on my mind, and that if I was going to get heard, that it was best to learn to do so in as strong a way as I could muster… So, it became a healing process for me and writing continues to be that. 🙂

    At least here, you come across as a very strong and thoughtful writer yourself (and I don’t just say that because you’re complimenting me! 🙂 ). I hope you find it similarly useful and cathartic. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Snowyowl,

    I’m sorry for not responding sooner! Thank you for taking the time to speak up here (much of what you write sounds quite poetic, itself!). I very much agree with you that taking an honest look at our own healing work to be done (and then being willing to do that ongoing… healing, learning, recognizing what we still do not know about ourselves about our world, and so on) is so important, and often a missing piece when people are playing out the worst sorts of dynamics with one another. I like to believe that some of that can be done *within* these sorts of communities (if people are open to it), but I also very much respect the idea that some do that best in other places and ways and have the most to give once they’ve taken some of that time before returning. Thank you again, Sera

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  • Bradford,

    I certainly agree that we have to NEVER FORGET that people are being abused and dying while we’re here discussing… And it’s far easier to sit behind a computer and discuss than it is to take action in the world.

    That said, I hope that the existence of this website and all its blogs and discussion sections are a part of strengthening the numbers in the world that feel compelled to take action. Some of this discussion, I think, is very important… It’s just not (by any stretch) any sort of ending or resting point.

    Sera

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  • Alex, While I definitely agree with some of your earlier points that grabs for power can transcend gender, I *also* believe that concepts like ‘reverse racism’ and, similarly, ‘reverse sexism’ don’t particularly exist… Because they’re systemic issues and about who (in the broad sense) holds power and has the power to design society around themselves and people like them… So, until who (at the systemic level) is in power changes, the reverse doesn’t seem real to me… Which doesn’t mean individual people of any gender or race or what have you can’t be absolutely terrible to one another and have very real negative impacts on others as a result.

    -S

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  • Thanks so much for chiming in, oldhead. Those examples of past gatherings you offer sound awful, but I particularly appreciate your awareness of how often the blatant examples sometimes allow for the less blatant to go unnoticed or be denied altogether. I think that is true (as you reference) of so many types of oppression. I also very much appreciate your recognition of the need for making space and listening more than responding at times. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Richard. Your comments (and blogs) are always thoughtful and much appreciated.

    I’m reluctant to compare or say which type of oppression is the worst (which isn’t quite what you’re saying, I know), but I certainly do agree that it’s deeply ingrained and shows up in so many different ways, including that sense of ownership over women’s bodies.

    When I was living on a college campus, I was sexually assaulted by a man who told me that according to his culture he had to see me as a sexual object, and the only way to not see me as a sexual object was to agree to be his sister, but if I became his sister, then – he said – I would need to do whatever he told me to do. I wasn’t too sure what he might tell me to do as his ‘sister’ and I wasn’t interested in finding out… But that sense of onwership over my body – sexually or otherwise – was notable, and of course, shows up in many (sometimes less blatant) ways.

    -Sera

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  • David,

    I really feel strongly about responding to comments on my blog, but I’m afraid I’m continuing to feel lost here. Your paragraphs seem so well written, and yet I’m just not following quite precisely what you mean, or at least not how it really relates to the blog I wrote. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be difficult. Just feeling a bit lost in it.

    -Sera

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  • Alex,

    Thanks for reading and commenting.. I absolutely agree that there’s an element of power grabbing/fame-seeking, etc. that transcends gender… In some ways, it makes sense to me in this community of people because so many of us have lost power and voice at some point in our life… And so when we begin to come into power, I imagine – at least for some – it may be all the harder not to get ‘drunk’ on it as you suggest above. I particularly appreciate your last paragraph! 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Sascha,

    I’m trying to follow the comment, but I think I’m not totally getting it, and I think the commenter also didn’t entirely get what I said though perhaps because I wasn’t terribly clear about it.

    I agree to a point with what I do understand that the language I chose above puts too much of the onus of control on the people who’ve felt hurt or been impacted… And that the idea of ‘holding someone accountable’ speaks to a power imbalance (rather than an owning of what we each own) that is not ideal in most instances.

    But at the same time, if ‘to hold accountable’ is to ask someone to be responsible for explaining/owning/rectifying (and that is how I’m thinking about it), then I also do think there are times when that’s a relevant concept, as well, especially when it comes to some of the funders I referenced in the blog who seem to look in the other direction rather than asking more of those they fund when unethical actions are suspected. And even in community, I do think we need to ask for a certain accountability to one another, though much of that has to be driven from within… And maybe that was the commenter’s main point? I’m not entirely sure. (Though, perhaps that’s all more about *asking* someone to be accountable and then, based on how that plays out, there is healing or not, various consequences of their choices, etc.)

    They are certainly right that we can’t force accountability on one another, and that to even try to do so can be damaging and/or unfulfilling…

    I also think the person whose response you posted is misunderstanding at least some of what I said… I don’t think I ever said that someone needs to go ‘all the way’ with ‘holding someone accountable’… And what I really meant is that if we just let things lie and don’t speak up, we can be left feeling like we’re holding secrets, like we’ve got no power to get herad, etc… But if we go too far with, in essence, going after someone, it can lead to a demonization of that individual that can perhaps feel cathartic for a community in some way… Like they ‘got the bad guy’, and can, in turn, lead them to the mistake of thinking ‘now that they’ve got the bad guy taken care of, all is well’ when in fact – particularly when dealing with systemic issues – we still haven’t even scratched the surface. In any case, the most important part of what I was trying to get across was less about this idea of ‘holding’ or ‘asking’ for accountability, but about finding the balance between finding a way to speak truth and ask for what we need/want verses misguidedly seeing one person as the source of all that is wrong and missing the bigger picture as a result.

    Still perhaps not explained as well as it could be, but it’s all I’ve got for the moment! 🙂

    -S

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  • Hi Sascha,

    I so appreciate your courage and willingness to put this all out here. It’s rare, I think, that someone is so willing to lay out and own some of their most challenging moments, missteps and hurts they may have caused in life.

    You’ve said a ton and I could go through it point by point (as often is my tendency), but at least for now, I’m inclined to let it speak for itself.

    I will at least add to the last point: Accountability is a funny thing. If we don’t go far enough with it, it feels terrible… It can be a re-enactment of some of our own trauma (secrecy, lack of sense of our own power, feeling invisible, etc.)… It can do a disservice to everyone, including the person who’s not being held accountable as it doesn’t ask them to even try to be their best selves. Or, yes, it can lead to the complete demonization and tearing apart of one person in a way that holds them ‘accountable’ on the surface, yet ultimately serves to let everyone else off the hook. What do I mean by that? If we’re talking about systemic oppression, then we can’t possibly be talking about just any one person and so tearing one person apart might feel good in the moment, but may ultimately just fool us into believing the problem has been addressed when clearly it’s much, much bigger than that. Finding that middle ground – of clearly holding people accountable, and understanding how they fit into the larger picture… It’s all important.

    Thanks again, Sascha. I really, really do appreciate your putting this all out there.

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  • John,

    Thank you for your thoughtful response. I guess I had thought I was giving examples, but I can see how I was not in some senses, as well. I certainly agree with you that this is ongoing work, but in order to do ongoing work, it first needs to be pointed to and a willingness needs to develop to engage in such uncomfortable conversations… I guess I’m just hoping that this blog will contribute in some way toward getting us to that point where people are more committed to being a part of an ongoing process.

    Thanks again,

    Sera

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  • J,

    You’re right, I believe, and yet that’s a tough way to live… A pressure that is often people who are in the oppressed group – to have to be that much better and together than everyone else because they are seen as ‘representing’ for their whole group or seen as proving unkind truths if their failings show through…

    In any case, I guess more than anything, I’m not asking people to be perfect so much as to be accountable and to challenge themselves to not feel too accomplished in their social justice efforts if they’re focused on one issue at the expense of ignoring one or more others… I’d like to believe that we can create a culture where we’re aware of and attentive to many oppressions and intentional about practicing being open to what we don’t know and other’s perspectives.

    -Sera

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  • Hey Iden,

    Thanks for responding to so many different pieces of the blog and comments. 🙂

    Definitely agree that the ‘rock star’ problematic is an issue all around… I understand why it happens at times, but it’s important to not let it take over, to continue to make space for many voices, and to certainly not use it as a predatory tool.

    Thanks again for reading and responding 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Tina,

    I can certainly agree with an aspect of your saying. Too many lists (in all sorts of arenas) put the responsibility on those who’ve been negatively impacted to change as a part of a self-defense plan, rather than putting the responsibility on those who have offended to make changes.

    I can see how, yes, I should have put more time into a list of suggestions that called upon more action and change from the latter group myself.

    I am hesitant to go down the Michfest path, because it feels like a very different topic, but I’m also hesitant to not say anything at all… I understand the crux of that controversy (albeit one I’ve only heard about at a distance) to be less about the validity of ‘all woman’ spaces and more about what constitutes a ‘real woman’. While I’m in support of all-woman spaces for sure, I guess I’m a little uncomfortable with the implication of trying to police one another’s gender in the process. This issue has arisen in my own community when we’ve created all men or all woman groups of any kind. Honestly, the ‘who qualifies’ conversation has come up in several arenas actually, even who gets to qualify as a ‘psychiatric survivor’ and so on… In general, it’s been important to us to place the greatest value on how people self-define.

    In any case, I know verrrrry little about the Michfest circumstances, but I wanted to say that much at least.

    Thanks for reading and commenting!! 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Hi Alice,

    Popping in from the road (in Virginia, about to leave for a drive to Georgia) while most of the family is still asleep…

    A few things:

    First, if you’re genuinely interested in watching my film (actually I’ve been a part of making more than one film, but the one I’m referring to here most primarily is ‘Beyond the Medical Model’), then e-mail me ([email protected]). I won’t get your e-mail right away as I am determinedly avoiding work e-mail at the moment, but once I do, I’ll send it to you.

    More importantly, I continue to feel like you’re missing the point of much of what’s getting said here. I don’t know if it’s intentional or just that you’re still not quite ‘hearing’ most people?

    A few things…

    One, I understand that you’re saying that you wanted to make a film about ‘stigma’ and not force. What I am saying back to you is that that *would have been* fine(r)… that that *is* fine(r)… If you had also NOT lifted the language of ‘civil rights movement’ along with it.

    There’s many layers to this conversation and to the arguments being offered up to you or why people are upset or concerned, but can you at least hear some of us when we say that lifting the language of ‘civil rights movement’ is offensive if you separate it out from all the force and abuse people have experienced? You could have made a film about stigma that was much less offensive to me, at least, if you hadn’t couched it in those terms. (To be clear: I likely still would have disagreed with a lot of it, but no more or less than I disagree with a thousand other films out there… For me, it’s that perspective and subject matter framed within a ‘civil rights movement’ theme that pushes this film to a different level.)

    Meanwhile, your film idea (along with some of your earlier comments) – while potentially interesting in some contexts – also suggests you are missing one of the main points of all this. This is *not* a fight that exists between those who are ‘compliant’ and ‘non-compliant,’ between those who feel they’ve been helped, those who feel they’ve been hurt, and all those who fall between.

    While I think this is probably not intentional on your part, the simple suggestion that we be essentially pitted against one another on film – especially under the guidance and lead of a psychiatrist. No, the problem exists not between those of us who have been effected differently by a system that is largely dishonest and one-note. It is between us and *that system*…

    I have no interest in arguing with people who want to take psych drugs (though I do have interest in sharing information with them, so that they can do so in a better informed way). I do not see them as the ones on the other side of any line of this fight. I see lies, and force, and abuse, and misuse of power and poorly earned ‘credibility’, and financial interests over human interests, and dishonest ‘research’, and the failed and bought concept of ‘evidence-based practice’, and so on and so on as what is on the other side of that line…

    Now, off to Georgia.

    -Sera

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  • Alice,

    I want to come back to the point here that I don’t find your approach to be ‘softening.’ I find it to be avoiding. You’re right, I do not believe that your film is effective in classrooms to lead people away from a medical model philosophy or even to explore it, although it is plausible to me that a very skillful teacher or well-informed and critically thinking student could lead it in that direction based on their own internal reactions. However, that would be in spite of the film rather than because of it.

    Have you spent much time looking at learning theory? It’s extraordinarily hard for people to *unlearn* things (much harder than to learn them in the first place), and when you create an environment or tool that re-enforces all of what they already think they know, not much learning is going to happen with anything else. This is one of the issues I find with your film… The ‘environment’ created is quite one sided.

    By the way, I’d suggest you watch my film before you call it ‘one-sided,’ though it’s certainly more challenging to what people believe than your film. And, it has been shown in multiple college classrooms, for the record.

    All too often, I see people making the compromises that they *expect* others will demand of them… but it’s precisely those expectations (and not the reality that could have been had they had different, bigger, better expectations) that hold them down.

    I see it all the time.

    -Sera

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  • Hi all,

    I just want to say thank you (whether I agreed with you or not! 😉 ) for taking so much time and energy to respond to this blog and to one another.

    I am headed out on a family vacation tomorrow and won’t be back until October 26, and so I’ll likely n ot be able to respond too much more myself (I’ve already been unable to keep up at times with all the comments as I’m under a lot of pressure to get ready to leave and finish up stuff at work)…

    I really believe in responding to people’s comments if they take the time to make them, so I feel badly that I’ve already done that less than ideally here… But just know it’s not for lack of my wanting to. Again, I really do appreciate people’s taking the time to read what I send out into this Internet world.

    Thanks 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Ron,

    I don’t disagree that some of the comments go further than I would choose to myself (which is, in part, why I framed my response to say ‘most comments’ didn’t come across that way to me), although I think ‘aggressive attack’ is going a little bit far with it in most instances. You’re probably right that I could have been clearer about that point.

    I agree that it’s a tricky balance… And I wouldn’t personally be in favor of a so-called dialogue that required the professionals to stand against a wall while people who’ve received or been forced into services hurl stones (verbal or otherwise) at them endlessly. I also don’t think it does people who are a part of that latter group any favors to not have any asks, expectations or agreements about how we might all interact with one another.

    AND I think people are legitimately angry and have legitimately been hurt and legitimately have a need and right to speak to that and sometimes it won’t sound pretty or nice, and that’s just also GOT to be okay, because without it I don’t believe there’s any healing either.

    Where the lines get crossed is often blurry and will likely look somewhat different to each of us…

    In the end, if Alice were able to name what specific comments she felt were over the line while responding directly to everything else, it would be easier to sort out (I think) how to have a dialogue that worked on both sides. However, my experience here has been that she’s rarely pointing to something specific because she’s rarely responding so directly to what people are actually saying (though, in fairness, I’m not reading all comments as closely as I normally would as I’m on my way out on vacation tomorrow and slammed with things I need to get done). When I have seen her point to something specific, it has seemed to me that she’s pointing to things that are challenging her perspective and thus that bring her to a place of defensiveness.

    In any case, I’ve tried to affirm in a few different ways that my criticisms of the film do not need to be read as my criticisms of the human being, Alice, who I really don’t know beyond her replies here (though her replies have certainly led me to question her more directly on some points). However, I don’t think it’s fair or reasonable of me to ask or expect that everyone follow a dialogical principle when commenting on my blog. It’s not necessarily what they’ve signed up to do (have a dialogue in the comments section here).

    I certainly am in total agreement with you that its worth engaging people in provider roles around talking about hurts and pain that they’ve experienced. I’ve already seen that be incredibly productive, but for me, that works best when the ‘hurt’ comes from an honest place, rather than a defensive one…

    Anyway, I guess in the end, I don’t disagree with most of what you’re saying, Ron. But I am feeling confused about why Alice would expect people to want to go to a dialogic place with her based on what she’s offered up thus far.

    -Sera

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  • Alice,

    I’m curious about what you’re defining as ‘aggressive attacks’. As I read through the comments, I really don’t see many that would fit in that category… But I do see, over and over, for one reason or another, you not responding to people’s actual questions and comments because you’re using that aforementioned ‘straw man’ approach, because you’re claiming attack, or because you’re choosing to answer your own questions instead of someone else’s. I wonder what would be needed for you to actually ‘hear’ some of these points more clearly?

    In my eyes, it’s an easy way out to claim attack, or to claim lack of time… Both can be valid, but if you *really* want dialogue, then I think you may need to step out from behind your film *and* be willing to tolerate the fact that many people in these communities that you’re attempting to talk *about* have been hurt. Being willing to truly *hear* people’s pain *and*, yes, in some instances, accept some aspect of the guilt of being a part of an oppressive system is an *essential* part of any healing process of this nature. It is an *essential* part of this dialogue you claim to want.

    Meanwhile, I hope you will be really cautious about claiming ‘reverse prejudice.’ Such claims – reverse prejudice, reverse discrimination, etc. – are fraught with danger. While prejudice and discrimination are two different things (the former speaks to prejudging while the latter speaks to societal power structures), your use of ‘reverse prejudice’ – especially within the context of defensiveness – rings a little too close to the other.

    I’m sure that you know – as well studied as you are – that there is no such thing as ‘reverse discrimination’ because the people in power are still in power, and those that aren’t still aren’t. Systems are still built around the privilege of certain groups. No amount of ‘meanness’ or anger or unfair judgement from one individual to another can change that. The systems are still the systems.

    You, Alice, have a lot of power and privilege. You have the power to hospitalize someone against their will without any real due process. You have the power to command an audience. You have the power of access to resources. And so on.

    With that power and privilege comes responsibility – to truly listen, to self-examine, to sit with some discomfort, to be willing to shift and reconsider…

    …If, that is, you actually want to be a part of any real change.

    -Sera

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  • Margie, I’m very aware that there is an element of what you’re referring to. Many different people from different backgrounds and cultures regard emotional distress and the mental health system in a variety of ways, and understandably, many people of color also have mistrust of many systems given the institutional racism that is so prevalent throughout…

    That said, there’s more to it. There’s the number of people of color in foster care and prison (i.e., they just get interpreted in different ways and end up in different systems)… There are race-based issues around poverty and access to education that create greater barriers to this way of communicating. There’s the fact that many people of color who do end up in the mental health system are even more likely to be subjected to force, violence, the strongest diagnoses, and heaviest medications (check out some of the long-term hospitals around… LOTS of young men of color)…

    And then there’s the way some of these spaces themselves are set up and how access is or isn’t created, and how it does or does not feel welcoming to come in and express one’s self honestly…

    And so on.

    So many layers…

    -Sera

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  • Jonathan,

    Like I said, I’m *not* disagreeing with you about the need for more diversity on Mad in America. I’m, in fact, one of the people who has written on here about race, and while I’m glad that I did (because the lack of mention in the face of what was happening Baltimore, etc. was deafening to me), I agree that mine should not be the only voice on the matter. I have no idea if people are being reached out to or not on the whole, and if I had to guess, I’d guess that they could be doing more!

    I’m simply saying that filmmaking and community building require two very different levels of commitment and different types of barriers… We’re onto making our fourth film now – in a much less diverse part of the country than where the Stove filmmakers live – and we’ve *never* made a film without including a diverse range of people with respect to ages, gender identity, race, etc… Yet, we’re struggling much more substantially to develop a team where I work that is diverse in some of those same ways. Because the barriers and complexities are much greater, and there’s a lot more to figure…

    I see the difference between making this film and developing a more diverse writing community similarly, and then add to that that the most basic premise of the film is a comparison to the civil rights movement… So, for me, it’s different, but that doesn’t negate the problem that you cite.

    In any case, thank you for taking the time to bring it up.

    Sera

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  • This may be another thing we need to agree to disagree on, Jonathan.

    I think that when one is going to directly discuss the history of black people in this country, and directly lift photos of from that history, that it’s all the more offensive to not go to the trouble of seeking live people out who are of color.

    I also think there’s a difference between putting together a website where people need to voluntarily come and write vs. simply taking the time to ask around and find a few people of color who are willing to be interviewed. Having been a part of both types of efforts, I feel acutely aware of the different challenges involved with each…

    That said, I do agree that the whiteness of Mad in America (and the movement at large) *is* an issue. I simply don’t think it is one that should vindicate Lois or Alice’s lack of awareness or sensitivity, or Alice’s choice to twice now phrase the issue as, “We didn’t know any.”

    -Sera

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  • Alice,

    1) Oliver Sacks *also* refers to people diagnosed as ‘them’ and ‘they’ several times, *and* doesn’t particularly state clearly what he *does* believe. In fact, that’s true of most people you’re referencing above. (Saying he prefers the word ‘mad’ is fairly meaningless on its own.) Martin, perhaps, comes off most clearly when he suggests we need to remain more curious about why people experiencing what they are…

    A couple of things:

    First, I’m not sure you’re understanding what I’m saying… I *REALIZE* you have included people in your film who do NOT come from a strictly medical model perspective. I also realize that some of them are perfectly capable of explaining their alternate views because I know some of them and have heard them do so. But choosing people who have alternate views and are capable of expressing them, does NOT mean that those views are expressed in any sort of intelligible way IN the film.

    This line of conversation leads me to believe that you are coming from one of three places:

    A. You are so strongly biased toward the medical model that you do not care and/or it was intentional to bias the film in such a manner.

    B. You do not understand alternate views well enough to be able to recognize when they are clearly explained. (It’s hard to seek what you do not know or understand.)

    C. You understand alternate views so well that you hear much more in vague and unintelligble statements. I.E., You’re reading between the lines (while what you are reading remains invisible to the vast majority of your audience).

    I’m not going to try and guess in which of those three categories you best fit, but I hope you’ll consider it for yourself.

    2. I have made films before, and I do understand. Yet, I also understand how important the message is of these sorts of films, and how important it is that I not do harm with them… In the end, what’s more important: Asking a movie star (who, btw, showed up to the Q&A a couple of weeks ago so he could sit almost silently next to you) to re-shoot some parts, or living with a message that is potentially damaging to so many people who’ve already been hurt enough?

    Honestly, this speaks to that system of oppression once again.. Why are we *MORE* afraid to ask the famous, privileged movie star to go the extra mile and re-shoot than we are afraid to ask people who’ve been hurt and damaged by the system to be quiet and deal with something that is disrespectful?

    3. I’m not sure you realize this, but your phrase, “We didn’t know any,” comes across somewhat offensively. It makes humans sound like things. If someone asked me if I had any jellybeans, I might say, “I don’t have any,” and feel okay about that, but when referring to human beings, it sounds objectionable, at least to me. You also live and/or work (to the best of my knowledge) in New York City, and while I recognize that this movement tends to be very white, I suspect you could have found people willing to speak who are not white presenting without having to ‘comb the world.’ In fact, you focused on Mindfreedom however briefly (and unrecognizably for most audiences), and Celia Brown is a prominent part of that organization, as well as being a woman of color and a part of this movement for many years. She also lives in New York State… But I don’t mean to suggest that options are so slim. Again, you live in New York City, diverse on many levels. No combing required.

    And no, ‘tokenism’ (which you seem to be referring to) only occurs when you select someone *only* because of a superficial quality while not also taking them seriously or respecting their role and what they have to contribute. That’s what I’m suggesting you *did* do with people like David Oaks.

    4) I return to my ‘Straw Man’ point. I’ve never said anything about being ‘anti-medical model’ or needing to wholly exclude the ‘medical model’ from the conversation. I’d like to send you a copy of the film, ‘Beyond the Medical Model,’ which I and others in my community produced. Perhaps it would help you understand. Meanwhile, you’re not answering my questions.

    5) No, asking people to stop using words like ‘Crazy’ is not the first step in the direction I want to go. And if you didn’t want to look at issues of force, you probably shouldn’t have used the language of ‘Civil Rights movement.’ The two are inextricably linked and your unwillingness to recognize that is part of what makes the film offensive.

    6) Since you seem determined to not understand many of my points, I can’t imagine you would want to stop screening it. I can only hope that others will stop giving you space to do so.

    I’m not trying to argue for you to be exiled or unable to have a voice in any of this, but your actions and your film are a part of an oppressive system and I am interested in a system that shifts enough to no longer be willing to participate in that.

    I’m struck by how invested you are in this, and how closed off you seem to hearing what myself and others are truly saying. I’m left wondering if the stake for you is not somehow more personal… If you are connected to a family member or friend or someone else very close to you who has struggled with psychiatric diagnosis in some way? I’m not really asking for you to answer that. Just contemplating why this is so stuck and why you don’t really seem to be hearing me.

    -Sera

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  • Jonathan,

    In general, I agree with you. This is a problem here, and in the broader movement.

    My only fear in saying so (although it’s something I’ve openly stated in other forums) is that it may seem to vindicate Alice or validate her statement that it’s okay that they made this film *that focused upon and lifted picture after picture of people of color from the Civil Rights movement of the 50’s and 60’s* without taking the time to interview anyone of color simply because, as she put it above, they “didn’t know any.”

    I think the reasons this movement is so white are many and complex and it needs to change, though I can’t claim to quite know how to change it. That said, it’s a conversation we’re having more and more frequently on a local basis and I do hope we’ll start to see the evidence of a shift very soon.

    -Sera

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  • Alice, In reviewing all the comments on this blog, I find myself wanting to add something quick in response to this one:

    I’m getting the impression that you’re operating under the belief that ‘if we just offer positive change, then negative critiques aren’t necessary because they’ll change simply by virtue of more availability of the positive.”

    Is that at all accurate in terms of your take on things?

    I guess I just have to say that I see *no* evidence in this world that suggests to me that that would be true. Instead, what I see is people being somewhat interested in positive experiences and changes, and then *completely* misunderstanding (and co-opting, etc.) them if they don’t *also* equally understand the problems and what we need to avoid…

    The idea that if we offer something positive over here, all the people over there will simply begin to move is just… Well, it just doesn’t hold water if we look at history.

    Especially when there are financial forces driving them over there… Especially when people understand their roles to be one of control, safety, and responsibility *for* people, etc…

    It all needs to be offered. I prefer something more along the lines of Jim Gottstein’s ‘Transformation Triangle’ which suggests that there are (at least) three things that need to happen AT THE SAME TIME (strategic litigation, creation of alternatives/other choices, changing public attitudes)…

    I guess that wasn’t so brief.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Alex. Remind me your film? It’s hard to know what will stick or be worth it with some of these on-line dialogues, and these wall threads get super hard to follow after a while so I can appreciate your wanting to take it to e-mail. I just also didn’t want to be the only voice responding… I think it’s important for Alice, Lois and others to see there are many voices taking issue with this (even if we are coming from our own somewhat different angles…), and that’s certainly happened at this point. 🙂

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Hey Frank, Thanks for taking the time to not only read and comment, but also watch the film. I totally agree it’s not winning Oscars, but it does seem to be getting a fair amount of attention and play which I find frustrating. I think that may have more to do with the connections of the people who made it – as so many things do – but nonetheless, that’s what is seeping out into the world… If it were just another straight forward medical model deal, it’d be one think… But this one is wearing a mask of words and some progressive faces, and that makes it more dangerous in my eyes.

    -Sera

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  • Alice,

    I find that you are employing a ‘Straw Man’ argument tactic often within these dialogues. In other words, you are presenting refutations – at least in some instances – based on arguments that *I* did not make. Yet, you’re doing so as if I did make them, and thus inevitably distracting some readers into believing I did. It can be an effective tactic, but it also can be a supremely frustrating one.

    I’m not sure if you do it intentionally, and I’ll give the benefit of the doubt that you are not. However, I will say that I experienced the same exact tactic from Lois at the ISPS screening that I attended.

    What am I referring to specifically? Repeatedly in your in-person and on-line assertions, you seem to be asking me/us/whoever to respect people who believe the medical model and its related treatments (most notably, medications) have been helpful to them.

    Incidentally, I’ve never argued that medications should be universally banned or disregarded, and that all people who disagree or report finding them helpful should be discounted. Actually, I never do that. What I do fight vehemently against is this:

    Acting as if medication is a given, or that we know more about it and why it works for some people some of the time at some point in their lives. And conveying to people that there’s only one way to see things – the medical/disease way.

    This is what most people get, and at best that’s fraudulent. At worst, it’s deadly.

    There’s LOTS of layers here, so I’m going to do my best to deconstruct *some* of them and what I mean in the quite limited amount of time I have at the moment.

    First and foremost, there’s a prime difference between saying:

    The medical model and all conventional psychiatric treatments (most notably, medication) are WRONG…

    verses

    It is WRONG to say that we categorically know the medical model and its treatments (most notably, medication) to be RIGHT.

    I don’t profess to know the first to be true, but I sure as hell know the latter to be false. And yet, on the whole, this system that we are in presents the medical model as the one option, considers any lack of acceptance of it in someone whose been so diagnosed to be evidence of their ‘illness’ (in some instances, even misusing the term ‘anosognosia’ to make their point), claiming to know HOW and WHY medical treatments work, and acting so certain that they are willing to FORCIBLY ‘treat’ people who refuse.

    THAT is fraudulent on so many levels, and dangerous, as well. Now, if a doctor, instead, said:

    “So, we don’t truly know what is happening or why you are experiencing x. What my training suggests is that your experiences are consistent with a diagnosis of x, and the most commonly used treatments when someone has a diagnosis of x is y. However, I have to be honest that there are no real tests for x which is a diagnosis (like all other diagnoses of this sort) that was created as a best attempt to explain a particular experience and bill for associated treatments. Sometimes, people who get this diagnosis find these other ways of thinking about it to be a better fit, and here some of the approaches associated with those models. In truth, even if we go down the medical model path and I prescribe medications to you, I can’t claim to know how they work, and here’s some of the reactions I hear from people – both good and bad…’ And for those for whom it doesn’t work – regardless of what way of thinking about their experiences they find most helpful – here are some of the alternatives they’ve tried that some have found helpful.”

    If a doctor said THAT… Then it wouldn’t be so fraudulent anymore. But most don’t. Most are literally afraid to say such things not only because it runs counter to their training and belief system but for fear that someone would be less likely to ‘comply’ with what they really want them to do (accept their ‘mental illness’ and medications).

    I’m not guessing at this. My personal experience and my now 20 years of working in this world (half in a traditional provider role and half in a peer-to-peer community and as a part of this ‘movement’) have given me countless examples.

    So, you see, it’s not about completely discounting the medical model. It’s about being *honest* about it, and being *honest* about what we do not know.

    You must be exposed to enough in this world to know that not only do many doctors, psychologists, news people, and beyond speak about extreme experiences as if they *know* them to be diseases, but they also speak about those diseases and their treatments as if they know them to work.

    The film that was shown first in the afternoon last weekend at the same film festival where ‘Stove’ was screened went on about ‘chemical imbalances’ in their ‘bipolar’ son. Colin Powell keynoted to over 4,000 people at last spring’s National Council conference about his wife’s ‘chemical imbalance.’ People profess quite constantly that they understand how particular psychiatric drugs interact with one’s body, and they claim with some regularity that knowing one’s diagnosis allows them to properly ‘target’ the relevant phenomenon.

    But many of us (here, anyway) realize at this point that those claims are full of inaccuracies, lies, and pharmaceutical influences.

    Now, does that mean that all psychiatric drugs are evil and should be banned? There’s several possible answers to that one, but my two favorites are here:

    1. No, but we should be HONEST about what we know about them. For example, we should stop referring to ‘side-effects’ because there are no ‘SIDE’ effects… Simply desired and undesired ones. And we should stop pretending we know how the drugs work or that we know WHY they seem to work for some, and instead say things like:

    “Hey, we do not know why some people find that these work for them, and here’s some of the risks we’re most aware of, though it’s also likely that there are risks of which we’re not yet aware. Meanwhile, all we can tell you is that this particular chemical – when ingested – seems to impact some people in this way for at least a period of time. Other people prefer to get that effect by trying x, y and z. Is that an effect you desire, and if so, which approach would you like to try?”

    After all, many people seem to like the effects of caffeine (but some don’t!), yet discovering they like the effects of caffeine does NOT mean we’ve discovered a caffeine deficiency nor does it even necessitate that we understand how caffeine works…Right?

    So, the question simply becomes are the potential desired effects of this particular chemical – when balanced with the potential negative effects – valuable enough to give it a go? No need to claim all the knowledge we don’t have because claiming all that knowledge TAKES AWAY A SUBSTANTIAL DEGREE OF OUR CHOICE WITH THE PICTURE THAT IT PAINTS.

    2. Even if we accept that some fraction of people feel helped by psychiatric drugs, is our society responsible enough to manage the drugs on the whole? I believe this is a question raised by Peter Gøtzsche, and it’s quite an interesting one.

    In other words, is it better to simply not have access to such a thing even though it would help a fraction of people, because our society runs so amok with it that its availability does far more damage than good?

    Then there’s the argument advanced by other responders in this thread: That some people may say it’s been helpful to them largely because they weren’t offered anything else and have been so misinformed about the possibilities that it would be unreasonable for them to say anything else, no matter the underlying truth.

    For example, I found myself once at a hearing with a man who said that ‘force’ saved his life, and that he’s now been in ‘recovery’ for over 20 years… But he was shaking, shuffling and having difficulty forming those thoughts, and recognized that he’d not been able to work for most of that time. Is that really true for him? Maybe that sort of existence is better than the alternative for him, but it’s hard to watch and hard to believe there couldn’t be a fuller life possible.

    And I’m also reminded of the sorts of arguments that DJ Jaffe, Torrey, etc. like to make in favor of Involuntary Outpatient Commitment. Jaffe, in fact, responded to my blog just prior to this one with some statement about how many people say that so-called ‘AOT’ saved their lives… But he left out that when people said that it ‘saved their lives,’ they were often responding to questions like, “Would you rather be in prison or on Assisted Outpatient Treatment?”

    Funny how our environment shapes our perceptions so deeply.

    There’s also the concern of going too far with blindly portraying all approaches to be equal when some actually seem to be shaping up to be far more harmful than others… Not all matters are ones of ‘opinion’. At some point, there are just black and white facts that we need to pay attention to when we’re putting information out there, yet in systems of oppression such facts tend to fall prey to systemic biases based on financial interests, fear, and so on.

    In any case, Alice, please stop distracting from what’s actually being said by suggesting that I am arguing that the medical model be completely disbanded or that all medications are evil all of the time.

    Those are not the criticisms that I have of your film, as I think has been clear both in my original blog and in my first response to you.

    To get back to my questions (thank you for taking the time to answer them):

    1. Can you please point out to me the points in the film where you feel people coming from a non-medicalized place are stating their positions as strongly as Lieberman, Pitts, etc? Why do you suppose that the people presenting medicalized takes tend to more frequently be both clearly visible and audible? Was that just by chance? (To be clear, I’m not suggesting you necessarily set out to use poorer film quality or sound with people coming from other perspectives, but is it possible that your personal biases impacted whether or not you recognized that as important in the first place? Or the respect you were inclined to show to people who were seen as ‘important medical’ figures?)

    2. Why – as the filmmakers – could you not tweak the narration if you wanted to? Can you please cite specific examples in the narration where they are clearly coming from a non-medicalized point of view? More importantly, can you please explain to me how pointing ‘mental illness’ in quotes or occasionally saying something like (not a direct quote) ‘experiences deemed unacceptable by society’ effectively counter balance narration that says ‘mental illness’ and ‘mental disorder’ so repeatedly as if it were fact? Have you gone through and counted how many times ‘mental illness’ and ‘mental disorder’ (or other medicalized terms) are spoken during the narration?

    3. I’m glad that you recognize this as a flaw. It seems a rather fatal one to me… I wonder if you understand the relationship between using images of people of color and the civil rights analogy but not interviewing anyone of color for the film and speaking for and over people who’ve been given psychiatric labels?

    4. It’s interesting that you think there is ‘no civil rights movement’ yet, because we’re all too conflicted with one another. Is it your line of thinking that we need to align with psychiatrists in order for a civil rights movement to begin? That would be a strange belief in my eyes, as that’s not my experience of how civil rights movements tend to work… Who do you think gets to decide when a civil rights movement has begun?

    I get your analogy with the AIDS crisis… Catastrophe does serve to bring people together, yes. I personally, however, believe that the level of abuse and death resulting *from* a one-size-fits-all medical model approach is fairly catastrophic, and I wonder if you might be willing to explore *that* further and consider coming a little further over in our direction rather than expecting I might or should head in yours?

    5. I feel mystified and a little bit stuck on how to respond when you equate language like ‘crazy’ and ‘psycho’ with force (restraint, seclusion, violence, death, forced drugging, forced ECT, etc.). Yes, terrible language can drive belief systems that ultimately allow for the abuse and violence to happen unchecked, but it is a far cry from naming that abuse and violence. It would be like talking about African American history in relationship to the N-word (as you liken it all to) without mentioning lynching, slavery, and so on. Can you explain further how referencing the language equates to ‘a lot’ of talk about force and how it is connected to the need for a civil rights movement? Honestly, in the absence of further explanation, it strikes me as failed rationalization.

    Also, what is your take on force as it relates to a civil rights movement? Are you in support of the Murphy Bill and/or Involuntary Outpatient Commitment? How do you understand these things to be related?

    6. I’m not just asking you to think about this for future filming endeavors. I’m asking you to think about this NOW, in relationship to your ‘Stove’ film and how its rather frequent screening is hurting the people you’re attempting to speak for, and the civil rights movement you’re saying you’re interested in…

    You and Lois at least come across (in my experience) as very quick to dismiss criticisms of the film from anyone including people who are speaking from personal experience of having been forced, or being a part of a civil rights movement now. It is not coming across to me that you are willing to recognize the importance of that.

    This is particularly true when you (here and on the ISPS Listserv and wherever else it’s happening) claim that these sorts of objections are a sign of the success of your film. Frankly, that’s fairly maddening.

    You are going around and screening a film that serves to re-enforce the medical model and further deny many of us our voice, and you see our protests as a sign of your success? That comes across as both paternalistic and naive.

    You are widening the divide that you claim to want to be a part of shrinking, yet, from what I hear, you are accusing *me* of being the divisive one. This is also a common phenomenon in civil rights movements: Accusing the individuals associated with the oppressed group of being ‘too angry,’ or ‘too divisive,’ or what have you, and holding to the status quo expectation that they play along with what the majority believes and wants all under the guise of being ‘patient’ for change.

    I’m going to take the leap of believing you wholeheartedly that your *intent* was something different, but your impact has not been… and I’m going to ask you to hear me as equally wholeheartedly: However well intended you were in making this film, sometimes the best of intentions simply lead us down the wrong path. Recognizing that, owning it, and starting over would be of far more value than any ‘dialogue’ that comes out of your attempts to stick by your initial choice.

    Finally, a word about your feeling attacked or alienated: I can appreciate why you are sometimes feeling attacked on a personal level. As individuals, we’re pretty much all vulnerable in our own ways, want to be liked, want to be seen as good, etc., and it hurts when people are coming at us with other opinions and perceptions.

    But if you truly want to be a part of undoing some of this oppression and healing any divides, I think you’re going to have to be able to deal with some of that. I’m not suggesting you should be down for full-out abuse, but the truth is that you are still a doctor, a white person, highly educated, and (I’m guessing but could be wrong) probably living comfortably from an economic perspective. You have a ton of privilege.

    Any attacks you may perceive in these sorts of dialogues couldn’t even begin to touch the oppression and lack of privilege experienced by those you are often speaking about. Yes, it’s human to get defensive – just as white people so often get defensive when ‘white privilege’ gets brought up, and so on.

    True, you’re not responsible for all the wrongs done within the mental health system, and you may very well be on the much better end of the spectrum of ‘psychiatrists’, but you are nonetheless a part of an extraordinarily privileged and powerful group, and with that privilege comes some responsibility for how things have played out, whether you like it or not…

    If you truly want to be a part of the change, I think that’s worth thinking about some more.

    -Sera

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  • Alice your opening comment (“What’s happening right here, right now, IS the dynamic that Lois and I hoped to catalyze. We ARE “hot stoves” to one another right now (ouch!), and the fact that we’re talking across that divide is a very good thing.”) makes me almost wish I hadn’t written this blog.

    If you see this blog and its resultant commentary as a product of your film’s ‘intent’ or as any sort of movement forward… If my blog led you to some self-congratulatory place… then I have not done my job.

    And please, please do not worry about having ‘triggered’ me… I fear you do not understand how that statement in itself is offensive. I am not so fragile, I do not even use that language of ‘trigger’ for myself, and I don’t need people to temper what I’m exposed to in order to keep me balanced. No, you did not trigger me. (Have I, perhaps, instead ‘triggered’ you?)

    To be clear, you OFFENDED me. There’s many differences between those two things (trigger and offend), but here’s one highlight: When you say you are sorry if you ‘triggered’ me, you are suggesting that my problem with the film is that I couldn’t handle it and that perhaps if I were in a place where I could handle it, I’d see the good. On the other hand, when I say you offended me, I am saying that I got it, I sat with it, and I found it fundamentally problematic in a way that’s similar to the problems in your comments above and both are indicative of the kind of oppression that the *real* civil (human) rights movement is fighting against.

    I feel like I’m about to conjure Inigo Montoya (Princess Bride) when I say this, but: You keep saying that phrase (Civil Rights Movement). I do not think it means what you think it means. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that you really don’t seem to be keyed into what it means at all.

    You can’t just keep blindly claiming that it’s just that we’re on different ends of the spectrum, or that you did your best to represent both ends. We’re not, and you didn’t. Your definition of ‘civil rights movement’ is so askew, that we’re simply talking about different things altogether. We’re not on the same spectrum. And just because you’re a white, educated psychiatrist doesn’t mean you get to define ‘civil rights movement’ however you wish. If you had any real desire to undo the oppression, work through our differences, and create real space for dialogue, you’d understand (or at least be open to learning) that it’s up to people who’ve been *in* the system (voluntarily or by force) to define such things.

    Sure, you can say Joanne Greenberg meant to say exactly what she did, and I’m sure that’s true because she said it. However, what she said is quite meaningless and even misleading without the context of whatever she said before and after. Really, the *only* perspective you represented clearly was that of the ‘it’s all brain disease’ medical model

    Okay, I can *see* that you are invested in some way in the ‘idea’ of dialogue, but I’m not sure you know how to really engage in it. If you actually wish to do so, then please answer these questions rather than jumping to more comfortable places:

    1. Why are the people representing the medical model in your film consistently allowed the space to clearly present their ideas, while people representing any other perspective are not?

    2. Why does the voice of the narrator (John Turturro) come from a strictly medical model place, if your point was to illustrate the differences between multiple perspectives?

    3. Why, in a film that speaks endlessly about a ‘civil rights movement’ and lifts so many images of people of color, did you not actually include interviews with anyone of color?

    4. How *exactly* are you defining ‘civil rights movement’?

    5. How on earth can you put anything out there claiming to be about a ‘civil rights movement’ yet not even directly touch on force and oppression?

    6. Are you familiar with the commonality of dominant groups speaking for oppressed groups in all incarnations of civil rights movements?

    7. If no, can I send you some links? If yes, why do you not think that’s an issue here with you taking our language and then failing to define it, failing to take feedback to heart from the people whom you are speaking for, and failing to let people speaking from a personal place truly present their ideas?

    Those are just for starters.

    -Sera

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  • Ron, I don’t k now Alice and Lois (other than attempting to interact with them briefly at the screenings I’ve attended), so I can’t speak to their underlying attention … And I have to admit that their approach seems so dishonest to me that it’s hard for me to assume good intent.

    That said, whatever their intent, I absolutely agree with the second half of your first paragraph. It doesn’t really matter what their intent was… the impact – especially as the film gets shown with greater prominence and frequency than the voices of those about whom they are speaking – is the same.

    I’m not opposed to allyships and have formed some.. But I have to admit that I have found these particular filmmakers to be pretty closed off to any feedback that would make any of their good intent feel relevant to me… Perhaps they will change. I do not know.

    Either way, thank you for taking the time to read and comment.. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Madmom, In fairness, this film definitely doesn’t come across as slick, but it does come across very much (to me, anyway) as missing the point and co-opting it at the same time! It’s tough to manage how your image and words get used, I’m afraid.

    People relatively freely pull on what’s out there, and in my experience, it’s only the ones who have the best intentions and understanding to start with that ask permission. But maybe permission was asked here. I certainly don’t know either way.

    Perhaps the biggest bind comes with the fact that we want out messages to get out and it’s hard to make that happen without taking some risks on who’s interviewing you and what they might do with it!

    In any case, thank you for reading and commenting 🙂

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  • bpdtransformation, We’ve started on such a film, but film production is challenging especially when you’re not particularly funded to be doing it. 😉 But those sorts of films are circling, in one stage or another. We definitely need more.

    At one point in the film, Alice (one of the filmmakers) definitely refers to a person with a diagnosis as a ‘hot stove’, or at least that’s how it came across … The quote you found on the website doesn’t even particularly make sense. I guess it’s trying to say that touching a controversial topic is like touching a ‘hot stove’? Anyway. Bad analogy one way or the other!

    Thanks fo reading and commenting 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Acidpop5, I think many of us are trying to correct that! And it was also one of the early points in this blog. The problem is (or part of it, anyway) when we say that they should not speak for us and we can speak for ourselves, few are listening because they’ve already written us off… and even if they haven’t expressly written us off, it’s they who have more credibility.

    Tonight, I’m going to an event called ‘Hear From the Experts.’ It’s all about suicide and one of the topics they’ll be speaking on is ‘living with suicidal thoughts.’ Incidentally, none of these ‘experts’ are people who themselves have (at least admitted to) suicidal thoughts. They’re all clinicians. I directly challenged the organizer (the medical director of a particular hospital) who honestly didn’t seem to even begin to understand my concerns and ultimately sent me a patronizing e-mail about how she’s ‘sorry this has been so upsetting’ for me. Ugh.

    When your truth *starts* with, ‘of course it’s the people who are NOT ‘sick’ who are the experts,’ it’s hard to even have the conversation for we have such fundamentally different starting points.

    Anyway, thanks for reading and posting. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Oldhead,

    I don’t disagree with what you say, though I didn’t attend the 2012 APA demonstration and so don’t know much about that part. I do run into the painful lack of investment and interest from mainstream media on a fairly regular basis and the worthiness of our cause doesn’t seem to be what is likely to catch their attention. I’m also not a fan of canning our messages and beliefs in ways that are designed specifically to be ‘palatable’ to these people because far too much gets lost in the process and I swear that many of the people who participate in that exercise get at least partially lost, too. (Although, I will say that I do think there’s SOMETHING to be said for being aware of who your audience is and reflecting that in the parts of your argument you choose in that moment.)

    Perhaps what I struggle with the most are *effective* methods to reach people sucked in by the NAMI message, etc… I see that sort of reaching happen slowly through – for example – things like our Hearing Voices Facilitator trainings… But there are so many more people to be reached by that, and often the initial reactions to these sorts of challenges is fear and anger. It’s also a puzzle how to do a better job organizing ourselves to arrange for some of these efforts… I’m still amazed that even on-line petitions against the Murphy Bill don’t get absolutely huge responses. How to energize hurt, tired, busy, etc. masses in our movement is not a straight forward task.

    Anyway, thank you for your clarifications.

    Sera

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  • Hi Snowyowl,

    Thanks for taking the time to read and write such a thoughtful response. 🙂 I can appreciate your having stepped away from all of this for so long, and that it must feel quite harsh upon the stepping back in.

    That credibility thing is so hard. I see people grappling with it in so many different ways, from selling out their values for the sake of being taken seriously enough to get a ‘seat at the table’ to being so angry that they reject the idea of tempering anything they ever say and so rarely get heard… How hard this all is makes clear just how oppressive systemic oppression truly can be…

    I hope you find a way to get heard that feels good to you. It sounds like you have a lot to share. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Paul,

    Obviously, you would know better than I how much permission Tim has or hasn’t given you. But I can’t help but wonder how much blanket permission could possibly be given by a man with whom you have so little contact and who you yourself claim to be in ‘stage 4.’ And, by the way, haven’t you recently spent a great deal of time testifying in favor of legislation that would potentially deem him to be in a place where he is unable to competently give such consent? Do you suppose he would be in support of your testimony (or how you use his story) in favor of the Murphy Bill were he to realize it would likely have him locked up against his will?

    Maybe you know the answer to that. But, perhaps maybe you aren’t so aware of this even more important point: Many such (grown) ‘children’ are generally offended by the longstanding trend of parents (and other family members) publicly airing their take on their child’s story, even if some sort of cursory permission has been given.

    While – as a mother of two – I understand that a parent’s own story is intertwined with that of their children, incessantly claiming to speak on their behalf has many implications. For example, it paints the parent’s perception as absolute truth, teaches the (often adult) child to be silent, pushes the idea that speaking in place of others is acceptable as a regular practice… etc. etc. etc… and is simply disrespectful.

    Parents need support, yes, but they also need to be taught how to get that support by telling a story that is their own (even if that might include how another family member’s struggles have impacted them).

    Meanwhile, the 4 stages of ‘mental illness’ is offensive. Period. Sorry. You won’t convince me on that, and anyone I’ve ever heard speak about it has done so with a look of pure incredulity that such a concept has even been introduced.

    (I’m sure it won’t shock you to find out that most people ’round these parts aren’t looking for any ‘help’ to have their various forms of struggle reduced to a medicalized bumper sticker equivalent.)

    The idea that these experiences are uniformly just like any other ‘chronic disease or condition’ is also offensive. Did you think that that explanation would help?

    I’m sure you have found people that support the ‘stage 4’ concept. I don’t doubt that. Have you, by chance, heard about the Judge Rotenberg Center? It’s a center where you can send your kids to be behaviorally ‘managed.’ The good news is, they have a generally poor opinion of psychiatric drugs and do not rely on them. The bad news is, their favorite alternative is ‘aversive’ therapy which includes a WONDERFUL array of interventions including painful shock. No, not ECT… more like, “Hey, you yelled, so I’m going to pick up this box with your picture on it, press this here big red button and give you a painful zap.”

    Do you agree with that? Because, apparently torture does seem to work to a certain extent, and JRC has plenty of supporters they bus in whenever people protest their practices. Really, I find that one can identify supporters of just about anything. It may convince the masses, but what does it really mean? In truth, what you appear to have done is attempt to even further push this idea that psychiatric diagnoses are chronic, potentially deadly life sentences. This is not a helpful message.

    A quick point of clarification before I get to my final points: I actually don’t think that I said specifically that Tim’s situation with homelessness was about economics or housing availability, but I think both I and others said that often that is the case. It may not always be so simple, and other times it may not APPEAR so simple… though homelessness can surely bring on extreme states or prevent someone from being able to re-find balance.

    Paul, perhaps what is most important is this: You can call it whatever you want it. You can say that what you’re doing is in line with Clifford Beers’ wishes. Sure. Okay. Maybe he did want people stripped of their rights and having more ‘treatment’ forced on them. What do I know about that? I’m no medium for the dead, as I’m sure you are not either.

    But certainly many even connected to your own organization do NOT agree with what you’re doing. (That is not a guess or an assumption.) Many are horrified that – under your leadership – MHA is now pushing a Murphy Bill laden with Involuntary Outpatient Commitment (or what you might euphemistically call ‘AOT’). And from what I hear, you’re pretty quick to silence that. Why is that?

    Perhaps you can convince yourself that you’re valiantly fighting for the good while pushing the Murphy Bill legislation… Perhaps you can convince yourself that you are fighting for change. What I see is someone who appears to be blindly fighting for increasingly forceful and larger doses of the same old things that have already failed and traumatized many… And denying the daily presence of discrimination, prejudice and abuse along the way.

    No, not the discrimination and prejudice that prevents us from walking around with our psychiatric labels on our t-shirts (as Glenn Close, MHA and NAMI would seem to wish us to do). Not the discrimination and prejudice that prevents us from happily proclaiming our ‘mental illness stage’ and gleefully seeking the ‘treatments’ that kill us more often than truly help.

    I’m speaking about the discrimination and prejudice that leads YOU to somehow be one of the loudest voices speaking for us; that leads a news outlet to post your comment suggesting that people with psychiatric labels no longer so regularly experience discrimination (in any section other than the comics); and that makes it frighteningly likely that you and your colleagues will succeed in further stripping us of our rights and humanity by seeing the Murphy legislation passed.

    THAT sort of blindness is ‘anosognosia,’ if I’ve ever seen it.

    Thanks for taking the time to respond.

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  • GetItRight, I agree that there’s a big difference between NAMI and the people who go there for support, and this blog was never meant to disparage people who go there for support… It would not be fair to ask them not to go there, as they often have absolutely no other option and are desperate and have never heard there even *could* be something else out there. -Sera

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  • Anonime, Thanks for reading and commenting… Unfortunately, there’s an endless supply of terrible reading from people like Earley, Jaffe, and so many others!!! Good to be aware of it, but I admit that it’s not so good for me personally to read too much of it… I just end up finding myself stuck in the mire and there’s always more of it to read. Ugh. Sera

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  • There are mannnnnnnnnny issues in the ‘ED’ world, including their capacity to support and even understand transgender people with body and food issues, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.

    I’ll check out your website by the weekend, hopefully sooner 🙂 I’m definitely interested to read more on labeling theory, etc.

    -Sera

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  • Gene, Thanks for taking the time to comment.. Yes, I agree that he serves a lot of people’s messaging needs by taking attention away from the primary issues that are causing homelessness, etc. And yes, it’s his choice to react to his son’s experience however he chooses… But I admittedly find his way of making money and fame off of it and talking about his son’s story without his son’s permission or input pretty distasteful, nevermind that he’s using it as a platform upon which to promote terrible things!

    -Sera

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  • oldhead, I agree with you to a point… And yet, if we don’t fret some and bring it into the public’s eye when we can, I feel like no one even knows they have any opposition whatsoever which also doesn’t feel good. I find it to be a mass public health concern that people don’t realize that there’s any alternative to NAMI, etc. or – more importantly – to the messages they convey about human suffering.

    So, while I agree with you that that’s not the only way we should be operating, and that getting stuck there probably won’t lead to the change we seek, it still feels a relevant part of the approach to me.

    In any case, thank you for reading and commenting!

    -Sera

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  • mhadvocate, Hmmm. Interesting, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that publication. Are their old copies of it online anywhere? I’d be curious. I’ve never had positive feelings toward them… I think I went from indifferent and unaware to negative… But I do know that some of the chapters out there come from at least a somewhat different place than NAMI national.

    -Sera

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  • Chrisreed, Thank you for pointing this out! In fact, I’m always telling providers (hospitals, etc.) that are sometimes only a few *miles* apart that many things they say they NEED to do or that they do BECAUSE of requirements for that type of institution are entirely different than what another place of the exact same type with the exact same type of funding is doing next door… They don’t seem to care. Which is, of course, very frustrating, too… Periodically, I’ve tried to collect the data on various hospital policies to demonstrate this fact, but people tend to be less than forthcoming with that info when asked straightforwardly for it… Oy! Thank you for sharing some of your experience. Sera

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  • Hey Catnight, Thanks! Yeah, in this state, there’s actually laws.. laws!… on the books stating that – regardless of publicized visiting hours – visitors need to be allowed to visit at any reasonable time that does not cause a ‘serious disruption’ and with enough flexibility to meet both the person being visited *AND* the visitors needs… That’s specific to psych units and any program licensed, funded or contracted by the Dept. of Mental HEalth… But those laws are ignored on a DAILY basis… So, clearly, even that is not enough. Sooo frustrating and contrary to anything we know about what actually helps people heal! -Sera

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  • Thank for taking the time to read and write, Jeanene. Yeah, I haven’t paid too much attention to the ‘eating disorder’ world for a while, but used to spend a lot of time in that land and it doesn’t surprise me at all that your experience is what you describe. I’ll definitely look for your blog. What is your website? -Sera

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  • Hey encephalopathycauses-smi (admittedly, I had to cut and paste that to be sure to get it right!),

    Thanks for taking the time to read and write and include some of that post from Pete. (I think of him as a Treatment Advocacy Center mouthpiece more than NAMI, but he’s likely both.) I’m definitely aware of him, but hadn’t seen that particular post… Oy.

    VERY unfortunately, both NAMI and a Massachusetts mental health provider org are bringing him here this month to speak. I’ve tried to challenge the provider org on explaining why and have gotten nothing out of it. It’s very upsetting…

    I’d LOVE to figure out how we can knock him off the speaker’s circuit! If you have ideas, let me know!

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for reading and commenting, Norman! I hate how much this perspective gets sold to everyone, and it feels especially devastating to me on college campuses where people are so likely to be experiencing some sort of turmoil in their lives just based on their stage of life and these groups seem to be hovering and waiting to pounce with a diagnosis and script… I know many of the people in these groups mean well and are simply just another person who got pulled in themselves during a vulnerable time in their lives, but I do hope somehow there’s a way to shift things. I’ll check out your blog! Sera

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  • It is a bit of a rub, isn’t it… To fight some of these things, needing to continue to identify so closely with them, even if saying we disagree? I don’t even know what to say about NAMI and MHA anymore. You’re right… they have the ear of many people who’ve been through the labeling mill because that’s all that appears to be out there for so many… How to make sure they know there are more options without colluding with the likes of MHA and NAMI is a puzzle at times. Thanks for reading, Sharon. 🙂

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  • Hi Flim, Yes, Involuntary Outpatient Commitment (aka AOT) is indeed in all states but six, although how actively it is not as actively used in some where exists as others. (I’m not too clear off the top of my head how many states are truly actively using it.) MA did, of course, pass legislation that led to the implementation of a $250,000 test run of it that landed with Eliot Human Services out in the Eastern side of the state… Though what they’re doing with it is a strange mix of things. Some feel it’s ‘good’ because it makes places like the Treatment Advocacy Center thing we’re on track and stop focusing on us so much… But many (myself included) think it’s pretty terrible that it’s gone that far, especially since it seems to serve as a real foot in the door. It almost got cut as a set aside ‘earmark’ in this fiscal budget, but it got put back in in the end. Oy.

    In any case, yes, it can be a bind.. or challenge… how to find a place in all this speaking out against labels, etc. while owning one’s own experience that includes being labeled as a part of that process. On the whole, I’ve felt comfortable with the way I’ve found my way forward with that in that I rarely mention the actual labels I’ve been given, and speak largely to my experiences and how they’ve been misunderstood, ignored, etc. But that certainly still involves a lot of personal reveal that keeps me in the world of all those experiences!

    Sure, let’s talk. 🙂 E-mailing me is usually the best way to reach me to get that rolling: [email protected] 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Em, thanks for that musical interlude, Boans. 🙂 Here’s to hoping we don’t have to go down that road of waiting for when it gets put in place and does go wrong… But I fear in an environment where people regarding doing *anything* even if it’s terrible, futile or regressive as an acceptable goal, we may find ourselves exactly there.

    -Sera

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  • I think it’s just not as well understood, honestly! But it’s certainly deserving of outrage. I can’t speak for all people, but – where this particular piece is concerned – I just knew I couldn’t cover everything so I focused on some basic examples of misrepresentation of what words mean (since language tends to be one of my ‘things’ so to speak…) and what was most on the surface for me having just gone through the Senate Murphy bill…

    Part of the problem with this sort of legislation is it so damn long (not as long as it looks given the wide margins and double spacing, but it certainly LOOKS overwhelming!) and seems so unintelligble in places that people kind of just give up I think… Or focus in on the things that are most obvious…

    But you’re certainly right, they – particularly the House Murphy – are attempting to redefine what it takes to commit someone and that *is* terrifying and deserves way more attention than it’s getting. I just don’t think people are quite as aware of it.

    I know that the CAMPAIGN FOR REAL CHANGE IN MENTAL HEALTH POLICY website is hoping to post a different piece on the Murphy Bills with quite a bit of regularity so I’m hoping someone will tackle exactly that shortly!

    Thank you for bringing it up, and for my part, I’m going to try and be sure to focus on that particular piece a big more in what I write next!

    -Sera

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  • Hey Zagoorey,

    I don’t know much at all about Maine supports or groups, but it is my experience that many of the organizations that profess to be offering peer-to-peer support, etc. are heavily pharmaceuticaly funded… I do know that the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA) is among those that are substantially pharma funded… As is Mental Health America… Right alongside of NAMI.

    A while back I wrote a blog on that particular topic and noted a pharma industry article I’d found on-line with them recognizing how these sort of groups really are much more effective than their more direct pharma commercials… Pretty disturbing!

    If you’re interested, here it is: http://www.madinamerica.com/2014/03/dear-nami-apologies-ive-unfair/

    Thanks for reading and commenting!

    -Sera

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  • Rebel,
    I’m not sure I agree that *all* people working in peer role are just as damaging as the standard fare, but of course the community that I’m a part of has its roots in and offers a ton of peer-to-peer support, so it makes sense that I don’t quite agree to a black and white interpretation. 😉 I do think that it’s possible for peer-to-peer support to *focus on* empowerment, knowledge and being change agents as a part of a healing process… But alas, I also *agree* with you that that’s *often* not what it ends up being and that many people working in peer roles in the traditional system are indeed asked to be something else entirely… And yes, as you indicate and for me as well, it is even sadder to see people who’ve been oppressed used to oppress others with similar experiences than jut about anything else.

    Thank you for reading and taking the time to comment!

    -Sera

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  • Hey bpdtransformation, Thanks for your comment! I particularly appreciate the quote at the end. You likely know from previous posts, etc. that some of Murphy’s biggest contributors are in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. Disturbing indeed, and even more so for all the people who don’t realize this to be the case!

    -Sera

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  • Stephen, It’s kind of amazing that you’ve sustained yourself in that job for as long as you have! I’d expand on what you said above about psych drugs “very seldom [being chosen] by choice,” and say very seldom are they chosen by truly *informed* choice… A fair number of people seem to be “choosing” them (and even sometimes asking for them) because they’re not told the truth or told about any other ‘choices’… -Sera

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  • Ron,

    I *think* what you’re referring to as a ‘big tent’ is what I briefly referenced as a mid-size tent in the blog above… I.E., Intentionally bringing people with differing perspectives together (with the aim) of creating space to compare, contrast and debate. I generally find the true ‘big tents’ to be fairly aimless and any sort of debate to be shunned or pegged as not being open to the ‘big tent’ philosophy…

    Ah, ISPS… I still need to get back to writing a blog on that experience… (The ‘Hot Stove’ is my target there 😉 )

    -Sera

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  • Michael, Thanks for taking the time to comment. These are such tricky areas. Admittedly, I have sometimes argued that we don’t have to eliminate the medical model so much as stop elevating it so that all perspectives can be heard and explored. That does suggest – in its way – that they are all equal, I suppose… but that’s not what I believe in my heart for the very reason you described: That it has been used in such a way that has hurt so many people. However, in some ways I think that has more to do with the *system* than the perspective itself… So many different tools have the *potential* to be useful in the right circumstances, until they’re misused. Though I’ll always argue for starting with seeing someone as a human being who has a unique story and their own way of making meaning of it.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for sharing, Fred. Yes, what you describe is why I hang on to some compassion for many of the parents of NAMI et al… Many of them are just as desperate and lacking options as anyone else, and when someone reaches out a hand and says, “We have something to offer you,” I’m not sure what we could possibly expect them to do in most instances.

    I appreciate your effort to try and then your choice to stay away.

    Thanks for reading and commenting 🙂

    -Sera

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  • John,

    At one conference I was at last November, a presenter (a cop who turned out to be supremely offensive) brought tomatoes for the audience to throw at him if they didn’t like him… He thought he was being cute and amusing. I really wanted to get up and throw them. Alas, I did not…

    But when I did get the chance to be on a panel with him later in the day, I did make him squirm a great deal when I insisted on saying how offensive he had been. 🙂 That, at least, was somewhat gratifying.

    Thanks for reading and commenting 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Ah, I know the position of being that ‘negative person’ well. 😉 And my experience suggests a very similar reality to what you describe regarding peer roles in the system, unfortunately.

    What you suggest certainly isn’t the whole problem at Alternatives… but it is a part of it, yes. People take on these roles and – for some of them – much of their systems change energy starts going toward keeping their job… It’s definitely a set up for a lot of people: Either live with being the ‘negative person’ in the room who’s at risk for losing their job or silence yourself in an effort to fit in better and hang on to it.

    -Sera

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  • Johanna, I haven’t read Nancy’s blog or the subsequent discussion just yet, but will try to get to it this evening. The thing is, one of the places I heard this ‘it’s a big tent’ excuse was in regards to the ‘Alternatives Conference’ which is surely an endeavor focus on people who have personal experience themselves. And I found it just as upsetting. It was used to defend inviting someone in to the conference who had a history of expressing pro-force attitudes and elevating them. It’s also been used to excuse having an aimless mishmash of workshops at times that sometimes carry no other message than ‘the system is pretty much fine… let’s just add ‘a peer’ into the mix…’ I’ve heard people referred to endlessly as ‘consumers’ and ‘the mentally ill’ in that environment, as well. I don’t think we all need to be on the exact same page or all identify as Szazian disciples, but a gathering with people who are within some standard deviation from each other would be nice… Otherwise, there’s just nothing alternative about it any more.

    Anyway, I agree with much of what you offer, but I have to add that bit in.

    -Sera

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  • bernadettep1, There are surely lots of people who would share a story of benefiting from psychiatry. I think they fit into at least two different groups. Some are people who have thought well about all the choices, weighed the pros and cons, tried psychiatry and feel good about that choice and its impact. There are also many people who say they have benefited, but have never been fully exposed to enough choice to be able to argue that their selection of a psychiatric approach is particularly well considered. Some of these people tell stories of how much they’ve been benefited, even while they are visibly shaking from effects from psych drugs, still unable to work and dying early. I wouldn’t argue to take their stories away from them, as it’s not my place to do so and I’m simply looking from the outside and making a judgment which isn’t fully informed itself. However, it’s hard to ignore.

    In any case, there are literally hundreds of places for people to post their stories that are pro-psychiatry. However, there’s a true deficit of places to post to post the stories that run counter to popular media perceptions. I’m not going to feel bad that Mad in America skews heavily in the direction of the latter.

    I don’t think censorship is an accusation that entirely makes sense on a website like this. Censorship generally refers to a more pervasive power issue… As in, not only is a particular story able to be published *here*, but it’s being silenced across the board… I think, if you look around, you’ll find it’s precisely stories like those that are published on Mad in America that suffer from ‘censorship’ more often than not.

    -Sera

    P.S. There’s actually a fair amount of effort on Mad in America to hear a diversity of voices.. .enough so that some are upset about that all on its own. I personally at least appreciate that the overall mission to challenge the status quo seems to stay relatively intact.

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  • Hey Daniel, Thanks and yeah, I hear you! I generally find the networking to be the most useful element of almost any conference. With some of them, I do see people hearing and experiencing new things, but even then, I also generally see them returning to the same old workplace and returning to the same old way of doing things because changing is just too hard and the ideas slip away. And that’s are after the GOOD conferences…

    Oy. Anyway, good to see you keeping popping up on here 😉

    Sera

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  • I agree, Darby. I find it endlessly perplexing that some of the changes we ask for – particularly those that require effort rather than money – don’t even get to the point of full comprehension and consideration, let alone implementation. Thank you, nonetheless, for being one of those people out there who has tried so hard to get the message through for so many years!

    Sera

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  • Ted, I know that we likely won’t ever agree on this, but I continue to believe both efforts are needed. In truth, if just one person in the audience changes what they do enough to tell someone they support that there’s something different available out there beyond the conventional mental health system, that feels important to me. I feel like we cut off too many people who are still immersed in the system’s services by taking a strict ‘fight only’ approach, and I can’t quite convince myself that that’s okay. This remains true even if reform of the system itself is a hopeless venture.

    -Sera

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  • True enough, Ekaterina! Having just come back from the National Council for Behavioral Health, it was clear that a premium was placed on entertainment. I can only imagine how well people were paid. And yes, our real life experience living our own lives (which is, for many of us, partnered with supporting others in similar circumstances) is still highly devalued. Thank you for naming that.

    -Sera

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  • Katie,

    Thank you for speaking up, especially as someone who is closer to the reality of this particular situation than most of us. I particularly appreciate your highlighting the way the news is portraying and particularly focusing in on particular parts of the protests and community responses so as to distort the true picture of what is happening.

    It is hard not to assume that the decision to prosecute the police is still somewhat in the nature of a ‘band aid’ or appeasement… many of us who are not so close to this are, right or wrong, looking at this more as representative of a national issue than for what is specifically happening there … but It’s reassuring to hear your take based on what you know and I’ll hold out some faith that it does represent something much more positive. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Mhadvocate, Thanks for responding and offering this frame. I appreciate and resonate with it as a way in which we often talk about (not in those exact terms) the way we work together and support one another in the community where I spend much of my time (Recovery Learning Community). I’m very aware of Non-Violent Communication training, but admittedly have not been through it. Thanks for raising it up for consideration again. 🙂 Sera

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  • Duane, I agree that everyone deserves their day in court, but that won’t answer to the broader issue of a system that is still very designed around white people, regardless of a black president, and so on. There’s so much evidence pointing in that direction, I don’t know how it could be ignored… from the make up of those who are imprisoned to the way court cases tend to go with white vs. black defendants… to the frequency by which people of color are diagnosed as ‘schizophrenic,’ as compared to people who are white… and so on.

    That Derron Wilson was exonerated seems questionable to many. That Daniel Pantaleo was not charged for Eric Garner’s death is even more so. That the police tend to come out on top in these cases pretty clearly does not always seem to be related to them actually being in the right… that’ seems particularly true in situations that involve people of color or people with psychiatric labels (have you seen Alien Boy?)….

    This also isn’t about the racial make up of the particular police officers involved in this situation… Racism is a societal construct that everyone ultimately gets caught up in….

    For me – as I indicated in the blog itself – this isn’t about being pro *any* violence… it’s not about arguing that burning down a building represents no violence… It’s about questioning why that’s the only thing being called violent, when police (and so many other) actions are deemed defensible even when caught on film doing terrible things… And about the conditions that people are living in (that are also based in violence and neglect unnamed) that lead them down these paths… honestly, the first commenter – for me – said it best when sharing an MLK quote:

    “It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. ” MLK

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  • Hi Carina, Thanks so much for sharing this. It’s one of the shorter articles to be found on Mad in America, but all the stronger for that because of the simplicity and essential nature of its message. 🙂 It’s a nice way to start out a Monday morning to the new work week after a somewhat difficult last week. It was good to see you in the States, and I hope to see you again soon! 🙂 – Sera

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  • Copy_cat, I suspect some people could reasonably move who don’t take the initiative to do so for whatever reason… But, on the other hand, it’s not so easy. Moving itself can be fairly costly. Most apartments require at least 2 x the rent (first and last) and often 3 (security). It’s not necessarily easy to find a new job in the new spot while still working in the old. Some people are taking care of family members or have extended family members who are helping with their kids, and so breaking apart a family unit can be daunting. Some people have subsidized housing vouchers that aren’t mobile. It can be really hard to find places that qualify for mobile vouchers. Some people aren’t at all equipped to move somewhere that doesn’t have a public transit system that will adequately serve to get them to and from work, etc. Some people could only afford to move somewhere equally as awful… Some people have pride in their home community and feel they should be a part of improving it rather than running from it. Some people are afraid to take the jump. So, maybe yes in some situations, but often it’s not so easy.

    -Sera

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  • Marie,

    I wonder why you read the blog then? I think the connections between the two topics are critical, and as you can see from the comment section, so do many others. I actually think it’s problematic that the connections aren’t drawn *more* on Mad in America. There are any number of blogs, new stories and personal stories each week to choose from. I certainly don’t read them all. But I’m glad there is a choice.

    -Sera

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  • Boans,

    Thanks for taking the time to respond. I guess one point I’d offer is that when I speak about ‘power’ I’m not speaking so much about power in the moment, but systemic power.

    I still don’t see the people involved in these protests as the ones ‘in power’ systemically, even if they’re making those who are in power nervous about losing control. It’s like the term ‘reverse racism,’ which I’ve always found to be pretty silly and misguided.

    Any one person can prejudge another or treat them badly for superficial reasons. Any one person can have misconceptions of another based on how they look. But racism is a societal construct, and it’s about the fact that one whole race holds most of the power and wealth in the society at the expense of another and constructs society around that fact.

    So, there’s all sorts of ways to use the word power… I believe each person has personal power – often more than they realize – and choices to make about how to use that and have their voice heard. But I don’t think the personal power can shift where societal power sits so easily…

    -Sera

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  • Why barrab, I think you just called me stupid! Or at least, that feels like the intent of your post…

    That’s quite a leap there… destruction of property in riots to destroying *people* in the 9/11 attacks. They feel very different to me for a vast number of reasons, the most prominent one already stated.

    I realize there’s a great deal of complexity in these issues, and as I was clear to say above, I’m not ‘pro-riot,’ as in I’m not exactly cheering rioters on and thinking they are doing great and well thought out things that will necessarily have the impact they seek. And yet, on the other hand, there is something important about going beyond the usual peaceful protests, demonstrating outrage, and an unwillingness to protest only within the bounds of the same law that is killing you that is important, too.

    If I could wish for one thing right now, it would be that people were more widely willing to look at all the complexities. (Well, okay, I’d wish for other things first, but this wish seems a little more attainable without magic, anyway.) There’s such a vast world of important points between cheering on rioters and flatly denouncing what they are doing. Such a world between saying riots are the best way and that they’re ‘stupid.’

    It’s also important to note – critical, really – how quick people are to denounce those involved in the riots … how quick they are to become disgusted with those who have contained outrage for so long until it exploded… while not having much to say at all about why they are outraged (and I don’t just mean what happened to Freddie Gray)… Why does the riot piece bring up such immediate and strong emotion in so many people, while the more pervasive, institutional violence fail to get much of a reaction at all from such a wide number? Why are people so quick to look for reason to justify the institutional violence (was he a criminal, did he have a record, did he resist his arrest at all?) but so reluctant to do the same on the other side?

    That is an important part of this puzzle.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks travailler-vous, for reading and commenting as always. Yes, this is a complex and multi-layered issue, and the connections I drew are broad and worth further exploration. In general, I’ve been fascinated with all the different ‘movements’ out there and how they mirror one another, and have wanted for some time to do a project drawing all of that out… but I haven’t gotten there obviously. I just hope that sort of conversation continues to build.

    -Sera

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  • 9, I do agree with oldhead that it’s not the best trend to start referring to this as ‘mental illness,’ but I also get your point and I do think the underlying phenomenon is a critical part of the puzzle. In the blog I referenced to oldhead below (http://www.madinamerica.com/2015/01/cant-breathe/) I talked about the Stanford Prison experiment (where they divided students into prisoners and prison guards, but had to shut it down early because people [on both sides] got too into their role) and I really wish what happened there was better understood – or more in people’s consciousness today – as it seems absolutely key to me… Not the whole answer, but a substantial part of it.

    -Sera

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  • oldhead, I definitely hear (and mostly agree with) your argument, although I did (facetiously) draw that comparison in this blog: http://www.madinamerica.com/2015/01/cant-breathe/

    I do think there’s value, however, in seeing how the environment does push people into such dysfunctional roles sometimes, though… The important distinction being that it is the set-up of the environment (rather than the set-up of our brains) that pushes us there, in spite of the fact that we then sometimes get illness labels as a result.

    -Sera

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  • oldhead, I would tend to agree with you that this shouldn’t be seen as too big of a victory or as if the fundamental underpinnings of the system have been changed so we won’t be right back here another day (or that we aren’t – underneath the surface – still right where we were)… But as you also say, it’s still a good thing it’s happening. Even if the motives for prosecuting are, at least in part, to appease… that’s still something. -Sera

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  • CatNight,

    Although it’s tricky to say, I would tend to agree with you about police being caught up in the same web… I’ve said similar things about people in provider roles in the mental health system, as well. It’s rare (in my opinion) that each of these people starts out as (or even ends up as) some sort of evil or poorly intended person, but the role they take on is caught in a system that is not just broken but never set up right (or with what I would consider to be the right intent, anyway) in the first place.

    It’s tough to survive unscathed on both sides. However, what ‘unscathed’ or traumatized means for those on the police/provider end has very different implications than what that means for those who are so oppressed, and I don’t want to lost sight of that, either.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for chiming in Stephen. Your experience on both ends (that many people in the hospital do hear voices or similar sorts of experiences, AND that many hospital staff are hyper-focused on stopping or denying the experiences) is consistent with my own. I wish we could get some of your staff up to one of these trainings. Have you tried passing out the Peter Bullimore flyer? Or would that get you in trouble? 🙂 -Sera

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  • Thanks for your reply, Madmom (although I know it’s to Ted and not directly to me!) I do in fact agree that there are times I see people seeming to take on certain experiences for personal gain, the number of times where there is real personal gain for doing so seem nonetheless pretty rare! I’m glad you’re so accepting of your daughter’s experiences. She’s definitely not the first person I’ve heard of who has started the experience of hearing voices following trauma and/or psych drugs in the system. -Sera

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  • Hey Someone Else, Thanks for taking the time to give such a lengthy response and look up some HVN info. 🙂 Personally, I balk a little at the idea that trauma can cause ‘Schizophrenia’ because I hate to lend more credence to that label than necessary, but I definitely support the underlying idea that trauma and lead to the sort of diagnosis that can get us diagnosed… As can reactions to psych drugs as you describe above! I always find it so upsetting when people say things like their antidepressants ‘uncovered’ their bipolar. Oy. It sounds like you’ve been through some really awful experiences. I hope you you’ve had time and space to find your own path toward healing.

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  • Carina,

    I don’t disagree… Over the long run, the more we can get toward just being people living life and supporting each other to get through our various bumps and traumas, the better…

    And, I’m for sure, all for everyone being human and sharing some of that humanness with others, providers included. 😉 Hearing ANYONE be able to speak in some of these settings about having been on the receiving end of some of these treatments and supports – even if they wear multiple hats (as most of us, in reality, do) would be a huge step in the right direction…

    But particularly right now, I think hearing the voices of people who have not only experienced diagnosis and difficult times but *also* oppression, etc. is very important…

    Thanks for reading and commenting, Carina. 🙂 It was good to see you on Friday!

    Sera

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  • Ted, I hope that you saw that I was clear to say that this is no cure all. I certainly don’t think of it in that way.

    On the other hand, I have met MANY people who hear voices, so I’m not sure I agree with what at least sounds like your assertion that it’s fairly rare.

    Here’s the most important thing: Really, the Hearing Voices Movement highlights hearing voices, but it’s about so much more than that. At least in our area, the Hearing Voices groups are open to anyone who’s experiencing any number of extreme states, emotional distress, etc. etc. Because the basic premises of HVN are critical and have importance way beyond that particular experience.

    The fact of the matter is that if everyone could take on some of the basic principles of HVN – No assumption of illness, that people’s experiences should be regarded as real and meaningful, that the goal isn’t to make everyone fit a particular mold or to necessarily stop having particular experiences that others have labeled as ‘symptoms’, supporting people to make their OWN meaning, etc. etc… That could make a world of difference in so many ways that we care about… forced drugging, and beyond.

    These beliefs aren’t exclusive to HVN. Honestly, they mostly seem pretty basic and straight forward to me… But HVN gives this way of thinking and these concepts a clear framework within which to sit and way of integrating them into a coherent approach…

    So, do I think this will fix all of what ails our system or the way human beings are treated, absolutely not… Do I agree with you that other strategies are required? Totally… But I think its reach is farther than you are suggesting, and either way, I think Hearing Voices (or Alternatives to Suicide, or peer respites, or some of the films that many of us have created and are circulating out there, etc. etc.) deserves to get heard at least as much as all the conventional ideas that continue to circulate.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Darby! In fairness, I should say that Alternatives did have Marty as a keynote a couple of years ago during which he did talk about Hearing Voices (not that this is a ‘one and done’ sort of situation… I’d just feel wrong to not at least recognize that!) and they do tend to have HVN workshops, too… But it’s still inconsistently represented in comparison to many other offerings… And more importantly, there’s just only so much mileage to be gained by talking to ourselves over and over… What I really want to see – in addition to this being well represented within the peer-to-peer world – is room being made for this (and, honestly, several other things like Alternatives to suicide peer respite, etc.) at the giant conferences where people are otherwise hearing nothing but the same old stuff, or their believing they’re hearing everything on the ‘cutting edge’ but this whole realm is largely absent… Eh, I’m not so articulate this AM, but hopefully my point is clear enough. 😉

    -Sera

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  • Ugh. Effexor is the only drug that put me in such a desperate place during withdrawal that I gave in and called my psychiatrist at the time – after hours no less – to beg him to call in a script for more because I was just so sick.

    Thanks for bringing all those memories rushing back 😉

    -Sera

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  • 9, Interestingly (to me, anyway!), at ‘NatCon’ there was a ‘hive’ set up for all conference ‘newbees’ (intentionally misspelled) to hang out and get to know one another… In any case, yes, it’s a lot for many people to give up considering what they’ve built their lives around, and I would agree with you that it’s likely something to which Colin has not been inclined to give deep, critical thought. Nonetheless, I feel compelled to keep trying (even if all I really accomplish is to highlight and give words to my own resistance). -Sera

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  • Travailler-vous, Yes, so endlessly frustrating and perplexing how quickly people are willing to turn over their lives to people who seem powerful or say things that sound good on the surface… Well, I guess that’s not exactly perplexing, given it seems to be such a human trend… but definitely frustrating! Endlessly hoping for the tables to turn… Thanks for reading and commenting. 🙂 -Sera

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  • Doctor_X, I’m not entirely sure what to say! I guess I’m not convinced that Colin Powell has ever really, truly given ‘mental health’ and what he has to say about it all that much thought. I do think there are some people out there with pretty nefarious ideas and intent, and many more people who are using the system as a form of social control (although sometimes without great awareness or clarity)… and then tons more people who just never have really every thought to question the framework they’ve been given to think within … That’s my thought at the moment, anyway.

    Thanks for reading and writing!

    -Sera

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  • Someone Else, Thank you for sharing what sounds like a really painful experience! Indeed, that so few people have not only the power to make the decisions, but to shape public opinion is an inevitable path to some pretty awful things. I’m so frustrated at this conference that so few people are leaving any room for having any questions. No question for Colin Powell. No questions at this afternoon’s presentation with Ashley Judd, Patrick Kennedy, etc… No questions at so many of the workshops. Oy. The only thing more frustrating at this conference than what people are saying is that they get to say it unchallenged so much of the time… Which I know is simply a reflection on how it happens in so much of the world, too. Sera

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  • Hey Dan,

    Thanks for taking the time to write such a long comment with so many sources! The postpartum/pregnancy issue is particularly close to my heart given I definitely experienced a lot of upheaval after my first baby (in response to which they started down the path of postpartum depression with me, though I refused to travel along with them) and I had such difficulty making it through my second pregnancy emotionally after two miscarriages (and again had a doctor try to boil that down to a ‘mental illness’/medication sort of issue…)…

    Off to see what Day 2 of this conference brings me! 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Hey Darby, Always happy to see you here on Mad in America. (Though, as mentioned earlier, would be even happier to see you at this conference helping to keep me grounded or at least feeling a little less alone!) As for being nice, well, if I let my initial reactions get the best of me right now, the clarity would suffer as a result 😉 But I assure you I’m not always feeling so nice!!! -Sera

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  • Russerford,

    Thanks as always for reading and commenting. 🙂 I’m sorry to say that I heard the ‘chemical imbalance’ myth offered up as truth not just by Colin Powell but also in a subsequent presentation on suicide… I got to question the person who brought it up in the latter instance, but when I said ‘Why are you continuing to speak about a chemical imbalance myth that has been debunked,’ all they heard was ‘why are you taking meds,’ and I wasn’t given time to clarify and so all they said (and all the audience heard) was how (essentially) everyone deserves a choice, including meds. (Annoying, given I believe that it’s the perpetuation of the chemical imbalance myth that takes AWAY from the ability to make that choice!) -Sera

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  • Hi markps2,

    Yes, as much as I’m critical of a lot of research I certainly appreciate research like Martin Harrow’s (and so many others, at this point) that offers evidence to support what you’re saying!

    Going back to the stories, we’ve also seen that evidence in people around us every day. There are certainly plenty of people who take psych drugs in our community and I’m not here to take that away from them if it’s their experience that it’s working for them, so I don’t want to give the impression that we’ve created a ‘drug free’ community of any sort… But at the same time, we’ve seen LOTS of people come off psych drugs in our community and come alive. And we’ve also brought in people like Elizabeth Kenny, Daniel Mackler and David Cohen to talk about the potential negative impacts (and how they can get painted as a problem within the person rather than a problem with the chemicals being put in the person) and ways to help people who want to to withdraw!

    It’s more than just the psych drugs, though… People are shut down, infantalized and taught their voice doesn’t matter all too often in the traditional system. More than anything, we’re about supporting people to have a voice and reclaim ownership over their own stories 🙂

    Thanks for reading and commenting,

    Sera

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  • Thanks, Darby. 🙂 I know there’s the beginnings of what you describe out there – but even people who’ve ‘been there’ in my experience (not all, but some) seem ready to give away aspects of integrity (not necessarily research integrity, but integrity around how we speak about/approach some of these issues) or pursue invasive approaches to research in the name of conducting research… But I’d love to be a part of really brainstorming how more research can be done in a way that’s infused by what we know to be true about what we’re trying to accomplish *and* our values that also reads as meaningful to the rest of the world. I know some people are doing or have done some of that, but it seems pretty rare at this point! Thank you, as always, for being one of the people who ‘gets it.’ 🙂 – Sera

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  • Iring,

    We have played along in terms of coming up with questionnaires for, for example, the UMASS survey and promoting it around our community for people to fill out… which was quite a process (particularly the first part), and we also have our own survey that we use for outcomes for our peer respire, for instance that is fairly extensive (can view at the bottom of the page here http://www.scattergoodfoundation.org/innovideas/western-mass-recovery-learning-community-0#.VSnpjpMe1LM )… So, don’t get me wrong, we play along to a certain extent… But I simply CAN’T engage in research that takes advantage of or is invasive to people in our community. It would damage who we are and the relationships we have… it would damage the *real* outcomes we are achieving… and it would damage our integrity… so I just can’t do it.

    It’s just not worth reducing our real impact to ‘prove’ our worth on paper… So, our goal has always been to find the ways to play the game in ways that do not cross that line. It’s a challenge.

    -Sera

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  • Someone Else, It’s a valid point you make and part of what I was getting at when I parenthetically referred to the ‘evidence base’ being interpreted in the favor of who ever was paying for the study… Your story is one of many. There isn’t much I find more frustrating than hearing doctors say how a so-called antidepressant helped to ‘unmask’ someone’s ‘bipolar’ and so on… Really infuriating! -Sera

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  • Thanks, so much Russ! An e-mail to Governor Baker sounds great. People have also been e-mailing the head of the House and Senate Ways and Means Committees and, more recently, the leadership for the Department of Mental Health, though it’s really hard to say what’s most helpful at this point!

    If you’re interested in e-mailing the others, the details are:

    Chair, House Ways & Means: Brian Dempsey – [email protected]
    Vice Chair, House Ways & Means: Stephen Kulik – [email protected]
    Assistant Vice Chair, House Ways & Means: Ben Swan – [email protected]

    Chair, Senate Ways & Means: Karen Spilka – [email protected]
    Vice Chair, Senate Ways & Means: Sal DiDomenico – [email protected]
    Assistance Vice Chair, House Ways & Means: Patricia Jehlen – [email protected]

    Acting Commissioner of the Department of Mental health: Joan Mikula – [email protected]

    Thanks!

    Sera

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  • Hey Mike,

    Sorry I didn’t see this until today! Thanks so much for taking the time to comment and offer words of support… and of course for any calls or e-mails you send to legislators! Spirited conversations we have indeed had, although that debate was a bit awkward for lack of a clear goal (at least that was apparent to me) from those who had us so engaged! I really appreciate this description you offer here:

    “Far more importantly, we would lose the one and only place here in WM that provides the most important medicine that all of us need. A place to come where no one judges and folks are willing to simply sit, hold your hands and be a quite presence that says profoundly “I am here”

    Thanks again for chiming in 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Fred, I know that Dani is planning on coming around soon to respond to comments herself, but I wanted to take a moment to stop in and thank you for your comment here. 🙂 I really appreciate your call to philanthropists, and your support for the work that’s happening at Afiya and through the RLC in general. 🙂 We’re hopeful we’ll be able to turn the budget cuts around, and have really appreciated all the support from the Mad in America community and beyond. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Alex,

    I don’t know where you are in the world, but if you’re anywhere near by I’d encourage you to come visit us, talk with some of us, and see where we all land. I don’t disbelieve in all of what you’re saying, but I think we have some fundamental differences about what needs to happen right in this moment. I’d be curious where we might be able to meet in the middle if we were to talk in person and really be able to ‘hear’ each other.

    Thanks,

    -Sera

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  • Alex, Btw, I think you misunderstood my comment or (looking back at my wording) I wasn’t sufficiently clear. I actually didn’t mean that *your* personal story was a bootstrap story, but rather that the ideas of us giving up money and finding other ways to pull ourselves up and out of this system does start to feel like a bit of a ‘bootstrap’ story. I really try never to criticize people’s personal stories and really didn’t mean to criticize YOUR personal story as I actually can appreciate a lot of what you’ve aimed to and have accomplished in terms of changing your life. I’m sorry that I wasn’t clear about that.

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  • Alex,

    I know you’re not responding to me here, but I’ll reply briefly… I’ve been working a lot of hours these past few days and so I haven’t really had time to respond to some of the more complicated, longer responses here in depth… But I will say I DO get (or at least believe I do) much of your points above, and I understand your intent isn’t to shame people or say ‘I did it therefore you’re lesser than me if you don’t,’ BUT I do understand why people are also reading some of that into what you’re saying…

    Here’s the thing… We’re talking about some very specific supports here … warm spaces, particular groups, food, particular people… that would most assuredly ‘go away’ in part or altogether if we lose this funding… And it’s really hard to have people come along and say look beyond that to real paradigm shifts where these sorts of things are not dependent on funding. Yes, I know there are communities where some of these things have been created without dependency on state funding, but they are relatively few and far between and even if we could get there somehow … Well, at best, some very real things and people would be lost in the interim. At one of our centers, the around half the people who come in every day are living on the streets. People are going hungry. People are trying to stay out of the clutches of forced hospitalization throughout our community. People are trying to overcome years of institutionalization and refind themselves underneath all of that. I know you’ve recognized our reality in some ways in some of your posts, but it seems like a pretty big deal on this end and having people suggest some ideals in the midst of that that seem pretty out of reach is hard. Meanwhile, while I don’t think it requires being rich to achieve that to which you refer, it’s also not easy and there is a lot involved…. Not just changing the way we’re thinking, but some really intentional work that I can’t even fully comprehend, and somehow that does begin to sound like a pretty privileged position to take. I’m not arguing against having this conversation ever, but having this conversation in the face of funds being cut for a community that’s working very hard to support people and having great success in building alternatives so that more of those funds can go back to conventional mental health services really does feel pretty unfair. Let’s have this conversation about how to change real, fundamental culture change but let’s not do it as if it’s a replacement for what we’ve accomplished… Anyway, still a rushed response with a three-year-old competing for my attention….

    -Sera

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  • Thanks so much, Andy. I really appreciate your taking the time to write all this… It’s been really interesting on my end to ‘see’ people I know in ‘real life’ sharing on here. Each time it’s offered something new about the person, and you’re no exception. 🙂 Good also to be reminded of what we all already know but that sometimes gets lost in the various day-to-day details: That this work is really making a difference!

    -Sera

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  • Thanks so much, Tina! I agree that it is a bit of a ‘bootstrap’ story (not Alex’s personal story in which I think there’s plenty that is admirable and is certainly valid as his own story), but in the overall recommendation at least as I’m hearing it right now. I also agree that both types of ‘peer support’ are needed… paid and just as a way of life and being with one another… And that doing it all on ‘air’ as you put it is not realistic. I keep coming back to the point that we already know what ‘peer support’ looks like when it’s not funded in any way… We could do a better job of uniting in the absence of funds across the country I’m sure, but it doesn’t replace all that we’ve accomplished WITH funds and I’m just not sure the point of arguing that it should…

    In any case, thanks so much for your support, Tina!

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  • Bethola, I have no idea the answer to your question in regards to full and part-time employees who are paid enough to live independently and possibly support a family. I suppose it depends on what bar you’re setting to qualify for adequate pay, and also I just don’t know the employment structure of other RLCs at all. Right now, the Western Mass RLC has around 11ish employees who are working at least 30 hours per week or more if that means anything…

    In any case, I’m pretty sure we’ve got lots of examples of what happens when these communities are not funded… They’re all around us throughout the country and I find they don’t look like much of anything… In other words, how would us losing our funding lead to more creativity than all the other towns and cities around the country that already aren’t funded? As I mentioned in other responses, people need to survive… and if some of the talented people that offer these supports had to go work 30 or 40 hours elsewhere, would I expect them to be coming back here and volunteering their time? Probably not. Might others step in… maybe… would we be able to offer the same quality of groups and supports? No, not even close.

    The CPS issue feels totally separate to me. Some of our crew goes through the CPS training for various reasons, but they’re not required to and it’s not the basis upon which we hire at all. So it seems not particularly related to RLCs… I think the issue you bring up is a valid one on the CPS count… and it’s always been a struggle for me to parse out what the ‘right thing’ is to do there, but again, it’s a different issue, I find.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • J, Thanks for reading and commenting. It really is all so frustrating, eh? I agree it’s about more than the money, though… If it were just about the money, surely they wouldn’t be taking it from those who already have the last of it. The little money we have to lose means a ton to us, but does next to nothing to solve any bigger budget problems… So why start here? -Sera

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  • Hi David, Thanks for reading and posting. I’m afraid I’m not sure I totally follow all you’re saying, although it seems like there are definitely some good points I can pull out. I’m most curious about your thoughts on ‘rescuing’ at the beginning. We spend an awful lot of time talking about how we can’t rescue or save one another because that implies we’re responsible for one another (rather than responsible to each other in a more general sense) and I believe that ‘responsibility for’ has driven many of the worst things that have happened in the system.

    That said, in this situation, we very much need our voice to be louder which means more voices joining the fray… We’re not looking for saving so much as solidarity and support. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Julie,
    I’m definitely invested in supporting all the RLCs to realize the original vision (although my priority and primary focus is Western Mass RLC and we’re all separate entities) however I can. If you want to e-mail me privately and share some specific feedback about where you went and what you saw/experienced, I’d definitely be up for following up on it with others over on that end as best as I can! 🙂

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  • Alex,

    I feel a bit like you’re comparing apples and oranges (as they say). If you want to talk about restructuring our whole culture in terms of money and capitalism, that’s a worthwhile conversation… Yet, I also believe that it’s a very different conversation than the one we’re having here…. and as best I can tell, It seems to me that you’re jumping back and forth between the two.

    There’s lots that you say with which I agree… That having some people offering peer-to-peer support in paid roles can create bad feelings and power issues… That healing can happen in the absence of funded projects… and I’m sure I could pull out other examples.

    Yet, on the other hand, we don’t live in the new world to which you’re alluding, and in the world we do live in there are many people who have felt devalued and oppressed by being asked to sit on committees NEXT to people getting paid and are, at best, offered a $5 Dunkin Donuts gift card as thanks in many of those circumstances. We’re living in a world where people with psychiatric diagnoses who end up in the system are disproportionately living in poverty… And so – given that particular set of truths at the moment – it feels like a huge step backwards to me to simply stand by and accept a loss of funds only to that same group of people… Or to continue to ask people who are devoting huge portions of their lives to supporting this work and our shared goals to continue to be the only ones not compensated.

    I get much of what you’re saying, but speaking of unfair… I think it’s unfair to suggest that this really talented group of people who still need to live, support families, and who deserve to be able to feel confident that they’ll have a place to live, food, etc. are not truly devoted if they won’t continue to do what they’re doing when funds are gone. Now, if we could press a button and shift our culture to one where neighbors truly took care of neighbors (and not in the call 911 sort of way) and where each person in a community was willing to contribute to a give and take system of support, it’d be easier to accept what you’re saying… but in this current existence, the extremely talented people currently employed at the RLC would simply be forced to go get other jobs simply to survive and we’d be left once again with that many less alternatives to the conventional system.

    Yes, funding can be an ongoing struggle, but we’re coming up on 8 years and this is the first time we’ve had to fight like this, so it’s not a day-to-day battle. But our hope to NOT take time away from people in community who are looking for support is why – in part – we are looking to people like you to help support us… So it’s not all on the backs of the people doing the work right at the moment. I may be biased, but if we’re going to share in support and taking turns giving and taking, this seems like a good place to start. 🙂

    Sera

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  • Haha. Thanks, Steve. I appreciate your support, though I’d say rather than me, give them 15 minutes with Caroline White, Abraham Castillo, Tisa Kent, Chris Carlton, Ana Keck, Erick Anaya, Samadi Demme, Derek Pyle, Erin Levesque, Cate Wolff, Quanita Hailey, or… okay, I’m going to stop naming off members of the Western Mass RLC crew but hey, here’s a couple of samples of what some of the Western Mass RLC team has to say:

    Marty Hadge: http://youtu.be/eX15aHfIgrU
    Earl Miller: http://youtu.be/QMndv6ammTA
    Sean Donovan: http://youtu.be/SltTesHzWf0
    Lisa Forestell: http://hearingvoicescymru.org/radio-interview-with-peter-bullimore-and-lisa-forestell-on-hearing-voices_4123.html
    Some of our Afiya (peer respite) crew: http://youtu.be/9x8h3LvEB04

    This wonderful group of people (and several more) spend a lot more time directly offering support to people than I do… I’m often in a supporter of the supporters role trying to help create the space for that to be able to happen. 🙂 So, give ’em 15 minutes of them.. not me 😉

    -Sera

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  • Julie,

    The RLCs in other parts of the stated started at other times and some may be in different places in their development. I know I sound like a broken record on this count, but I really can only speak for the Western Mass RLC as far as what I know us to be doing, and I don’ t think you’d find what you’re describing.

    We’ve actually done quite a bit around psych drugs, for the record. We’ve had David Cohen come do workshops on withdrawal, ditto Chaya Grossberg… have facilitated Daniel Mackler come up and do screenings of ‘Coming Off Psych Drugs’ across the state, etc. etc.

    I’m sorry you had the experience you had. You are definitely NOT describing the vision and purpose of Recovery Learning Communities as they originally developed, and I think you’d find that we – while imperfect – are quite the opposite from the experience you describe.

    -Sera

    I don’t think you’d find what you describe

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  • John,

    I’m not totally sure if I’m understanding you correctly, but I will say we started out with state funding and have been able to hold to our integrity throughout. We draw clear lines and are willing to turn down funds if they come with strings that would require us to do otherwise. Perhaps that’s why the state is feeling it’s easy to cut us, but I’m nonetheless very much hoping to retain that funding because I feel confident we’ve done great things with it.

    It doesn’t surprise me to hear you say that you’ve been to some terrible trainings around peer-to-peer support, though! I’ve seen some frightening stuff (as I mentioned in the blog above). I think that *sometimes* has to do with the funders, but often it has to do with a lack of clarity of vision and understanding and the internalization of crappy messages. Thus, even for peer supports that aren’t under a micromanaging funder’s thumb, I think it has a lot to do who’s actually doing the work and how confident they are in what they’re trying to accomplish!

    -Sera

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  • Alex,

    While I agree with you in some regards (after all, we wouldn’t have Soteria Vermont if the weather didn’t wash away their hospital), I am not sure I see the benefit in lessened resources for those who are trying to create change. Again, my personal frame of reference is Western Mass RLC, so I can only speak from there but there are many who will lose the jobs, many in hospitals who may just never hear that there are other options (or not hear as soon), people who are homeless who won’t have a safe place to connect, etc. etc. I could come up with a long list like that and I’m sure many others could add to that, but that’s kind of not the point.

    Ultimately, I feel like we are a group that is constantly pushing the limits of creativity, and I don’t think it’s unfair to ask that we have access to some financial resources to keep pushing that forward! Hoping for some support from the Mad in America community on that count! 🙂

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Hi Julie,

    I can appreciate some of the concerns you’re noting here. I, too, don’t want to be told I need to just sit around and talk about my ‘problems,’ or be encouraged to do WRAP (which doesn’t work for me at ALL). I’m much more interested in fighting to change the world.

    I can’t speak for other RLCs or to your experience, but here’s what I can tell you:

    We aren’t perfect, but the Western Mass RLC really tries to live the idea that we are NOT just centers that are trying to keep people busy. In fact, one of our biggest complaints is when people call us a ‘Recovery Learning Center,’ because the Recovery Learning Community is PEOPLE and the various spaces we have are just little gathering points within our much broader, richer community. We recognize that some people really value a space to go to in which to gather strength so we do have spaces in Western Mass (4 of them), but our goal is NOT to just be open 9-5 to ‘rehab’ people or babysit them before they can go home. None of our spaces are open all day every day (both because of budget and because we intentionally don’t want to turn into a ‘day program’). We correct people who refer to us as a ‘day program.’ We hope that people who choose to come to us themselves looking for a day program will have the space to get some of what they’re looking for (we want to create many doors in to the community), but also get exposed to a different way of seeing things and hopefully get more involved in reshaping the world. We leave much of the time in our various centers open in hopes people will focus on connection and projects and ideas that develop naturally, rather than groups. Though we have some really powerful groups, too, for those who have nowhere else to go to talk about suicide, hearing voices and any other topic that they feel like they can’t talk about anywhere else. We know that everyone has different paths and so we try to create as many opportunities as we can including spaces, groups, events, trainings, yoga, small business grants, opportunities to get involved in filmmaking (we’ve made three films now that community has participated in in various ways including ‘Beyond the Medical Model,’ ‘The Virtues of Non-Compliance,’ and ‘Afiya.’), etc. etc.

    The Western Mass RLC hires exactly as you describe. The vast majority of people we hire are hired based on their life experience, their understanding of oppression, and their fire to make change. That said, even people who have had personal experience have often taken in at least SOME negative ideas from the system about what to do when someone says they’re suicidal, or is hearing voices, etc. etc. And so we also offer trainings to people to build on their experience and unlearn any of the awful things we may have unintentionally internalized through our own experience. Those trainings don’t stop people from doing the work… People are generally hired and start before many of those trainings happen, but then we keep building on that and creating more opportunities to talk and peel off the layers so we know that what we’re aiming for really is where we want to land.

    The other thing about trainings is that many, many of the trainings we offer are for the GENERAL public and providers. We learned long ago that if we want to create real change that we need to try and involve everyone in the conversation. So, we offer things like the Maastricht Interview training that grew out of the Hearing Voices movement particularly for people in clinical roles so they can be in a learning role and people who actually hear voices become the teachers, etc. etc.

    We also do not shy away from activism at all. We’ve created a whole reader on the Murphy Bill, and we’ve created several caravans out to various protests in Boston, Connecticut, New York… We’re working on being one of the places that has a protest related to ECT on May 16.

    We also do not use ‘peer’ as a designation which seems to be one of the implied complaints in your piece above. I do refer to peer-to-peer support to refer to people with some common experiences coming together to support one another, but I personally reject the idea that ‘peer’ is some weird sort of identity and the Western Mass RLC dropped the term ‘peer’ from all job titles a couple of years ago.

    So, anyway, I offer all that because I don’t think we’re in disagreement about many of the points you’re making and I believe that we’re on similar pages there. My frame of reference is the Western Mass RLC and I believe that we do our very best to be consistent with the ideas and perspectives you’re expressing. I think we’ve had great success there and I hope you and others will support us in not getting cut and continuing to grow in those ways!

    Sera

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  • Hey Alex, Sorry I was in a place where the Internet connection was terrible… Hence the delay in responding. I really appreciate your taking the time to write such a detailed comment. Delusional projection is a good phrase. 😉 You say a lot of important things in your comment… How the twisty lens through which people see someone who’s been labeled can seem to alter the very meaning of their words and even silence them after a while… etc. I’m glad you were able to be successful in this situation. -Sera

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  • 8, Eh, I don’t think I’d want to give *most* of it away, but if there were ever a way to take the edge off my tendency to shutdown when car alarms are going off outside my work window or people are folding paper or things like that, AND it wouldn’t take away the OTHER sensitivities, I might just consider it. 😉 But I hear ya on overall not wanting to change who you are! Thanks for reading and commenting.

    -Sera

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  • Hi Cataract, Sure… Share away 🙂 Looks like an interesting link! Thank you for sharing some of your own sensitivities. The DMV (all the people and waiting and buzzing lights and harshness of environment) is a tough one. At the moment, I’m just coming out of an onslaught of car alarms going off just outside of my work environment, so anything to do with cars is not my friend right now. 😉

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Karen! Yes, it is indeed a toxic world and the adaptations required to live in it seem of questionable benefit sometime! It’s so interesting how many people there truly are who experience one sort of sensitivity or another. I wasn’t expecting such a big response to this blog, but I’ve heard from people I never would have anticipating hearing from for whom this topic has resonated. As you said, it’s not a happy thing in some ways to have so much company, but it does seem important to talk about it. Thank you again, Sera

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  • Alex, Thanks for reading and taking the time to respond. Although I can’t say I’ve tapped into what you describe as sensitivity to positivity, it sounds like it makes sense in a way… though I think I might be hardpressed to apply it as well as you have at the moment. 🙂 In any case, glad that the post sparked some new thoughts on this and thank you again for sharing! Sera

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  • Hi Ditto,

    I am afraid I don’t know any studies along the lines of what you’re referring to, but maybe someone else reading here does?

    I really appreciate your taking the time to share so much about your own experience, though. I can definitely relate to many of the sensory experiences your listing… particularly phone noises, Facebook notifications also drive me up a wall… the folding paper thing I mentioned in the blog above is probably my ‘nails on a chalkboard’ in particular!

    In any case, thank you for reading and sharing so much!

    -Sera

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  • No worries on the name, David. Thank you for your thoughtful response. I hadn’t expected to wake up to such an in depth comment first thing this AM. 🙂 I’m in a bit of a rush as I start my work day, and not sure I can do your comment justice… But I think there’s a really interesting story (or film) to be written from what you yourself describe as combined with the Laing quote! 🙂 -Sera

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  • Thanks, Amygdala! For me, it’s not just noise but also the ‘idea’ of some of these things, if that makes any sense. But I completely share your experience that if I’m *expecting* the noise it makes a world of difference (in many instances, anyway), and if I’m in total control of it myself that also helps in a big way. It also helps if I can even make sense of why it’s happening and there is (what I would identify as) a good and sensible reason for it… Thanks for reading!

    -Sera

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  • Interesting, to know, Prisoners Dilema! I wonder what their tests look like these days…

    I wonder about your last paragraph, though… Given the potential for anyone to be in emotional or mental distress and given the reality of the number of people who get to that place in some point in their life… Doesn’t *EVERYONE* “have to be in a position to deal with someone” in that place at some point (if not many points)? The idea that x professional should only ever have to deal with person type a, and y professional should only ever have to deal with person type b, etc, also suggests to me a much more boxed in, concrete way of life than is our reality, no?

    In any case, thank you for taking the time to read and comment 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Barrab, Thanks for reading and commenting. I do think it’s all complicated. I’m not exactly sure what you’re referring to re: the president and current cases and all, but I will say I agree that sometimes a certain ‘case’ becomes a sort of ‘poster child’ for a cause, and what’s true anymore doesn’t so much matter. I’ve certainly seen that happen. HOWEVER, when I’ve seen that happen, it’s generally because there’s a much larger problem going on that that situation represents… And even if it were to turn out that that particular situation isn’t the best representation of the problem (as does sometimes happen), the problem is still there. Take, for example, this article from Mother Jones: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/08/police-shootings-michael-brown-ferguson-black-men … The truth of that article certainly doesn’t mean that all people of color are innocent and all cops are just out to get them. Certainly, there are people of ALL races and backgrounds who commit crimes (though why some of them commit the crimes that they do is worth further conversations)… And yet there is still a SERIOUS problem around people of color, people who have been psychiatrically labeled, etc and how they are routinely treated by those in power…

    -Sera

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  • Chrisreed, I kind of wish we could find a way to collect all these random and contradictory rules and interpretations and put them together in some sort of document! I think it’d make a really interesting read… Thanks for reading and commenting 🙂 Sera

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  • Hi Boans,

    I am not familiar with Phillip, but am bookmarking this so I can look later. 🙂 What you describe is terrifying (about provoking someone during meal time, etc.) but familiar. I appreciate your broadening the picture/understanding even further!

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for reading and adding the first comment, John.

    Yeah, the task of convincing anyone that the system poses the most imminent risk of harm to the individual is a huge task, even if it’s so obvious to so many of us.

    The phone issue is further complicated by the fact that if you then phone the ‘patient’ line, no one answers because the same people who told you they can’t tell you if the person’s there turned the phone off for some group (even though, at least in MA, that’s against the law) or someone else is on it or what have you…

    I’m sorry your friend is dealing with all that right now. I wish I could speak more hopefully about it all.

    -Sera

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  • Wow, a 4-hour turn around time seems like a high expectation for a blog from last March! I’m good, but not that good. 🙂 Honestly, I do try and follow up and keep track of comments, but it’s hard not to lose track of the older ones.

    Anyway, I’m sorry that you’ve had so many bad experiences with NAMI and beyond. At the very least, I can say that you’re not alone in that. Thank you for reading, though. I hope that you are able to find some connection points that are worthwhile in MA or beyond!

    -Sera

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  • Hi Steven,

    Good to see you here. 🙂 I hadn’t ever thought of ‘human rights’ in the context of religion. I’m not totally sure what to make of that, just yet. It doesn’t quite click into what resonates as ‘true,’ for me, but that could just be my lack of information on the history of it all.

    You make some good points here about human verses animal, and who *truly* has an inalienable ‘right’ to be. Truth be told, I actually *used* to use the language of ‘civil rights’ far more, and eventually got convinced to shift to *human rights*. I think arguments can be made for them both being ‘true.’

    However, here’s what I think makes at least some people uncomfortable about ‘civil rights.’ The definition of ‘civil rights,’ does indeed make them something society grants its citizens. Here’s what the on-line dictionary has to say about the term’s formal definition:

    “Civil Rights: Rights to personal liberty established by the 13th and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and certain Congressional acts, especially as applied to an individual or a minority group. ”

    But that begs the question of what if ‘society’ changes its mind, or hasn’t quite come far along enough yet? What is the basis for *arguing* for those civil rights? Is what underlies the argument for *civil rights* not perhaps ‘human rights’ to some degree? When we talk about ‘civil rights’ does that limit the geographical scope of who we feel has those rights? In other words, if we are horrified by the abusive treatment of people who have been psychiatrically diagnosed (or some other group) in other parts of the world that don’t necessarily afford the same rights to its average citizen as we do, does our whole basis for why we think it’s ‘wrong’ have to change? *Or* do we get caught in the ‘America’ defines civil rights for all place that seems to have led us down some difficult paths in the past?

    I haven’t fully fleshed out these early morning thoughts in response to what you’re writing… But, I think the challenge I’m feeling – and that I’ve heard from others when I was more inclined to use the ‘civil rights’ language (which I still do at times) is largely this: Do we truly want and believe our basic right to ‘be’ to be essentially defined by a government of some sort?

    Here’s the on-line dictionary definition of ‘human rights’:

    “Human Rights: Fundamental rights, especially those believed to belong to an individual and in whose exercise a government may not interfere, as the rights to speak, associate, work, etc.”

    Not that the on-line dictionary is the ‘end-all-be-all’ of sources, but note that the differences would seem to be rights that exist within verses beyond the law of a particular government or society.

    I also wonder if, when we speak about human rights, most of us aren’t actually speaking from a point of view of our rights within the context of interaction with other humans? I’m not necessarily sure that we need to say that our ‘human rights’ apply when we’re talking about our ‘human right’ to destroy a bird’s habitat anymore than we would say our ‘human rights’ were violated when we were eaten by a shark.

    On the other hand, it’s *all* a bit artificial, isn’t it? If ‘human rights’ aren’t determined by a ‘civil’ and societal process, then many would argue (I imagine) that the only thing left to be a ‘decider’ is some sort of religious figure (not a particularly appealing idea to me). I’m not sure I’m prepared to fall into that particular binary trap at the moment. But I’m also not prepared to give up on the idea that there is something substantial to be said for rights that are on a higher level than what a particular society has deemed.

    Anyway, there’s my early morning meandering, for what it’s worth!

    -Sera

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  • Jonathan,

    I think the point you’re raising is one that MANY of us – myself included – have discussed. However, I think it’s a mistake to say it’s an issue of ‘Mad in America’ specifically rather than the larger part of this particular ‘movement.’ It’s incredibly white in most places I go, and I think there are several reasons for that that bear exploring.

    That’s not to say that Mad in America couldn’t do a better job reaching out to people of color to write here. I have no idea what their outreach efforts in that direction have been so far, but there certainly are far more people of color in the movement than are represented here, and I’m sure many of them would have great things to offer.

    Perhaps all of us, as a part of the ‘Mad in America’ community, could help by participating in that outreach and suggesting people of color to Mad in America or talking to those people ourselves and seeing if they’d be interested? I don’t know what the current process is for introducing new bloggers to Mad in America, but perhaps we can find out.

    -Sera

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  • Kate, People have different approaches and different ways of being in this world. People are also at very different points in their own processes. Some people are focused more on expressing anger (most often quite justifiably), or fighting back against the predominant way of thinking, being and acting toward people with psychiatric diagnoses (also most often quite justifiably). True intent and the bigger picture are sometimes clearer and sometimes twisted up in a lot of other things.

    I can’t speak for everyone. I can only tell you that:

    * I, the community I’m most involved in (The Western Mass RLC), and many, many others that I know are aiming to create choice that BROADENS the options rather than eliminates any of them.
    * I, the community I’m most involved in, and many, many others that I know are aiming to support people to own their own stories (EVEN and INCLUDING if that story happens to be a medical one).
    * I, the community I’m most involved in, and many, many others that I know tend to come from the direction that it’s often less the option/frame and more the force and lack of choice around how that option/frame is applied that causes the most harm. (I.E., The medical model chosen freely with all its costs and benefits weighed is a very different animal than the medical model ‘chosen’ because there’s not only no choice, but not even any conversation around it.)
    * I, the community I’m most involved in, and many, m any others that I know are often fighting for it to be acknowledged what we DO NOT know, rather than trying to provide some other, alternate definitive, one-size-fits-all answer.

    We (those referenced above) see our roles as making sure information is accessible and that there are opportunities to support people in exploring information, ideas and resources within the context of their own lives, beliefs and desires. We absolutely do NOT see our roles as coming with the ‘new answer’ for all.

    That said, what complicates so much of this is that:

    * We still exist in a system where force and medical perspectives are the norm and all else is typically ignored.
    * We still exist in a system that’s ignoring the research on the concept of brain disease as a blanket or proven explanation, the harm of psychiatric drugs, etc. … and thus ignoring our trauma, pain and deaths and devaluing our lives.
    * We still exist in a system that’s prioritizing control over real choice and exploration of individual needs and wants.
    * We still exist in a system where, when one talks about alternatives, it’s so frowned upon that they quite frequently get immediately painted as ‘anti’ everything and unreasonable.

    There are inevitably unreasonable people on every side of this conversation. That’s just the way of life, isn’t it? I have no doubt that you’ve interacted with people who’ve come at you and/or your daughter in ways that have been harmful and pressured from both medical and non-medical directions.

    I am not interested in taking you or your daughter’s truth or story away from you. I *am* interested in continuing to be a part of putting information and ideas out there, though, that allow for people (no matter where they currently sit) to keep growing and learning and deciding for themselves if where they sit is where they want to stay.

    In a class where I was offering a training, a student offered the following analogy that I’ve been sharing with others:

    Some people – at certain points – are like a horse with blinders on in a giant field full of directions to go in. Thus, they continue to go straight only because straight is all they know and see. Our job is to take off the blinders, NOT to put a barrier between them and going straight. Then, once they can see the whole field, if they continue straight, they are doing so knowingly and we have done our job.

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  • Kate,

    This is where it gets complicated as with so much of what we’re talking about. You may *very well* be saying what she would say for herself. Others who claim righteousness may very well *not be.* *AND,* so very often, what we’re talking about is the bigger picture than than individual situations. Unfortunately, in the bigger picture it’s been a real trend to speak for and make decisions for people who’ve been given psychiatric diagnoses.

    Of course, when a group of people are being spoken for, some of what is said *will* be inevitably true or feel ‘right on’ for some of those who are on the ‘spoken for’ end of things… And yet, there’s still something problematic with the overall picture. That trend as a general practice (rather than as one based on a specific situation or request), is oppressive, regardless of any good intent.

    So, I don’t begrudge you your right to speak up (here or anywhere), and I don’t assume you’re saying things your daughter disagrees with… *AND* there is still some discomfort in it for me because I’ve seen sooooo many people feel hurt and silenced (either in the moment or in retrospect) by that general practice, and it’s impossible for me to know – when someone is speaking up for someone else – who is doing so accurately and who is not, or who is unintentionally doing harm or who is not…

    In general practice, I tend to err on the side of avoiding conversations about people who aren’t present for that reason, but not because I necessarily assume the parent (or whoever) is *wrong*, so much as that *if* they are, the likelihood of my contributing to harm by participating is greater than if I err on the side of caution.

    Anyway, it’s all very complicated, and no blanket approach held to stringently will ever meet everyone’s needs.

    -Sera

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  • Boans, Thanks for reading and posting. The Notting Hill Riots are not something I’m familiar with at all, so curious to check out your link. I just want to add, though, that it was hard for me to read the phrase ‘playing the race card.’ Typically, when I hear that phrase I hear it from people are dismissing outright that race-based discrimination is a legitimate issue. From the rest of your post, it doesn’t sound like what you mean, but I just wanted to mention it as it did make me go back and read your post through a few times more to make sure I understood where you were coming from. Sera

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  • Copy_cat, Thanks for your post and all the links. I’m definitely no expert – or even particularly well informed on issues around police and profit. However, at least on the surface, it just sounds like another overlap to me in terms of the many issues that contribute to oppressive and discriminatory treatment of people in ways that are related to race, psychiatric diagnosis (certainly heavily influenced by profit issues!) and so on.

    Thanks again for posting. I will check out your links!

    -Sera

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  • Richard, I agree with *most* of what you’re saying… particularly that the language of rioting and looting directs our attention to the ‘excesses’ rather than the many other things happening. That said, I’m a nonetheless a little reluctant to describe what happened on that particular night in some of the terms you suggest … I guess I’ll have to think on it more. Either way, thanks for reading and commenting 🙂 Sera

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  • Kate,

    Well, in fairness, I would likely stop short of framing anyone as ‘needing involuntary treatment.’ Again, it’s all so complex and nuanced, but I *have* sometimes felt like it was unclear to me what the hell else to do… However, it’s nonetheless felt important to me – even in situations where I was unable to *stop* forced hospitalization (to be clear, I’m not in a position to initiate forced hospitalization.. but have been in some positions where I didn’t know how to stop it and don’t know what anyone could have done to stop it, not because anyone involved was ‘evil’ or ‘force-hungry’ but because things were sooo out of control in that moment), that we continue to not necessarily look at it as an inevitable ‘need’ of the person, but rather a failure of society and better options. I believe this for a number of reasons, only one of them being that if society gets too comfortable with the idea that some people just ‘need’ it (which I very much think they have), then force inevitably becomes far more frequent and accepted. But that’s a MUCH longer, more complicated and nuanced argument then is necessarily relevant to my points above… More than anything, what I was getting at in my above comment is that I really do believe that we need to love room for all possibilities, including the possibilities of disease/illness that you hold, because I think our greatest power is in acknowledging what we *don’t* know, rather than pretending. Though, there’s lots of nuances to this, as well … including the fact that there are also a million nuances to this conversation that I’m sort of glossing over.

    Ultimately, I’m sorry that it sounds like your family has been approached by what sounds like a multitude of people who have attempted to tell you what is ‘wrong,’ and criticized or pressured you as a result of your beliefs. (I do find it a little uncomfortable to take your word for your daughter’s experience, but clearly you yourself have been seriously impacted, too.) No one who’s any good at what they do (in my opinion) comes into any support situation pretending answers and hurtling criticism, rather than offering questions, curiosity and a willingness to learn, be and explore WITH someone.

    Sera

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  • Kate,

    I have to admit that when I read your response, I feel that you are responding to something/someones that aren’t me. I feel a bit like I’ve become a lightning rod for some anger and frustration that you, and at least according to you, that your daughter has experienced. Perhaps I am wrong, but that’s how it feels. It feels that way to me particularly because it feels like you are seeing what I write through a lens that is colored by something other than my own intent and meaning.

    For example, I don’t say that there is no ‘illness’ or ‘biological’ factor for *anyone.* I personally take as much of an agnostic view with all this as I do with religion. In other words, I feel like it would be just as arrogant and ignorant of me to say that no one’s distress is the result of anything biologically based as it is for the current system to say that it’s all (or majority) based in disease. Granted, I speak critically of the disease-model, but not because I think it couldn’t possibly have any truth, but because I think it’s incredibly offensive and destructive for a whole system to be constructed around forcing a disease model as an absolute truth when no one knows it to be and the ‘treatments’ that are then forced on people as a result of that belief system have caused so many people incredible harm.

    In other words, I am not interested in throwing out the *possibility* of any particular model or approach for all. I *am* however very much behind the idea of being honest about what we don’t know and categorically ditching a one-model-fits all approach where even people who are on death’s door due to the medication being forced into their body are still being forced. I also *never* argue with an individual who says that their particular experience is a mental illness. I don’t see the point in doing so for many, many reasons. That said, as much as I accept that some people could be experiencing some sort of disease, it’s very clear to me that many people who first believe that come to a place in life where they no longer believe that and then their life gets incredibly better, and that some who continue to believe that they have a disease and engage in standard medical treatment never really seem to get ‘better.’ And then I’m fully aware that there’s another group of people that feel that they have a mental illness, and get standard medical treatment, and seem to have a much fuller life for it. And, most importantly, I’m fully aware that I can’t possibly predict who fits into which group. (Something that the system would do well to admit, but rarely does.)

    I think there are lots of interesting questions wrapped up in all that, including whether or not we’d be better off without the medical model of treatment of ‘mental illness.’ In other words, is our country able to use medical treatments responsibly? I strongly believe that we wrongly lose people to death (or seriously shortened lives) both in the absence and presence of a disease model with standard medical treatments… but in an honest cost/benefit analysis, if we were stuck with one or the other, which leads us to greater loss? (I personally do think we’re losing most *because of the medical system such as it is,* but you may disagree, but again, that doesn’t mean that I don’t believe it’s possible that the medical/disease approach could be true/helpful to some… This is more of a bigger picture question.)

    As to my language that you seem to have focused in on, it feels important to point out that I fairly intentionally choose much of my language so that it leaves the door open for people to have their own interpretations of their experiences and still ‘fit.’ In other words, when I say people who experience emotional/mental distress, at least by my understanding, those people could still say ‘I experience emotional/mental distress due to a mental illness..’ or… ‘trauma…’ or… etc. etc. etc. I speak in trauma terms for my own story because that’s what’s meaningful to me, but I do not ask or expect that everyone else does. My goal is to use language that allows people to still own their own story, whatever it may be.

    You may also have noticed that – when I spoke specifically about force within the psychiatric system, I said that that particular conversation is ‘complex’ and ‘nuanced.’ I *also* said right in this very blog that I myself have found myself in situations where I didn’t know where else to turn with someone who seemed so disconnected and so at immediate risk, but hospitalization. But there is a literal *ton* to that conversation that needs to be parsed out if we’re really to have it… From the difference between forced containment/detention vs. forced ‘treatment,’ to the frequency and standards by which that is allowed to happen, to so so so many other things. I can’t possibly judge your situation, especially without hearing from your daughter, and even then….

    What I can say – what I am largely saying in this post – is that when we look at the bigger picture of what has happened to so, so, SO many of us who have been psychiatrically labeled, we *are* a part of a human rights movement. Hundreds of thousands of us have been killed (both quickly and slowly) by police violence, euthanization, illegal testing, psychiatric drugging, restraint, and so on. So many of us have been given no choice but to be on psychiatric drugs that hurt us, including so many people who eventually were able to get off and then *got better.* A mountain of evidence has emerged contradicting what is still considered ‘best practice’ and thusly, so many of us are regularly still subjected to ‘treatments’ that hurt and/or kill us without too much consideration. Thousands are being traumatized right now while they’re locked up because so many people working in hospitals are trained to behave like prison wardens.

    I could go on, and there’s *so* much else to be said about all this and about the links between these movements, but I’m not sure there’s a point right here and now.

    I guess I’ll just conclude by saying this: What if we all accepted that some fraction of people who are given psychiatric diagnoses *actually* have a brain disease that causes many issues including lack of insight and they will only lead manageable lives if they receive medical treatment, by force or otherwise? What if we just accept that? But then, alongside that now accepted fact, what if we also have to accept that an even larger number of people who are diagnosed are hurt, made worse, traumatized and even killed by the treatment offered, but are nonetheless forced to continue to exist within that framework? What then?

    -Sera

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  • Melodee, I’ve gotten a little lost in some of the comments – largely because I’m reading them in the gaps between so much ‘real life’ activity with kids, family and work. I would agree that some of the comment discussion has gotten a little bit further into language than what I, at least, would consider to be the most important parts of this post… So, I appreciate your bringing that up. *AND* I would still say that language is *eternally* important as it is often reflective of what people do actually believe *and* contributes substantially to how people learn to define themselves (often for the worse, in this system). In fact, I think there is a great deal of privilege to be found in the fact that many of us can even engage in this language debate, while so many others are still simply being told what they are and don’t know that this debate is happening…

    -Sera

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  • Oldhead, Fair enough. Again, so many layers to these concepts. I recently presented at a conference where my talk was situated on the same day as some cop from Arizona who used terms liike ‘ambos’ (ambulances), and ‘obs’ (observation). And, when I said at some point that I was offended by the idea that people who do things wrong (i.e., assault people when not under threat of force, etc,.) aren’t held responsible because of their ‘SMI’ (another one of his fave abbreviations), he practically snapped at me (perhaps because I’d just recently told him how awful I thought all his abbreviations were in front of a sizable audience) about how the cops would never not hold someone ‘responsible’ for their actions just because of their ‘SMI.’ He said it ‘just wouldn’t happen,’ and the cops know how to ‘hold people responsible.’ Blah.

    On another note, as a local community, we’ve also struggled with people interpreting ‘self-determination’ to mean I can do just about whatever the hell I want without much regard for you. And it’s been really important and valuable for some of us to be able to say back, “Hey, actually, we’ve got a whole set of values, none of which exist in isolation from one another… and that means doing our best to consider them all, together.”

    None of that takes away from the truth of what you offer, however… that pointing to the supposed misbehavior of a group of people as a distraction or ‘proof’ that the rest of their statements can be disregarded is ridiculous and offensive…

    -Sera

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  • oldhead, I agree that they don’t need to be earned, but I do think self-determination and so many other values we hold in high esteem are best held with a dose of personal responsibility. This is actually a conversation that we’ve been having a great deal in my local community… As with every conversation, there’s tons of nuance to be explored herein… But personal responsibility is often ignored for people who have been psychiatrically labeled, and to no good end. As much as I agree with you that human rights do not need to be earned, I also think this is a valid point to be raised.

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  • Oldhead, it won’t let me reply directly to your comment so here’s the best I can do…

    So complicated is all this… Overall, I agree with you… This whole participation in separating ourselves out is less than ideal, but I also think it *is* a step. Pretty much every movement I can think of has a point at which those who have been oppressed DO participating in separating themselves out… creating spaces where they can gather their strength and fine tune their voice… I do not think that is so much the problem. I think the problem comes when industrialization happens and money comes into play and suggests that those points are are THE END POINT, rather than just one point along the way. This also has happened in many – if not every – movement. We’ve got to keep moving ahead… with not separating ourselves as a clear bigger picture goal.

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  • I do sometimes fall into the trap of saying ‘peer run,’ but usually that’s about lazy short hand and not having totally figured out the right alternative, indeed. However, the vast majority of the time we steer clear of all these one word (and two-word masquerading as one) labels. In my opinion, they’re pretty much all silly and missing the point. We usually just refer to people… For example, when we talk about our respite house, we typically talk about ‘people who are working or staying’ at the house. When we try to define the make up of our community, we often say things like ‘people who have personal experience with psychiatric diagnosis, extreme state, trauma, addiction, homelessness and other significant challenges in life’… etc. etc. etc. We attempt to describe people’s experiences, rather than describing the people. It can get wordy, but very rarely is it a problem to do and pretty effectively bypasses the issue of ‘what do we call them.’

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  • I have mixed feelings about so many things, too, and I wasn’t just asking so you’d feel obligated to tell me what I’m doing is okay, so I hope you didn’t feel obligated in that direction. I will say, though, that I *do* think that gathering points and places to support one another *are* important within communities… But how those places and points are constructed and their limitations vary tremendously. We’re definitely doing our best with it all.

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  • Tina,

    I’m not particularly disagreeing with you, not even in the post above. The thing is there are layers to every argument. For me, the bottom, most fundamental layer (at least that is occurring to me now) is what I wrote above. The similarities. The commonalities in what we all seek and what we are all fighting for and against. Then there are the differences – the pieces that are unique to what we are each fighting: That people of color can’t hide the qualities that bring the discrimination, that there’s a legal process in place to disqualify the voice of those are psychiattrically labeled… and within that layer are also some differences (along with the similarities) of how we will approach some of these issues.

    I think I said this in one of my responses above, but I try to be aware that not every blog can accomplish everything or hold every thought. For me, this blog was was about recognizing our most basic similarities and about expressing frustration at those who would separate us out on the most superficial and money-driven matters… There are many other blogs that could be written about the differences or at least the complexities and nuances that line in the space between the similarities… That’s much of what you are touching on.

    As much as I do not care for the language of ‘cross disability,’ I very much appreciate your work and all that you have and continue to contribute. See you in Denmark! 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Hi Frank,

    You raise many other complex issues, some of which I’ve been thinking about a lot myself.

    Admittedly, the community I’m most directly a part of – the Western Mass Recovery Learning Community – offers resource centers. (We’d potentially drop the word ‘recovery,’ too, if it seemed like an obvious path to doing so… still something that gets talked about.) However, we’ve dropped the word ‘peer’ from any titles of just about everything. We do still talk about the value of peer-to-peer support, etc, at times, though.

    It’s a challenge to figure out what is good up close verses what is still good when looking at the big picture sometimes, but I can say that I do see value in our resource centers … though people don’t need diagnoses or to identify as having overt ‘mental health issues’ to take part. They just need to have a genuine reason for wanting to use a resource or support offered and be willing to take part in holding our values while there. Curious if you still see that as problematic?

    -Sera

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  • Hi Matthew, I agree that sometimes ‘human rights’ is still used in a inwardly focused way, but I have hopes that we can continue to broaden that view. 🙂 The overlaps in all of our various ‘movements’ are too blatant not to see, or so I believe. I will say that sometimes I think we are driven to become somewhat insular because the whole thing – when regarded as one big picture – can feel so huge and overwhelming, and yet to ignore it seems so very self-defeating in the long run.

    Anyway, still at home playing with the kiddos so not super articulate comments to add, but thank you for reading and posting!

    -Sera

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  • Richard, I agree with you that personal responsibility is key. That is a conversation we’ve been having quite a bit in our own localized community and I actually wrote in ‘personal responsibility’ in one of the bulleted points that included ‘self-determination’ and deleted it because I thought it merited more conversation/explanation and it wasn’t central to the point here. (I.E. I try to remind myself sometimes that I can’t address every point that comes to mind each time I blog without watering down some of the central ones I’m trying to make.) I don’t know if that was the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ decision, but point being I do agree with you that personal responsibility is wrapped up with many of these other values, so thank you for bring it up.

    On another note, by saying I don’t believe in the concept of a ‘peer movement,’ I am not saying that I don’t think we are ‘peers’ in some way or that there isn’t value in that concept. However, when people refer to a ‘peer movement’ they are almost exclusively referring to those who do ‘peer work’ in or alongside the mental health system. The places I hear that frame used most frequently in are the same places that seem to be most focused on increasing the number of ‘peer’ jobs, more than anything else. As someone who trains people in ‘peer roles,’ I am forever being frustrated by people interested in (or already working in) peer roles in the mental health system who roll their eyes or outright say they’re not interested in all the ‘political stuff’ and just want to get back to the business of providing ‘peer services.’

    Were we to truly take time to see each other person as human and as having responsibilities to ourselves and to each other to treat each other as such and be curious about one another within the ‘peer movement,’ than I could get behind that.

    Hopefully that answers your concerns, but if not, let me know! Either way, thanks for reading and posting.

    -Sera

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  • Pies is a funny man, though I wonder if he’ll get a big head simply for the fact that he’s had so many articles on Mad in America named after him!! (See my own ‘Too Much Pies’ http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/04/too-much-pies/ and ‘Slices of Pies’ here http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/04/slices-of-pies-a-dialogue-with-ronald-pies/!)

    He does seem to want to have it every which way. I attended a Grand Rounds at SUNY Upstate where Bob was speaking and where Pies (who is a Professor there) declined to go, yet he did e-mail the moderator right at the end and ask him to offer the audience his retort to Whitaker’s book (Anatomy).

    Does he ever emerge in person to have these arguments, or must they remain on paper by nature of his slippery strategy?

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  • Hi Jonah,

    I haven’t followed Jonathan’s posts and comments in the way you have, so it’s certainly interesting to see them laid out. Similarly, to see Andrew’s.

    I wonder if Jonathan’s initial statement about forced drugging is more than a somewhat inaccurate series of word choices. I wonder what he even means by ‘therapist’ in the hospital setting. Hospitals do all run at least somewhat differently (as much as they all so frequently claim that they HAVE to do certain offensive things that they are doing BECAUSE of regulations and licensures that are common across them all), but in the ones I’m most familiar with there aren’t exactly ‘therapists’ in the way I know them in the outside world… That is to say, in the day-to-day of the rest of the world, I think of therapists as people I might see for an hour a week and then go on my way… Whereas, in hospitals, I think of those who have the PhDs, and – more commonly – the LCSWs and LMHCs, as the ones who are driving a great deal of what happens… They are often the primary shapers of the doctor’s opinion, the lead voices on the units, etc. In that way, I think they OFTEN (almost always) have a hand in forced drugging, even if they don’t literally have a hand in it.

    Anyway, that said, I know very little about Jonathan’s hospital or particular role, and at the very least, in the absence of trying to reconcile them with the comment you pointed out above, he’s said many things that I appreciate. I’m operating under the assumption (though, I certainly could be wrong) that when he says he’s had a hand in forced drugging, he means it less directly than you’re suggesting, but still, it’s an interesting conversation to have overall… How people in provider roles who really ‘get it’ in some very fundamental ways can continue on in those roles, and how they come to draw their own lines about existing in a system where such force happens, and whether it’s better that they exist there and try and change things from the inside or if, at some point, it just becomes them being a part of the machine. I’ve had that conversation with a friend of mine who works in a clinical role quite recently (though more about forced hospitalization than forced drugging).

    I also appreciate Andrew’s statement that you quoted above… Though, in reality, it also makes me feel uneasy. While it may be true for him (and I can certainly appreciate the sentiment expressed therein), my experience is that ‘Social Work’ degrees are actually THE MOST common degree among current-day hospital unit directors and lead staff, as well as within the more ‘community-based’ services. I’m quite aware of the medical model being spoken about just as pervasively in social work schools as it is in the broader community. So, anyway, I have no reason to not believe what Andrew says about himself, but I don’t believe it for a second for the social work field as a whole (even though I would agree that the roots of the Social Work field suggest it should be more as he says).

    In any case, thanks for reading and commenting, Jonah. I appreciate your comments, though I’m wary of getting into personal battles in this thread, and hope it doesn’t go there.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Ann. Chronic pain is a major factor in contemplating death, as you know and point out. It makes sense. So much of this makes sense, if only people can work to not turn it into something else. I’m glad you found at least one person who could slow down enough to ask those questions of/with you. Sometimes it all seems overly simplistic, but it can make all the difference in the world. – Sera

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  • Thank you, Larmac. I always appreciate your posts and your sharing about your and your son’s story. And thank you, too, for your commitment to there being something different for others who might be going through similar experiences.

    I’ve never been able to muster much faith in places like AFSP… All these places seem – at best – hell bent on spreading the same old message as if they haven’t already accomplished most of the country believing in it… And at worst, they seem heavily pharmaceutically funded and driven.

    Lots to be sad and mad about.

    -Sera

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  • Hey Jonathan, I definitely do not begrudge you your anger, and feel plenty of it, too. For me, it’s a mix of sadness… Anger at how people are using this, and sadness about how many people get hurt and lost in the process… and then anger again. You’re right, the ‘other side’ is so huge, it’s easy to get lost in how big and unshakeable it seems. Thanks for reading, posting and supporting people in your community the way that you do.

    -Sera

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  • madmom, I think there’s so many arguments that could be had here. For *me*, the most important one feels like “suicide does NOT equal” ‘mental illness’ (no matter what, whether or not psych or other drugs were somehow involved), and that this situation (or any situation) certainly shouldn’t be used to push people into all that is meant when someone says ‘treatment.’ I’m curious about the drug piece, too, *and* I’m open to the idea that it was not drug-related. Some suicides aren’t, and yet they still aren’t ‘mental illness.’

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  • Ana, The number of people I’ve seen make outright assertions that Williams’ WAS certainly on psych drugs that WERE certainly responsible for killing him are few and far between. They pale under the heavy shadow of the mountain of posts pushing his death as proof for more NEED for psych drugs… I do agree, though, that it’s not particularly helpful to jump to conclusions and make assumptions on either side of the argument. Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  • Thanks, Donna. Your anger comes across loud and clear (and articulately) and I can appreciate it. At some point, in some post, I saw someone going on about how Williams’ death is evidence that we all need to stop fighting so much and just be there for another… I agree with that sentiment to a point, but there’s an awful lot to fight about including this very situation and how it is being used to lure more people down a misguided path.

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  • I’m sorry you’re so upset by this article. However, I stand by it completely.

    I see no value in the word ‘peer’ as the new word for ‘consumer,’ ‘client,’ ‘patient,’ etc.

    There have been people at every step of the way who have said that the new word of that era was somehow more empowering… And then it wasn’t.

    Why? Because any word that ends up meaning ‘that mentally ill person over there’ can’t be empowering. It could be ‘king,’ and it wouldn’t matter.

    Is this truly what we want to get behind? I’d rather get behind concepts like self-determination, peer-to-peer support (very different than ‘peer’ as a label, as it referes to an actual relationship and connection between two people who have found some commonalities in their experiences), approaches offered through the Hearing Voices or Alternatives to Suicide approaches, etc … then what we “want to call them” today.

    I believe we miss the point entirely when we keep changing up the one-word label that we give to everyone who’s got a psychiatric diagnosis. It does damage. I see it every day, and I won’t be part of it.

    -Sera

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  • Hi Jonathan, I’m really sorry to hear that this is happening. I don’t know a ton about Rethinking Psychiatry, but they were actually the first group in the country to host a screening of ‘Beyond the Medical Model’ (before it was even released for purchase or shown at any conference), so naturally, I think of them fondly. 😉

    I, too, find myself wondering if there’s a way to reach out to the church and shift their thinking on this matter, at all. I haven’t had time to read through all the comments above, but any thoughts there?

    -Sera

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  • Hi oldhead… I focused on Torrey because .. well, there was so much to focus on in terms of contradictory material ‘out there.’

    That said, I hope that that focus doesn’t take away from the underlying principle/concept of what i’ve written about here which I do also think is a critical piece.

    I also would emphasize that understanding doesn’t mean accepting…

    Thank you, though, for reading and responding 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for reading and commenting, Sandy. What you’re asking – where does someone go and/or what should the community response be to someone who doesn’t want to go anywhere voluntarily, but they seem to not be able to be ‘safe’ out in the world on their own.

    I don’t feel like I have the answer to this, though it’s a question I at least attempted to raise in my blog, ‘Mind the Gap.’ We have a serious gap in options between the voluntary alternative options and the much more standard forced and medicalized approaches. I wish I had the answer to what should happen, though a reader on my ‘Mind the Gap’ blog did comment about the idea of further exploring the difference between forced detainment and forced ‘treatment’ that bears some thought…

    Though I also would caution that I also think there’s a problem with what gets labeled as ‘scary’ or ‘disturbing’ behavior in our world… Those things don’t necessarily equate with ‘dangerous.’ For example, the person responsible for the assault at Afiya wasn’t doing much of anything that anyone would interpret to be ‘disturbing’ or ‘scary’ up until the actual assault.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for reading and commenting 🙂

    I hope that nothing in what I wrote is taken for excusing abusive behavior, as I absolutely agree with you on that count.

    You raise another tremendously important point: That violence in environments where force and invasive/disrespectful process is far more the norm than in the alternative spaces. I hope that more people will come to understand the point you raise here.

    -Sera

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  • Hey Wileywitch,
    There’s a ton in what you wrote … but I’ll respond to at least this for the moment:

    I will say that at least a substantial percentage of people who enter hospital and other provider environments to work are doing so because it requires minimal education and experience. When I’ve offered trainings to front line workers in a provider environment and heard them be asked, “Why are you doing this work,” I’ve sometimes heard answers like “I didn’t want to work retail.” I think the explanations of ‘why’ that apply to people in that place (some of whom it sounds like you might be describing) are definitely different than the ones I shared here.

    The issue of how the mental health system is used to address criminal issues is another HUGE problem that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, too.

    Anyway, thanks for reading the blog and so many of the comments 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Hi Karen,

    I think it’s a very good point you make: The culture of blaming, liability and litigation that we’re currently living within. Thus, the fear I’m talking about can ultimately include not only the very human not wanting to witness tragedy and see people hurt, but also fears about loss of jobs and licenses and even dents to the ego. Thank you for reading and commenting!

    -Sera

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  • Hi Ted, So, I may not be fully serious about Torrey. I think it’s still entirely possible that there are just awful people in our world. But I am completely serious about the overall concept of how so many people lose their stomach for ‘risk…’ Or what I’d be more inclined to frame as *acceptance* of lack of control over all bad things that may happen… And how that drives them into flurries of activity or – even sometimes wholehearted missions – to further the illusion that there is something that can be ‘done.’ Thanks for reading and commenting! 🙂 -Sera

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  • Madmom, Thanks so much for reading and sharing a part of your story. It reminds me of something Ruta Mazelis said about us needing to create space for providers to grieve some of the harm they’ve done in order to heal, move forward and change. How your daughter was treated sounds inexcusable, but your openness to trying to understand why it happened the way it did sounds like an important piece of the puzzle all the same. -Sera

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  • Hey Cannotsay,

    Nothing’s ever got a simple or black and white answer. I think it’s entirely possible and true that some people are just not good people, enjoy power, or somehow otherwise fundamentally don’t ‘get it’ or have ill intent.

    Torrey was a convenient choice for focus for this piece because of the material that’s out there on him, but you may very well b e right that he was never sincere in his earlier material… Though he did go to the trouble of writing a whole book about it. Someone else has suggested to me that he was just ‘aping’ Szasz without fully understanding him and when his true believes really surfaced… well, we see what we’ve ended up with…

    However, although I was happy to use Torrey to exemplify my point, i hope he also doesn’t distract from the underlying point which is true… I do wholeheartedly believe that the phenomenon I describe above is a real part of the picture for many people, and – given that – there are likely more effective ways for us to be approaching some of our conversations with them…

    Though, in the end, I agree with you that what I write about here is NOT to be taken as a justification… But if our goal is to put an end to it all, I think it may nonetheless need to be a part of the conversation.

    -Sera

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  • Hi Sharon,

    Thanks for reading/commenting as always 🙂

    As to the Murphy bill, I agree we’re not doing enough, though I see lots of people trying and know that I personally feel like it’s so big that it’s a little bit hard to know which way to go to actually have impact!! Any ideas? I’m really wanting to try and put something out ASAP to at least our local community about what exactly we can and should be doing!

    -Sera

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  • Hey oldhead,

    It’s an important point that the fact that so many genuine people who really care work with NAMI is part of what makes it an effective organization for the worse… It goes back to what the pharmaceutical rep said in that article I quoted above… This is what makes them so damn effective and convincing people what they need to believe/do! It’s a particularly difficult bind because attacking those people isn’t particularly fair or helpful, and yet they are a huge part of what sustains these places and make them ‘work.’

    Thanks for reading and commenting!

    -Sera

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  • RISN, One way or the other, we do need more healing spaces, though I can’t profess to know how to make that happen exactly. The cultures that at least seem (at a distance) to be doing the best with all this are the ones that largely have families and cultures set up to just keep people at home in their darkest times, but I don’t know that we can rewind time exactly to make that true for us again… I haven’t fully thought out all the implications of what you’re suggesting, though I think grrrace’s concerns below are also valid. Space also doesn’t necessarily prepare communities for making those spaces healing, either, and so there’s certainly more to it… But it sounds worth thinking through further and I wonder what others think, too?

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  • Okay……. So, I just watched your film, though – as usual – with a two-year-old and an eleven-year-old wandering through and vying for my attention… Well, frankly, also a 35-year-old husband wandering through and vying for my attention, as well. So, I can’t claim to have gotten the FULL effect, but here’s what I think:

    There’s a lot of good stuff in it. I appreciate the recognition of trauma throughout (though it often sounds like trauma and ‘mental illness’ are separate things, and I wonder if that could have been explored a bit more) There are some great conversations at some points between the group about taking power back, rather than just being told, etc. I could imagine that those pieces could start great conversations.

    Your bit about being accused of being ‘macho’ when talking about going off meds is also interesting and could be a great convo starter in a mixed room, I’d imagine.

    Similar, one man’s comments about choosing not to know his diagnosis…

    I have issues with it, too. It seems you’ve been reading my various blogs and as much as you haven’t really cared for them, it seems that you would already be aware that I’m really not down with the ‘stigma’ concept. I find that anti-stigma campaigns always focus most on creating space for people to ACCEPT a medicalized perspective without shame… Whereas, of course, I tend to think that the medicalization of human experience is what causes shame (among other devastating effects) for so many… So, I reject that framework… Though I don’t think it invalidates some of the good elements in the film.

    What I find most troubling about the film is that even those people who – in one segment – say they don’t believe in an ‘illness’ perspective exactly… go on to refer to their ‘illness’ about a dozen other times. It’s troubling because I think the good parts ultimately get buried under some of that… As I’m sure you know, when people are needing to unlearn, they automatically look for and gravitate toward those things that are familiar and that re-enforce what they believe and somehow easily let go or don’t fully hear the things that are more challenging… I would very much worry about how the most powerful pieces that challenge the status quo view get lost in all that ‘mental illness’ talk. Again, it’s not that I think that no one should be allowed to say those words, but if you’re trying to create a film that is diverse and that doesn’t ultimately serve to re-enforce the biomedical model, I’m not sure the purpose of all that language. I think ‘mental illness’ is said pretty much every sentence in one of the opening sequences and it’s still being said repeatedly at the end… So, I do find that troubling.

    I could imagine pulling out some of the pieces and using them to start conversations… I’d be reluctant to use the whole as is… It’s also quite long and as I absolutely can’t stand dogs and think the ‘companion animal’ scene has run completely amok, I’d take that part out, too 😉 But I’m mostly kidding on that dog bit (well, I’m serious about the ‘companion animal run amok’ part), because I know I stand largely alone on that point.

    Not sure what else you might be looking for in terms of feedback?

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  • Thanks, Donna. Sorry I forgot your comment over on the other blog in the moment that I was replying here, but of course you did read and comment! 🙂 Anyway, totally agree with you about celebrities at all.. I so hope someday to cross paths with Glenn Close, for example.. I’m *SO* disgusted by her ridiculous ‘anti-stigma’ campaign… (Though I so enjoy turning her ‘Sister’ shirt into other words like ‘Dope’ and ‘Idiot.’) Anyway, impact isn’t everything, but it’s ALMOST everything so we’re on the same page there! 🙂

    Thanks again,

    -Sera

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  • Hmmm. Not to stir things up again exactly, but I’m curious what agreement we came to? I did agree with you on the one comment you quoted me on, but I’m not sure we came to agreement on too much else. 🙂 On the whole, I do tend to agree with Richard, not that I’m exactly objective on the matter. 😉

    Regardless, though, I actually did end up having time to watch your film, which I’d probably be done with by now if I hadn’t accidentally exited out of it!

    More on that soon!

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Donna.

    I appreciate your support and the research you’ve done on Active Minds. I suspect no one at this particular college is being paid by Big Pharma, but it does at least look like the organization is a part of what is pushing the biomedical approach on young minds and thus is a part of the problem. I haven’t had time to look at all that you turned up on Active Minds, but you probably saw my blog post on NAMI, DBSA and MHA and so I’m definitely interested in it.

    The problem – as we all know – is that the vast majority of people who end up involved with these orgs really are in distress, really are wanting to get help and/or support others, and really don’t mean harm or have any intention of getting involved with spreading harmful misinformation… Unfortunately, I think they also underestimate their impact on others by getting involved and taking part in spreading that misinformation, but it’s hard to hold them responsible for that since no one can know what they don’t know…

    That said, I don’t think that misinformation can be allowed to go unchallenged, and challenging isn’t always done perfectly and doesn’t always leave everyone feeling great… So, here we are. One way or another, the sort of information available on this website and an increasing number of other sources somehow needs to be reaching young people and academics in general so that they can begin to take on the role of change agent as they enter adulthood rather than just becoming more adults we need to reach….

    Anyway, thanks again for your support 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Alex,

    One brief point of clarification: There were seven people on stage: The moderator and six panelists. Of the seven, only two were under 30 and and 4 of them were 40 and up. Of the two clearly under 30, one was the young woman who offered the spoken word piece that I’ve said a couple of times that I really appreciated. The other I haven’t mentioned, but I actually appreciated quite a bit too because he was a) The only male-identified person on the stage and b) Although he still came from a disease-model perspective, he offered a bit of a different way of addressing his distress which was great.

    I just want to be clear that if you or anyone else is envisioning a group of 18-year-olds tentatively finding their way on stage… Well, that’s just not was this was.

    Thanks,

    -Sera

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  • Alex, You may accuse me of arrogance , of not having ‘found [my] healing,’ etc, but that sort of condescension is no different than that of which you accuse me of, albeit framed in what your purport is a cloud of benevolence. Its interesting that you say I’ve ‘railroaded’ GreenLady. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do when someone comes here and offers comments other than to respond, which is what I’ve done.

    You (and GreenLady) seem to misunderstand what I am questioning in their event. You can call it a ‘thinly veiled attempt’ to validate their stories, but I’ve actually said several times that the issue was not their individual stories. The issue above is also not how GreenLady chooses to interpret her OWN experiences, and that is not what I was challenging. The issue is that GreenLady – in her comments – was offering information as if it were truth for ALL, and the people on stage offered no diversity in terms of the ‘mental illness’ perspective. You got lucky that you got a range to your open call, but if you hadn’t, then I personally would have felt that it would have been your responsibility to find it and include it.

    And THAT is my point. People should be talking about their OWN stories, and not projecting ‘truths’ onto the world… Do you not think there’s a difference between one’s personal narrative and continuing to spread potentially harmful misinformation? I don’t think the latter can be excused, even if it’s embedded in a story. So, primarily the only thing I had a problem with in that event as far as individual stories go was that one person spoke to ‘genetics’ as a truth not just applying to her but as if she was sharing a truth for everyone to know, and then, as I’ve said a bunch here, it was the lack of diversity… not the parts, but the message that the parts made up when they came together into a whole. THAT sends a message and it’s important one… It’s the same old, ‘there’s only one way to understand this,’ message.

    Most importantly, the reason this became a blog and not just a mental note is because of the moderator. Perhaps I haven’t been clear enough about this, but the moderator was NOT a student. The moderator was a faculty member of some sort. It was she who offered this game, and I do not think she can be credited with the courage of a student coming out with her story. It was her choice that I found most damaging, and that pushed this into something bigger for me.

    In any case, you are absolutely welcome to challenge me on all this. Had you labeled your OWN experience as ‘mental illness’ or anything else, I never would have argued with you, btw. At times, I argue with people who offer that truth as a world truth, but I’m absolutely opposed to arguing with people about their own stories. I see that you don’t like most of my blog posts, and you’re welcome to challenge any and all of them.

    Posting or not posting about particular events is always a judgement call. A part of me *is* sorry that these students are feeling bad about my post. I was kind of hoping that the actual event and people who were a part of it, would stay separate from this because as I’ve mentioned above the event inspired this post, but really, it’s about the fact that these sorts of one-sided events are happening everywhere all the time… Such as the CT Forum I closed with in the same. And that I absolutely, 100% DO believe that we have a responsibility to have messages of CHOICE and MULTIPLE PATHS be available starting in our schools. I’m not sure your point on how you constructed your film, and the by chance diversity that was represented therein. As I mentioned above, you were lucky to end up with that diversity, but do you not think there’s a responsibility to see that diversity represented in these messages that go out to our youngest minds? You can say that we have to have patience with and openness to how people’s stories form, and I absolutely agree with you, though you don’t seem to believe that’s true. However, how are those stories to have ANY chance at all at forming in a way that’s separate from the medical model if that’s not even ever offered as an option? It’s not that it’s critical that people DO form an alternative perspective for themselves. It’s that they have the INFO to be able to do so if it works for them. That we’re now getting stuck in the particulars of that event is unfortunate, and wasn’t really my intent. Maybe it was unrealistic of me to hope that it wouldn’t go there, but it felt like the bigger message was important. Maybe I should have referenced the college event in a different manner or not at all. It’s certainly something I’m thinking about. However, in the end, I still keep coming back to the point that this ‘game’ really affected me, and really sent a strong message to everyone in the room and I’m entitled to that opinion, too. And while I regret that anyone feels hurt by that and people seem to be attaching to messages that are not the ones I actually was offering, I do at least hope the message of a need for a diversity in perspectives is one that gets planted as a seed as a result.

    In any case, I will say that your quote, not of my actual blog but of one of my comments (the ‘wrong people on the stage’ one) is one that I’ll agree was unfair. Really – and I do mean this – each one of those people’s stories is their stories and I don’t have any intent or desire to change that. And each one of those people’s stories is fair and deserves to be heard on its own. Each deserves to be on the stage just as much as anyone else. That’s separate from my thinking that there’s a responsibility to then mix those stories with ones that offer another way. I’ll go up and remove that comment if I’m able.

    Thanks,

    -Sera

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  • GreenLady,

    It always makes me sad when people here challenges to a medical perspective as denial of real suffering. I know personally that human suffering is real. I’ve seen it in myself and in many people around me. I would *never* deny that or trivialize deep pain, distress and extreme states as if they were something someone could simply ‘snap’ out of if they were only strong enough. What you are really saying above (as far as I can tell), for example, is that people who’ve been to war come back suffering. Absolutely! Who on earth would ever deny that? However, acknowledging the pain doesn’t mean acknowledging a diagnostic system.

    When I challenge the absolute truth of medical model perspectives and people here that as if I were challenging the suffering of the individuals to whom those medicalized ideas have been applied, I hear it only as more evidence of the predominance of the medical model itself. In other words: Far too many people think that either we interpret deep human suffering as a disease or we deny the suffering. What I’m saying – and have been all along – is that there are MANY ways to understand human suffering, and what’s far more important than WHAT they believe is HOW those understandings *impact* people’s lives. What we are learning – over and over and over and from MANY corners – is that the medical way of making meaning is harming MANY people and yet continues to be taught as pretty much the only way. There’s something wrong with that.

    Much else of what you said simply isn’t true. There is no real genetic proof of any psychiatric diagnosis. Chemical imbalance theory has been debunked. Not only are psych drugs abused, but study after study is emerging saying that they do harm or lessen ‘recovery’ in many instances even when used ‘properly.’

    Therefore, what we are arguing is FAR from semantics. When you use words that are inextricably linked to a medical model, you perpetuate that model and teach others it’s the only way. When you use words that are inextricably linked to a medical model, and that model has been shown to do harm to many, you become a part of that. When you talk about genetic links and biomarkers as if they are real, you point people toward the medical model, even though models like ‘Open Dialogue’ and so many others have FAR better outcomes. When you talk about these human experiences as disease, you are a part of pointing people toward doctors and the pharmaceuticals they are also taught is the only way and you become a part of that as well. The Pharmaceutical companies count on that.

    It is certainly fine for you to stop responding, but I hope you at least keep reading. If you are truly a student looking for the truth, I urge you to:

    * Read Whitaker’s ‘Anatomy of an Epidemic..’
    * Explore this site. Pay particular attention to people like Joanna Moncrieff (a psychiatrist in the UK), Jay Joseph (the aforementioned author and psychologist), Bruce Levine (another author and psychologist), and Peter Gotzsche (a doctor in Denmark who’s writing can be found here: http://www.madinamerica.com/author/pgotzsche/)
    * If you prefer films, check out Daniel Mackler’s ‘Open Dialogue’ and I can send your Actives Minds chapter a free copy of ‘Beyond the Medical Model,’ if you’d like.

    I hope you will check out at least a few of those things and then see what you think.

    Thanks!

    -Sera

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  • Hi GreenLady,

    So, there’s a lot in your blog. First, let me say that I knew it was a risk in posting this blog that someone from your college may see it and be offended. I actually experienced some anxiety (of the general human, non-clinical sort), some guilt (that comes easy and often for me and isn’t necessarily deserved), and so on. I actually *am* sorry that your group is apparently hearing it as mostly just an attack on them. It’s not really. However, I decided I wanted to post it, and I’m still glad I did. It was important. Not because of YOUR college specifically, but because of all colleges and all schools and all young (and not as young) minds that are being shaped by these sorts of events. I did not name your college both out of respect for your college and what I do believe was its good intent, but ALSO because this is bigger than your college. Your college may have held this particular event, but this is happening everywhere. It’s a major issue across the country. Your event was just a symbol of that, as far as this blog goes.

    So, on the smaller details: I was aware that it was an event connected to Active Minds on that campus, but I felt that that was too identifying and not entirely relevant to the larger points of this particular blog. Honestly, I’m not sure what saying that a group of students and faculty on campus got together under the guides of ‘Active Minds’ changes. I don’t know much about Active Minds, so I came with no pre-conceived notions (although, yes, probably some suspicions), though it’s an organization on my list to ‘check out.’ (I will, but not now. It’s after 2am.) I was *pretty* sure that – although someone had mentioned it was an Active Minds event, that they had also mentioned that that time period was chosen because of it’s relationship to some sort of ‘day’ or ‘week.’ I could be wrong, hence the ‘I think’ noted parenthetically above. But even if I was incorrect in that point, the larger point – that there are so many ‘illness’ weeks (never mind the soup and sauce weeks for now) was nonetheless relevant to the bigger picture I was painting.

    I also want to be clear that I absolutely heard the vast majority of the panel. Although I was writing lots of notes, I was listening, and I only left the room briefly to retrieve the person with whom I’d come, so he could listen as well. And yes, I wrote some of my questions after the moderator’s introduction and hearing only a part of the first speaker’s story in order to get a ‘flavor’ for where things were headed, but before the rest because I wanted to make sure my questions had a good chance at getting read. It was a bit of a risk, but really: My questions were pretty right on (in my opinion), as it turned out. I think that’s all the truly ‘small stuff.’

    So, at this point I guess I’d also like to point out that I was quite careful not to say much about what people said about their own stories, because – for the most part – each of those stories were not the problem on their own. I believe I said above that many of the speakers were quite good, and that the spoken word piece was powerful. People are entitled to their own stories, but here’s the thing: When ALL six people speaking share stories that say (in one way or another), “This is a lifelong illness,” and at least one of the six say on top of that that the ‘illness’ definitively has genetic components (going unchecked and unchallenged by all the others), I worry. I worry a lot. Because then you appear not just to be speaking for yourselves, but for everyone. You appear to be speaking about a general truth and not individual ones. That is a problem.

    On the cards: To be clear, I didn’t ‘decide’ the cards were to keep people silent. I heard the moderator and others talking about it beforehand. I heard them explain the possible ‘fear,’ but honestly, that comes across as silencing to me. Because it’s not actual fear, and because the cards weren’t presented as a choice. It’s projected fear. And that’s just as silencing as anything else. When you treat people as fragile and/or you project fear upon them, it creates a culture and I do not believe that culture is one that is particularly ‘de-stigmatizing.’ Perhaps you could have offered a note card option in addition to an out loud Q&A. I’ve been to lots of these sorts of events. I’ve seen lots of people speak up. It seems a much healthier way to me.

    On the game: I have nothing good to say about the ‘I love’ game. I’m sorry. I just can’t. And I frankly don’t think it matters one bit if you had some individuals who gave positive feedback about it. Once again, this is less about individuals and more about the message to all. Without that game, the event would have been fairly average (which is still discouraging in its way because I wish ‘average’ included diversity in perspectives), but the game was painful. We didn’t intentionally blow off the luncheon afterward. I was not aware of it until at the event itself, and had to get back to work. (If it had been mentioned in earlier e-mail correspondences I had missed it.) And yes, I probably should have reached out directly to your college to give feedback, and have definitely been thinking about it. But I guess, most importantly, this goes back to the ‘bigger than your college’ part. To hear an entire panel agree that human experience should be demedicalized and then to follow that up with such a medicalized game was notable and important. It’s important because people are hearing that on TV, in the newspapers, from doctors, from friends, from family, from NAMI/DBSA/etc., and perhaps from Active Minds *every* day of their lives. People are being boiled down to labels, over drugged, and harmed on a regular basis. In truth, this isn’t just about different perspectives but about the serious harm being done by the force fitting of one perspective as if it’s the ultimate truth and your event took part in re-enforcing the idea that there is one ultimate truth. Are you aware that people receiving services in the mental health system are dying – on average – 25 years younger than the general community? I feel like it would be overkill to offer more arguments here, but as much as these labels may be useful to some, throwing them around like they’re identities has serious impact. It shouldn’t be ignored or downplayed.

    I feel confused by some of your questions. If I did not know what was going on, how could I offer a critique? Well, it was fairly apparent what was going on. And let’s say – for arguments sake – I had no idea it was connected to Active Minds… The impact is the same.

    I’m feeling torn between offering what would probably be way too much information taking up way too much typing time, and just offering up some questions. I’m going to try the questions: What do you think depression is? When you say ‘bipolar’ what do you mean? How are these challenges “identifiable” exactly? What is the proof that someone ‘has’ one of these labels? What is the proof that these labels exist in the first place? What makes them more than manmade creations for the purpose for identifying research categories and/or billing? Why do we talk about them as if they’re these real things, when there’s no test on the planet to suggest they even definitively exist? Is it possible to let people make their own meaning and what might you need to change about how you talk to make that possible? What’s the harm? What’s the risk? Is there any actual proof that these diagnoses – if they do exist – have a genetic component? Is the person who defines their experience as ‘depression’ different than the person who defines their emotional distress as the result of trauma, and if so, how? Why was it so lost on people that they were 100% contradicting the idea of demedicalizing emotional distress by playing that game? Are you aware of all the studies suggesting that medicalized interpretations of human distress – and especially those that lead to psych drugs – are linked to dramatically reduced rates of healing and moving on with life? Are you aware that even many doctors agree that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual is meaningless, other than as an organizational system for billing purposes? So many questions… I could keep going.

    Interestingly, I first saw your comment while sitting at the dinner table at a friend’s house earlier this evening. Around that table were seven other people. Of the seven, one was a social worker, one a journalist/author, two (I believe) psychologists, one a psychiatrist, and two others (like myself) were activists with their own powerful stories to share. Of the seven, four were also Mad in America bloggers. Given our make up, we spent the entire evening (about five hours) talking about the mental health system and related politics. Primarily, we talked about how much harm we are all seeing done by the current system in all its forms: Not just the direct treatments, but the way people are taught to think about and seek help for their own distress. I’m not sure you realize just how many people are leading damaged lives and/or dying as a result. I think you’d understand my points much better if you did. You all were in a ‘teaching’ role of sorts when you held your event, but you largely chose to teach the same message people have already heard. This is happening everywhere, every day, all the time. The point of my blog post was NOT how bad or wrong you all were, but how huge an issue it is that our college campus (and beyond) aren’t offering something different… That our most open, shapeable minds are continuing to be shaped to see themselves and each other through a disease-model lens that we can see is failing us in devastating ways all around.

    I’m sorry that this is not one of my more articulate responses. I’m exhausted and going to go to bed… But a few last things:

    If you’d like me to come talk to your group about this blog post or anything else, I’m happy to do so… Well, ‘happy’ probably isn’t the right word. I’m sure it will be all sorts of awkward for all of us in a way, but hopefully still for the better. So, I’m willing. If not, I hope you’ll share this response with your fellow group members.

    In terms of you comments to Donna below: I haven’t read through them carefully, but I read enough to see your comment that worrying too much about funding sources is paranoid… So, speaking of blog posts, I really, really, really hope you’ll read this one that I wrote just after the one about your college: http://www.madinamerica.com/2014/03/dear-nami-apologies-ive-unfair/#comment-38895 I’d like to hear your thoughts on funding sources after you do.

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  • Thanks, Jonathan! I agree that the challenge is the middle paragraph you share… And understanding the amount of time that it might take for things to begin to sink in after people have been told something else all their lives (and continue to hear that message much more frequently than what you might be offering). Thanks for reading 🙂

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  • Oh, and the Depression Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA)… Four of their top donors listed in their 2011 annual report are pharma (http://www.dbsalliance.org/pdfs/annual_report_2011.pdf) … And if you look at their 2007 annual report (where they broke things out a bit differently), all three of their really big funders were pharma (http://www.dbsalliance.org/site/DocServer/FINAL_AnnualReport07.pdf?docID=2761)

    And 5 of the top 6 are pharma with Mental Health America in their 2010 annual report… http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/financial-information-annual-reports#.UxxYmD9dXu0

    NAMI, of course, isn’t so transparent… They simply offer a giant alphabetized list of their ‘major’ donors with pharma peppered throughout as a result without any sense of who’s really sending along the big bucks (http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=Annual_Reports&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=156556)

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  • Thanks, Ted… It’s a great point that we’ve too often found ourselves on opposite sides or attacked one another for each getting sucked into the system itself, rather than continuing to grow our numbers, recognize why we each (quite reasonably) got sucked in at various points and keep directing our energy where it’s most needed.

    I’ve done my best to track yours and others work in Boston as of late. I’d hoped to get to the protest in January to offer support and meet you in person, but it ended up overlapping with urgent issues I needed to address at home with one of my own children and the local school system.

    In any case, thanks for your work and for reading my blog.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for posting and reading, Copy_cat. I suspect the truth of what you suggest depends upon to whom within NAMI you are referring. Clearly, there are lots of people in NAMI who are there out of desperation and reaching toward the only seemingly visible organization that is promising them support.. I feel confident that most of those people don’t even necessarily understand the link between NAMI and the pharmaceutical industry… But certainly there are those within their structure that are pretty clear and, in fact, responsible for that linkage…

    And there’s no denying the truth of your first paragraph!

    Thanks again for speaking up.

    -S

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  • Egomen, I want to respond, but I guess I’m feeling a little bit uncertain what point you’re making specifically? Certainly, there are people throughout history who’ve had all sorts of experiences with emotional distress, tragedy and trauma, unusual experiences and so on… There’s no point or value in denying that… In fact, as you are perhaps intending to note, the human experiences – for all its bumps – often produces all the more beauty as a result. However, none of that speaks to the benefits of psychiatric labeling or promoting one solitary ‘right’ path to understanding… Curious what I might be missing in what you intended to communicate?

    Thanks!

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Steve. I can relate to much of what you’ve said here from the out-of-placeness in school (with which I’m also now struggling re:my son), to the marginalization in the traditional system and getting labeled as a trouble maker (which I just try to enjoy at this point 😉 ), to the wondering what point of all our struggle and efforts are at times! It definitely can be hard to see the gradual impact and changes, but I hang onto the belief that with so many great people and voices joining this effort, that change is inevitable. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for reading and your comments Sharon.

    When I say that most people working in provider roles are well intended, I do believe that but I also know that the reality of the situation is far more complicated than what people might hear in that statement.

    For example, I think some people working in this field in the traditional system are there because it’s an easy to get job. Not necessarily the ones who had to get licensed and all… but the people working in residential houses while they go to college, or support their families or what have you… They don’t get the complexity of the issues in so many instances and they aren’t invested in learning and so they don’t question what they’re told. In a basic sense, they’re well intended or think they’re doing what’s right, but the impact can be pretty awful.

    Others are caught up in their own issues – as you mention. They have been without power for so long, that this job is a path to reclamation that’s hard to resist. Or, it’s the first time someone accepted them as ‘not the crazy one,’ etc. More often than not, though, I think they’ve at least convinced themselves that what they’re doing is right. Disconnecting from the parts of their own experience that would tell them that it’s wrong is part of their survival.

    There’s also lots of people who just can’t quite buy into true healing for people with all these psychiatric labels. When they see people doing well who tell them they’re taking the wrong approach based on personal experience, they see them as having been misdiagnosed, as being naive, etc.. Because how could anyone who was truly ‘that bad’ now appear to be so put together, anyway? They’re really caught up in the message that ‘we’ need ‘them’ to keep us … and everyone else… safe.

    Then there’s people who are doing what they’re doing because it’s all they know to do, and are driven by their own personal autopilot and/or fears of liability and all that.

    And then there’s the self-proclaimed ‘good ones’ (sometimes proclaimed by others, as well) who are in the system doing the bare minimum of the ‘bad stuff’ necessary to not lose their jobs, while doing their damnedest to improve things from the inside…

    Or they’re a mix of all or some of the above… And even all that makes it all seem to simplistic.

    Ultimately, my point was that the evil, one-dimensional provider who knowingly is out to hurt people is (in my opinion) pretty uncommon. 🙂

    On a side note, I know first hand what it’s like to be seen as being in a ‘provider’ role and also having ‘come out.’ It really can be a hard place to be.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Hi mjk, I’m sorry that this brought up so much for you, and I can imagine that’s particulary hard – as you point out – if there’s nowhere to go with it. I definitely have had similar reactions personally to the insulting ‘exercise’ and ‘beading’ classes in hospitals, etc. That said, I’m equally aware that making art.. music, song, poetry, storytelling, etc. in a genuine way for the person can also be really powerful. I hope you do find some justice somewhere. It’s ultimately what i consider most important, as well.

    Thanks for reading!

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Chaya. Yes, We’d likely do well to consider how we treat every living being as a part of our efforts to change the world… Like I said in my article, I’m not at all an ‘animal person,’ but I’m definitely aware that a culture that cultivates turning a blind eye in favor of one’s own comfort in one situation, will likely do that in many.

    Thanks for reading and commenting!

    -Sera

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  • Thank you, Larmac, for taking the time to read my blog and for sharing some of your heartbreaking story. I’d like to believe I’d know what to do and I am thankful of the experience and knowledge of resources I do have… And yet I also am aware that knowing about resources doesn’t make them available where you are or make them be well funded enough to be available to everyone … and that nothing is ever as simple as what’s written in any blog. We all still have so much to learn and so much change to make… Thank you again for sharing your story and for being willing to talk about what you, your son and your family have all been through.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for your thoughts, Tina. The framework you talk about is still a learning curve for me as far as the Disability Convention, some of your language, etc. But I’d be interested in knowing more. I’ve seen so many legal ‘protections’ abused in the legal/mental health systems.

    For example, the Ruby Rogers case was considered a win for people who’d experienced forced treatment because it was supposed to protect AGAINST it, and yet now, Rogers Orders have become THE WAY to FORCE people to take medications in Massachusetts. It’s been – as far as I can tell – an interesting process similar to that of a word that was either previously a non-word or simply a word that had a different meaning that was then mis-used so many times that it became real. It would seem to me that the ‘Rogers’ concept has gotten misunderstood and misused so many times over the years that it’s become something else entirely and since it’s the lawyers and the doctors who hold the power, well, it just doesn’t seem that there’s any coming back from that.

    Substituted Judgment also wasn’t an awful concept in its creation. It, of course, meant that you substituted what you knew of that person’s own preferences and choices from when they were able to make them during a time when they weren’t so much. Still problematic in some ways, and yet, not nearly so problematic as the most common use of ‘substituted judgment’ which is essentially to substitute the judge’s or doctor’s or whoever’s judgment for the poor ‘incompetent’ person.

    Sigh.

    Anyway, I guess all that is to say that I’m interested in the legal arguments… and worried about what else it will take to actually hold people to whatever legal progress may be made.

    -S

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  • I’d tend to agree, Tina. The problem with much of this discrimination is that – as with so many other things – it’s not completely on the conscious level. People seem to think when discrimination is going on, that more often than not, the person doing the discriminating really knows it on some level. Unfortunately, some of the beliefs about people who have been psychiatrically labelled are SO deeply ingrained, that no ‘discrimination’ flag goes off at all for so many people. And yet, there isn’t much else that could possibly account for the fact that – as we’ve now both pointed out – no other group is detained for potential dangerousness.

    -S

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  • Thanks, Leah. Somehow finding our way out of this ‘box’ and all these cordoned off communities is key. It’s one of the reasons we (speaking on behalf of the Western Mass Recovery Learning Community) try to talk about healing and growth as it applies to EVERYONE, and have events geared toward EVERYONE… and yet we haven’t perfected that… We’re still in a box, too… Sometimes one doesn’t even know they’re in a box until they try to have a particular conversation with someone outside that box and realize how hard it still is.

    Anyway, it brings me back to so much unlearning and breaking down that we all still need to do.

    Thanks for reading and posting. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Yes, frankly, I think making these sorts of talks and conversations mandatory is much more important and life-saving than the sorts of things that do seem to get pressed.

    I’m not sure if you’ve read and of Sean Donovan’s blogs, but check this one out about our last experience trying to offer such a talk in a hospital environment: http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/05/when-recovery-feels-like-a-trap/

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  • For what it’s worth, last I knew, there is a production company working on a ‘mental health’ series for Sundance Channel. That was through http://www.espiritusproductions.com with Bill Katz. I spoke with him about the project back in 2012. I have no idea what became of it.

    I was also recently contacted by Arcos Films (www.arcosfilms.com) about their project to create a “Mental Health Channel.’

    In both instances, it didn’t look like the projects were headed in a direction I felt great about, but at least the latter group seemed very open to being pointed in different directions. I definitely encouraged them to contact lots o’ people on here. 🙂

    Maybe people on here might also want to contact one or both groups, too. 🙂

    (I can find something on Arcos about the relevant project, but not on emeritus)..

    -Sera

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  • Yes, that’s the place. They used to be known as Meta Services back when I visited. They are now Recovery Innovations. In fairness, I have to say that the story I offer is from 2005 and was more as an example of serious language manipulation than an assertion that what I described is their current practice or belief. They may very well be much more honest in the way they speak these days. That said, I do have more to say about this if you care to e-mail me privately.

    -Sera

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  • Steve, I think what you’re suggesting – the differentiation between detainment and forced ‘treatment’ is an interesting one and I absolutely think there’s value in its exploration. That said, I still tend to think that detainment of people for indefinite periods of time based on a whole ‘nother set of laws because of psychiatric labels is troubling.

    What about the question I pose at some point above regarding why – by that line of thinking – we wouldn’t also begin detaining other people we know to have dangerous potential? When you make this suggestion, are you talking about people who have actually DONE something or people being assess to be at RISK for doing something?

    I still don’t think it’s simple, although I think what you suggest is a start and certainly a part of the conversation.

    -Sera

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  • sxl, There are lots of horror stories out there. When I went to that hearing on forced outpatient commitment a couple months back, the Treatment Advocacy Center dragged in a few families from out of town to tell awful stories and cry in front of the committee.

    And I don’t mean to suggest their tears weren’t genuine. I’m certain they were… Those stories were awful and there’s no way their pain wasn’t real.

    However, the linkage that the Treatment Advocacy Center (and so many others) wish us to draw from hearing those stories is a little peculiar, isn’t it? Underneath it all, the stories were just stories of straight tragedy. There was nothing in them that said, “And if forced outpatient commitment had been in place this wouldn’t have happened.”

    In fact, many of the tragedies that have gained national press HAVE happened in places where these sorts of forced ‘treatment’ laws WERE already in place… Most of them, actually.

    The stories of the sorts of tragedies you name actually only seem to serve to tell us the same thing that the sorts of tragedies related to force tell us: There is great human suffering in this world and we have a LOT of work to do to figure out how to better support one another through it.

    -Sera

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  • Jonathan,

    Yes there does appear to be many points we agree on.

    Most of all, what you’re reminding me of, however, is how frustrating it is to occasionally be invited in to offer some of those talks to people who work in hospitals, but to have no actual pressure on employees to actually attend.

    We’ve given those sorts of presentations to two people. Three people. Five people. Those presentations need to be given to every single person who walks the door, yet the hospitals seem to have no investment or want to pretend as if they have no control over their employees in that way in spite of the many mandatory trainings that are already firmly in place.

    Given that you have attempted to provide that view from the inside, what do you suppose is the reason that such places won’t actually ask their employees to attend? And how do we change that?

    -Sera

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  • Love this, Copy Cat:

    Also I WOULD NEVER BE STUPID ENOUGH TO TELL A MENTAL HEALTH WORKER ABOUT SUICIDAL THOUGHTS !

    Question: Do you feel like hurting yourself ?

    Question translated: Do you feel like being locked up, your cell phone confiscated, strip searched, forced to share a room with a stranger who likely snores and drugged against your will for an undetermined period of time ????

    These are the sorts of quotes I feel like we should be collecting and compiling into some ‘How to Survive the System’ sort of book somewhere.

    -Sera

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  • Dear all,

    I just wanted to share that the abolishment of slavery/forced psychiatry parallel that I’d previously credited to Chris Hansen should actually be credited to Myra Kovary. Although the comparison was passed on to me via Chris, it originated with Myra and especially since it’s such a valuable comparison, I want to make sure to credit it properly. For those of you who do not know Myra, she is a long time survivor and activist against forced psychiatry who has been a part of this movement for many years. 🙂

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  • Hey all, I just want to say that I do appreciate all your responses – both those I’m receiving here and by direct e-mail.

    In general, I always try and keep up with responses and will get back to that tomorrow at the latest.

    Today, we’re involved with Valley Gives Day to help support the Western Mass Recovery Learning Community (where I work) to CHANGE THE WORLD!! (Cheap plug here, but it’s true! http://valleygives.razoo.com/story/Western-Mass-Rlc if you’re interested… )

    That’s going to draw a ton of my attention, but I am doing my best to read responses and will get back to replying ASAP.

    Thanks all,

    -Sera

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  • They do put some powerful stuff out… But yes, the stigma of being written off as a ‘scientologist’ is awfully powerful and honestly, something I personally wish to avoid which means not being able to cite much of what they have to say. But I think Mad in America and other sites are also doing a good job of putting similar information out.

    Either way, I absolutely think it’s an important point that saying something doesn’t work, is abusive, or counter-productive does NOT require that we offer a solution at the same time. Dismissing what we offer when we do that (because it doesn’t offer a solution) is weak, and as I said in my post I think we need to be much more articulate and powerful about stating that ineffective and downright damaging ‘solutions’ in the name of feeling like we’re ‘doing something’ is absolutely unacceptable!

    -Sera

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  • Wow. I haven’t read the person’s original report yet, but the response is AWFUL and the worst kind of apologist/pass-demanding piece. I wish there were many more opportunities for people to give feedback on their experiences with system ‘help.’ As much as they might call us ‘consumers,’ there isn’t much in the way of ‘consumer reports’ opportunities such as there is with the rest of the world.

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  • I don’t disagree with you, but I also don’t think that every blog needs to be accessible to everyone. I very much had our own ‘movement’ and people working in the mental health system in mind when I wrote this. I think your challenge – to begin writing more articles that are accessible and reach out to the general public – as valid… But I think so are these articles that seek to strengthen that movement that will be doing that work. For too long we’ve been missing groups, etc. that are beacons for truth telling of a very different version of the truth. Those groups are not the ones that will change the opinions of those who are walking down the street and otherwise unattached, but they are the groups that will help those of us who previously perhaps thought we were alone in thinking about things differently to grow much more stronger and confident in what we have to say and figuring out the answer to the challenge you post.

    Thanks!

    -Sera

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  • Ted, As with many blogs that go up on the website, I’d say that the audience is those who are reading it. There is much to be said for clarifying and strengthening our understanding and vision within our movement and/or challenging the perspectives of those who are allies or working in the system. While I don’t disagree with you that our overall message needs to get to the broader community, I don’t see how that can happen until we’ve gotten clearer ourselves. I essentially said that in the opening where I acknowledge Jim’ ‘Transformation Triangle’ and the need to visit how to actually make change, but suggest that getting clarity ourselves is a prerequisite in some ways… (Though in some ways, that’s not quite right either as I’m not really suggesting we wait around to gain clarity before we start doing that, or we’d be here together… but it was the so-called pre-requisite part that was the focus of this particular blog.)

    -Sera

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  • Johnathan,

    It would be silly of me – of anyone – to say, “Hey, Sally just started attacking everyone in the rec room with broken chair legs, but since we’re anti-force, we’ll just have to stand on the sidelines and hope she stops.”

    I can’t imagine *anyone* would advocate that – in the face of serious violence – there is no right to self defense or defense of others in your environment.

    *HOWEVER,* there’s a serious difference between saying ‘I practice self-defense’ and ‘force is a rare but acceptable part of treatment.’

    I was essentially already saying this in my first post, but by your response, I’m not sure I was clear enough.

    There’s a serious price to pay when force or violence of any kind becomes a written in (and thus, a normal) part of a system (even if it’s written in a way that says it’s rare and ‘we really try to avoid this’).

    Is it necessary for it to be written in to the system as acceptable in order for people to be able to defend themselves or take some sort of action when the situation calls for it? I don’t think so, and I guess that’s my point.

    What would we do at the respite house, one of our resource centers, etc, if the setting itself, the culture we’ve created, and a willingness to talk through and sit through very difficult situations didn’t work and someone was actually being violent toward us or someone else in the space?

    We would support someone to defend themselves (but we wouldn’t call it treatment or see it as a programmatic intervention of any kind). We might call the police or for other assistance (just like we might if someone did that to us in our personal home). And, as aforementioned, we would go through a critical incident process that wouldn’t necessarily blame the team members directly involved, but would explore – as best we could – the responsibilities held by all (including the person who was violent), the things that were in our control and could have been done differently, the things that may have been out of our control (but of which we should still nonetheless be aware), and what reparations should be made or steps should be taken moving forward.

    -S

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  • Kermit,

    The questions I am asking are this:

    1. Is it reasonable/advisable to ever say – regardless of location – that “I support force” within the mental health system and, if so, what are the implications to stating and integrating that belief into said structure? This is a question that I am asking regardless of settings, and I don’t think that any delineating needs to be made.

    2. Should ‘danger to self’ and ‘danger to others’ be so readily equated and used to justify force? If so, why? If so, when? And, perhaps, if we are to do that, shouldn’t we at least be more conscious and intentional of the philosophical and actionable consequences and implications? Again, this is regardless of context and is more a cultural/systemic question.

    What *you* are asking speaks more to the issues I was raising in a separate conversation a few weeks back… What do we do about the ‘gap’ between forced options and alternative options, etc. (I’ve got a blog post brewing on that topic, myself.) etc. Again, a valid conversation, but it feels like a very different one to me right now.

    -S

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  • Except that none of those questions have anything to do with the questions I raised.

    While a valid conversation, what you bring up is a completely different conversation, and while I recognize that it is a question related to your initial post, it’s not the one I want to have at the moment.

    Perhaps once there’s been an answer to my questions, I’ll come back to these ones… In the interim, I’m going to let them sit as I feel they will only distract and/or add to the impression that what underlies my questions was something completely different than what was actually there.

    -S

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  • Kermit,

    For right or wrong, Jonathan does *not* say here that he is opposed to all force. In fact, here, he quite clearly acknowledges at least one instance when he approves of force: “If the person doesn’t de-escalate after prolonged staff interaction, or will not take oral sedative medications, I support the limited use of injectable medications to help stop violence.”

    Jonathan,

    For me, the statement I quote above is of concern… Not because I disagree with some parts of it. I, too, would acknowledge that – based on the current system, the tools afforded to people working in it, our culture, and so many other points – there are situations where people feel incredibly stuck and at a loss as to what to do to prevent violence, and resort to force… which is what I at least *think* you’re essentially saying.

    However, that statement as you’ve currently worded it is a problem for me because the moment we start saying, “I agree with force in the mental health system in x, y or z situation,” then you are saying you agree with force as an option. Period.

    Fundamentally, there is a difference between saying “I agree with force as an option on the menu,” and saying, “I agree there are times when the options on our menu fail and we get stuck, and we have much more work to do as a community to continue toward eradication of those times.”

    For me, the latter is understandable and a reality, but the former is an unacceptable statement that leads – in most settings – to the increase in use of force as once it’s on the menu, it’s… well, on the menu, and people tend to find more reasons to use what’s on the menu than what’s not.

    Since it opened, our respite house has stated that force of any kind (calling emergency services, police, etc, on someone) is not on the standard menu, and if it were to happen that we’d have to regard it as a critical incident and investigate why it got there, take responsibility for what we find that was in our control, and do everything we can to learn from it and make things as right as we can. Fortunately, we’ve never gotten stuck and ‘gone there’ in our 16 months of existences, but that policy still stands.

    I wish it stood everywhere.

    On another note: We (the Western Mass Recovery Learning Community) currently have a survey running on language (see here if anyone is interested in filling it out: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/language_survey99), and one of the most interesting responses I’ve received so far is one from a person who questions the line, “Danger to self or others,” which I hear you using in varying forms throughout this blog.

    The person’s main point of concern is in regards to the implications of equating hurting one’s self and hurting someone else – something the mental health system generally does as force of habit.

    Do you – do others – truly see those two points as equal? I realize that this is a whole conversation topic on its own, and yet it seems a critical part of the ‘force’ conversation. Are suicidal thoughts and actions ones that we are all necessarily and systemically responsible for stamping out? Are they ‘health’ issues? Or are they existential issues? Deeply personal issues? Choices? Is chemically restraining someone to stop them from hurting themselves equivalent to stopping them from hurting someone else? If so, why and when?

    Anyway, these are the first two thoughts that pop up for me when I read your blog.

    Thanks,

    -Sera

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  • icclift,

    That’s definitely a part of the question… But, I guess my main point here is let’s start from a place of being curious and interested enough to *ask* someone what the meaning and impact is for them and have some trust in what they say in response.

    In terms of what helps people to stop or make a change if that’s what they want to do, I think people have found so many paths. Some of the resources I posted at the bottom of the blog (and that others have mentioned in the comment sections) speak to some people’s personal paths through.

    I definitely don’t personally claim to have all the answers for everyone, though. For me, my inclination to hurt myself in that way just reduced over time as I worked through certain things and my overall life developed into something I felt better about. For example, I used to be in bed at night and feel like my worst emotions were crawling around just under the surface of my skin and I would get so overwhelmed that I would start hitting myself until my ex-husband managed to get me to stop or I exhausted myself. That urge just passed at a certain point in my life… Other things I still go back to every now and again… But the cessation/reduction had NOTHING to do with me trying to stop, using distraction skills or doing anything else targeted particularly at the idea that the self injury was anything to do with the problem and needed to stop. Things just changed for me… and when I do go back to it, it’s not in a way that I feel particularly bad or ashamed about.

    I guess the biggest questions for people who are really struggling with wanting to change that part of their life somehow are something along the lines of … What’s NOT working for you ? What do you WANT to change? And then really, really, genuinely honestly making space to talk that through.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Ann! I know the feeling of having to hide it even from people in one’s own personal life, as well. Granted, I understand why people get scared and worry… And yet, there’s so much that could be gained from simply being with and being genuinely interested in trying to understand.

    I’ve largely given up on the word ‘recovery’ altogether, but it drives me up a wall when people try to say that it’s a ‘lifelong process’ as if that were true of everyone.

    Thanks for reading and good to meet you this September! 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Susan,

    I think something is getting lost in the middle in this thread. I think that I, Laura, Sean and Caroline have all intended to be pretty clear in our stance that psychiatric drugs have caused great harm, that humanity has been lied to, etc. We intend for the films to also be very clear in that message and are not particularly seeking to create a ‘balanced, here are the pluses and minuses’ sort of piece… We’re looking to add to the strength of the counter-story which is why we’ve only asked for clips from people who were fed the lies and have been a part of the proof that the lies were wrong.

    The message of our films isn’t particularly founded on ‘informed consent,’ so much is it founded on a single-minded approach that is not only without a real base, but hurting hundreds of thousands of people.

    I hope that that is also clear in the questions that we’re asking people to answer in the clips that they are sending.

    I don’t think any of us have said that taking a strong anti-med position is akin to the original oppression. Actually, I think I said that it wasn’t nearly so bad… at least in part, because those speaking the ‘anti’ message simply have none of the power that those forcing the meds do. However, I *did* say that it starts to begin to appear that we are travelling the same path…

    And why… Not because we are able to take on the role of the oppressor… That’s just not possible without power also on our side. *BUT* I will *always* argue that one of the many values of our movement is to support people to regain ownership over their own stories… It’s just so key… And I don’t see how we do that by denying some people’s stories so outright. I don’t see how it’s helpful.

    Yes, some people have developed their stories around lies and misconceptions and being beaten down… But I haven’t seen people in that position change their story by being yelled at. I’ve only seen those stories changed by people offering a counter-story and then creating space for people to change while also accepting that they may not.

    I am *not* arguing against taking a strong position that the meds are seriously harmful, but supporting people’s right to say, “Yes, they may be harming me, but they’re also helping in some way that I personally have decided is of value to me,” without being yelled down.

    That said, our attempt to make space for people in that way amounted to about three or four sentences and yet has taken over the comments section and I can’t help but be disappointed by that. Especially given the very strong statements offered by each of us and our commitment to having this film project be a part of surfacing the quite clear message that psychiatric drugs – and the lies that surround them – are causing great harm.

    -Sera

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  • I’d like to take this moment to remind everyone that the *whole* point of these films *IS* to speak out against these drugs and the way they’re being used, the lies people are being told and the awful impact they’re having on people as a result…

    Somehow, we’re getting lost in the fact that some of us are still inclined to say, “*IF* someone has been fully informed and still chooses to take them and says that they work, that we don’t want to beat them up for it…” I’m not going to argue with someone about their personal story. But, I will argue against the oppression, abuse and torture happening in the system right along with you, so I’m hoping we can move beyond this sticking point and not lose the bigger picture.

    Stephen, given what you’ve seen and all the people to whom you have access I hope you’ll help share the word of this call for footage and/or participate yourself!

    Thanks,

    -Sera

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  • Dragonfly, I’m glad you’re continuing to get heard. The only piece of what you said above that makes me a little uneasy is the implication that I’m lessening my voice because of my work. Don’t know if you were even directing that at me… but at least, that’s how it comes across to me. I don’t do a whole lot of that, for the record. I’m fairly well known across the state for speaking my mind, bringing in other controversial people to speak theirs and pushing a lot of limits… I do think our approach is different, and yet I’d hate to be thought of in the same light of so many of the people I so often criticize who commonly say things like, “Sorry, I can’t, because of my job.” 🙂

    In any case, I don’t know if you intend to participate at all in this project, but it sounds like it would be great to have your voice involved!

    Thanks,

    -Sera

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  • Dragonfly,

    I think there’s a substantial difference between fighting big pharma (which I’m all for) and fighting an individual who’s saying, “Hey, don’t deny my story, please.”

    The thing is, if we were to begin acting as if we know absolutely everything about every person and every psychiatric drug then I personally feel as if we’d be … well, not *AS* bad as the conventional system (by a long stretch)… but headed in that direction. What good has ever come from acting like we know *every*thing about any topic in such a black-and-white sort of way?

    The truth is, even outside of the psychiatric industry, people do all sorts of things that harm their bodies every day, including ingesting chemicals, drugs and toxins of varying sorts (diet ‘foods’, cigarettes, coffee, ‘street’ drugs, etc) … I’m not sure it’s my place to say they can’t or shouldn’t if they do so knowingly.

    Isn’t it the oppressive nature of it all that’s the real problem?

    I certainly don’t mean to offend you or act as an ‘apologist,’ but one of my most basic values is acknowledging what I don’t know and giving other people space to know what they do know about themselves. I may believe that they’ve been tricked (and surely, many have) and hope for them that they find a different truth along their journey, but I’m in no position to tell them what that truth will be.

    In the end, I think we agree about what is most important: That people have been done great harm by the pharmaceutical industry and the system that was tasked with helping them and something needs to change NOW.

    -S

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  • Hi Ted,

    Thank you for your post here. You definitely have me thinking. I haven’t attended the NAPS conference for just the reason you describe. Admittedly, I attended my first Alternatives conference last year and was pretty horrified!

    And yet, I see it as a really important place to reach people who perhaps haven’t been exposed to thinking about things beyond the ‘consumer’ vision. I’m not sure I can completely turn away from that. People get to make their own choices, but in order to make their own choices, they need all the information.

    I do remember when Bob was almost denied, and I also remember hearing about the strange set-up around his keynote and being accepted back in. (I believe someone was allowed to speak to ‘rebut’ him directly after his keynote!) But so many people needing to be reached…

    I’m not always sure where to draw that line. It feels complicated at times. 🙂

    In any case, I feel committed to attending this year’s conference. The National Empowerment Center is overseeing it and I have faith that people like Oryx will really try to make it something worthwhile. The Western Mass RLC is going to have a strong showing. In addition to the film screening, we’re taking part in 7 or 8 other workshops offering what I believe will be real alternatives and ways to think differently about human experience.

    But I will keep what you’re saying in mind… This weekend I will be going to a conference specifically to protest an ECT workshop that paints ECT in a solely positive light. I’m devastated to know that people who claim to be in the same movement as me will be there presenting rather than protesting… So, I do get it. I just think that the line between bridge building and complicity can get hard to define at times.

    I hope you’ll bear with us while we figure that part out, and still support us in get the rest of this effort moving. 🙂

    Thanks!

    -Sera

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  • Certainly, you are free to keep using the word. However, I will not be identifying with the ‘peer movement,’ myself. Peer has come to mean an identity based in psychiatric diagnosis.

    Nowadays, in ‘mental health’ circles, it’s commonplace to hear someone ask, “Is she/he a peer?” The absurdity of that question is that EVERYONE on this planet is a ‘peer’ of multiple other people. There isn’t any such thing as being ‘a peer’ on your own. Sure, the concept of peer-to-peer support… as it exists between mothers, people who’ve been in the system, people who’ve been to war, etc. is very powerful, but that’s not what the word means to the system and in most ways I hear it used by most people in these particular circles. What ‘peer’ has come to mean is basically exactly what ‘consumer’ means which is basically – at best – ‘that person over there who has received services in the mental health system’ or – at worst – ‘that mentally ill person over there.’

    For further irritation on the topic, I might point you to:

    http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/07/cheers-for-peers/

    or

    http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/01/false-arguments-a-three-part-story/

    I’m sorry that you find this all offensive and it sounds great that you found a community of people that have made a difference in your life. But I will never except any one-word label that marks my identity as being based on diagnosis. I’m just living the same life as everyone else. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Hey seventhsense,

    I have really conflicted feelings about this. *IF* we are going to continue to have peer roles in traditional settings (which I’m not sure that we should), then I’m not sure letting them go in untrained by our community is a good idea. In my own experience with all this, some of the people who have ‘been there’ and have now gone ‘back there’ in peer roles are just as bad (and sometimes worse) than people in clinical roles. They regurgitate back everything that was given them, and sometimes while high on the new power they’ve just acquired by moving from person supported to person supporting (who has the keys, name badges, and all that).

    If we offer no consistent training, then who does?

    And yet, I also agree with you that training can eliminate some of the people who would be good at the work but not the training. But AA also has an incredibly narrow and proscriptive focus that almost precludes training in a way, doesn’t it? On top of that, it’s all occurring outside of the walls of a provider which makes a huge difference as well…

    I guess, in my view, I’ve seen trainings be tremendously helpful… But they are the trainings that support people to rethink what has been done to them… and how to cut through all that and be present with someone, be genuinely curious about them, and NOT give recommendations and all that crap. Sometimes the training is about the unlearning *and* about getting truly in touch with the *values* that drive us and help protect us from getting swallowed up by a system that is marching to the beat of a very different drum.

    No easy answers… Just an ongoing puzzle. 🙂 But I do see the effect of people entering into peer roles in traditional settings without any sort of training and it can get pretty ugly and they are all the easier to co-opt for it…

    Not really sure what I’m arguing for here, because I think there are bigger problems than just to train or not to train… Just thoughts.

    -S

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  • Hi Lucinda,

    Thanks for reading and commenting. I have mixed feelings about some of your thoughts.

    I’d be really interested, for example, to see the DBSA curriculum. Is it medically focused? When I read some of the illness and symptom language, it makes me worry that it may still be teaching people to force a diversity of experiences into a medical model.

    Why do we need to improve the medical model? Why wouldn’t our goal to be to demedicalize human experience and give people the full array of options – among which a medical perspective would be one of many possibilities?

    I also wonder why we *need* to choose a label? Why is it ‘peer’ for lack of a better term (as compared to consumer, client, etc?)? Why couldn’t it just be when people support one another… people who have shared similar experiences… people supporting other people to move through shared struggles… people who use the wisdom gained from their own challenges in life to support others… people offering peer-to-peer support (different than simply calling someone a ‘peer’ as it speaks to a relational quality)… etc. etc. etc. When we insist on coming up with some sort of systemitized term, we’re boxing ourselves in unnecessarily.

    I’m conflicted about what you say re ‘peer-to-peer’ support necessarily being unpaid. I’m not sure I disagree, and yet I am very clear that the community we have developed would not be sustainable unpaid. As it is, I’m not sure it’s always sustainable with how little we pay. I also think there’s less of an inherently impoverished culture of people who have been devalued and taken advantage of in the AA community at large. Whereas, this is very much the trend among a huge portion of those individuals who have been in the mental health system.

    And yet, of course, the introduction of money and being beholden to those offering you a paycheck does introduce much complexity into what is intended to be mutual relationships. It is complicated, but I do not find that the complexity is fully mediated by being paid or not paid.

    All that said, I don’t want to diminish that even though I was left with many questions after reading your response, I appreciate that you are nonetheless also attempting to challenge the status quo and make sense of it all.

    I would definitely be interested in learning more about what you do and how you approach it! 🙂

    Thanks,

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for reading and posting, Stephen! 🙂 Although we’re careful to not buy into any one training as the ‘end all be all,’ Intentional Peer Support has meant a lot to many people in our area, as well. It’s a really nice way of re-enforcing over and over that understanding someone else’s worldview is really key in any supporting relationship one may choose to have!

    I’m sorry that it’s been so hard and getting harder to live your vision in the day-to-day!

    -Sera

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  • That’s really awful, Francesca. I wish those sorts of stories were rare! That’s the opposite of real ‘peer’-to-‘peer’ support. It’s not even just good, basic human listening to one another.

    At least you were in a place to recognize how awful it was. What I worry about most in the end is all the people who hear that sort of thing and accept it as ‘good’ and meaningful support.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for sharing this, Alex. One of the things I struggle with most is how to spread information and challenge the current thinking about meds, etc., without people hearing it as ‘anti’ everything. That ‘anti’ accusation often comes from people who have been diagnosed in the system, and not just from those working in it. Surely, I’m not completely neutral. I have my own thoughts, etc, but above all else, I’m most concerned with people getting to have their own story… of knowing that there are options other than medications and a medical model… of recognizing how the FORCE behind the medical model has hurt so many people in so many ways. It seems impossible to challenge that in small or large ways without people hearing it as a statement that the medical model must be banned and all who ascribe to it are weak and wrong.

    I know that’s not quite what you were saying, but it did remind me of that point, though I think you’re also right that personal success through non-traditional methods can bring up very personal feelings for people as well.

    You said: “Without a sense of independent thinking, we tend to learn from our oppressors, as a way of ‘succeeding’ in the peer world of the system.”

    This is such a true statement… true of all rights movements, of which we are but one.

    Thanks 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Thank you for posting, Rossa. Going it along is hard, though that’s not to say that many don’t find success there!

    You’re reminding me, however, that part of what I find most frustrating in our current system’s way of thinking is something along the lines of: We know what you need. If you refuse what we believe you need, we will call you non-compliant and make dire predictions about your future. If in fact you fall upon harder times (and even if perhaps some of those harder times could be because we pushed you into isolation with our various threats of force and refusals to support you in the ways you identified as needing), we will point to that and consider that proof that we were right!

    People work hard to see only that which supports what they already believe. I suppose that is true of all of us here as well, but it seems a particularly dire trend when one has the power to force what they believe over others in such direct ways.

    -Sera

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  • Thank you, Chrys! I’m afraid I’ve only made it as far as Edinburgh on a tour bus in your country, so I know very little about it, but I so appreciate that people post here from so many places in the world.

    I’ve read some of your blogs, and really appreciate your sharing of your story and wisdom and glad to have you as a part of the fight! 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Hi Martin,

    Thanks for posting. 🙂 So curious: Did you – or anyone from your corner – attend the recent SAMHSA ‘summit on youth’? I watched a bit of it remotely…

    In any case, I will check your webinar out when I have a little more breathing room. Definitely interested in how you presented the ideas!

    This is a topic that I’ve attempted to ‘tackle’ in a number of different ways. I work with the ‘Western Mass Peer Network’ in an effort to develop some integrity in the roles in which they are working and offer some support to holding true to all that, and we’re working on developing a ‘Declaration’ that addresses some (though not all) of these issues that is certainly intended for a broad audience.

    There are many other ways that it comes up, too, and yet I am often faced with having to ask myself: Do I participate in the worsening of the bigger picture by giving people who aren’t committed to the integrity the language and tools they need to better appear that they *are* without actually changing anything? At what point do I become a part of making things worse?

    Honestly, our community decided AGAINST giving feedback to the NAPS process on developing ‘peer’ role standardization exactly for that reason. We felt we’d be giving people some improved language to dress up a tool we thought may lack integrity in a much more fundamental way.

    In any case, I agree that there are many roles that can be supportive to people… but I also agree with Ted and many others that have spoken up in this blog and others about some of the most important support being around human rights and creating space for people to have their own story.

    Hope to view your presentation soon! 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Hi Ted,

    You said: “So I am saying to those who truly want to see something different that trying to create alternatives, and fighting politically against the abusive system we have now, have to go hand in hand.”

    I am in total agreement with you there! 🙂 What that looks like gets blurry at times… or at least what that looks like when it’s not futile sometimes feels hard to imagine and attain… But it is an idea we try and hang on to and promote at least in our little corner of the world!

    Thanks 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Welcome and thanks for posting, seventhsense!

    That sounds like a REALLY tough job that must raise so much conflict for the people expected to be in that role.

    Locally, I recall someone in a ‘peer’ role of some sort sharing that they’d been asked to go support someone going through an evaluation at an Emergency Room. It was – at that point – a ‘voluntary’ evaluation. Fair enough, but then they also shared that they were asked to bring the section (involuntary) paperwork along with them just in case the voluntary had to go involuntary!!!!!

    “Hey, I’m here to support you… but in my back pocket, I’ve got the paperwork to take away your freedom if you step out of line! But don’t worry. You can still trust me. Because I’ve been there!!”

    Sure, that works.

    -Sera

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  • Marian, Wow, that job ad is going down on my list of ‘ugh’ for sure. I agree with you, too, that this practice of using people who have ‘been there’ as pawns and – essentially – tools of oppression is pretty horrifying.

    Last was my first Alternatives conference and I was pretty horrified by the ‘industrial’ energy to so many of the presentation. I went to one out of Arizona where – during some group exercise – I had the opportunity to question the presenter. I kept saying, “But this here on your slide/handout… it doesn’t sound like a ‘peer’ role…” to so many things she was offering. Finally, she just said to me, “Honey, I think you’re confusing peer support with advocacy.” (I’m not getting that quote exactly right, but that was pretty much it.) Very depressing.

    -Sera

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  • Thank you for sharing your experience, Alex. Although the first poster seemed to be suggesting that maybe I’d not gotten out and seen enough of the ‘peer’ world to speak to it, the comments here are serving to strongly re-enforce my sense of just how off things truly are in this area.

    Thanks again for sharing!

    -Sera

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  • Hi Ted,

    I have to admit I was curious if you’d reply here and a little afraid of what you might say. 😉

    We’ve actually never received any SAMHSA funding, but we do take state Department of Mental Health funding, to be sure.

    It’s interesting… In some ways, of course, I agree with you. We do put our funding at risk by many of things we do and say. (We took some hits, for example, when we had David Cohen come and offer ‘Withdrawing from Medication’ workshops, but they were tolerable hits that didn’t require any deviation from our path.) And, of course, people – knowingly or not – won’t be keen on paradigm shifts that write them out of the picture, or at least put them much further back in the scenery.

    On the other hand, sometimes I feel like people have convinced themselves that their funding is so at risk that they must not say ANYthing or do ANYthing controversial.

    In general, I’ve taken the approach that – while I’m aware of and sometimes employ more diplomatic ways of saying things in some situations than others – I am going to say and do what I think is real and right. In so many instances, I’ve found that if we simply speak about our way as THE way, and approach it with an ‘of course we should be doing it this way’ attitude, it works out. Funnily enough, this ‘Recovery Learning Community’ that I’m a part of is one of six in the state. However, the others – who are under the SAME EXACT funding stream as we are with very similar contracts – are MUCH more conservative and when I question the way they do things, I hear straight from them that they’re that way because the funder requires it.

    The system is oppressive, but sometimes people also participate heavily in disabling themselves.

    You may be right that our funding will take a hit at some point as a result of our attitudes and unwillingness to compromise our values. But honestly, so far we’ve only grown. It’ll be hard if we do end up hitting that wall. It will have to mean the end for my own participation. But it remains to be seen how it will all play out exactly…

    -Sera

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  • I can picture that interaction, including the smirk. 🙂 It’s not that I believe that all people working in the system are bad. I know not everyone here would agree with me, but I think most of them are good and well intended… But the system has taught us all to play certain roles, and taught most of us ways to stuff actions and words that don’t fit those roles back into them anyway… It’s definitely pretty maddening!

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  • mjk, In my experience of ‘peer’ roles in many places, the people who are working in the traditional system and who really do start talking loudly about the problems there and challenging how people are being treated often don’t get treated very well and their jobs are hard to sustain. I do think it happens in some places, and I have appreciation for who recognize that these conversations NEED to happen to move forward at all… but often they get squelched or the person bringing them up gets labeled as the ‘problem.’

    That’s my experience, anyway.

    -Sera

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  • Wow, hey, i guess at least they were more transparent than most! I can’t imagine too many people would be admitting that that’s a reason for not hiring directly to you!

    I hear ya on the toll it can take on your own inner peace. It’s definitely taken it’s toll on mine at times, and I’m glad now to be working where I am which is still doing much of the work to create a community of support without being too closely beholden to people working directly in the mental health system. (I.E., There are no clinical employees providing ‘mental health care’ anywhere in the Western Mass RLC or the organization that offers us umbrella support.)

    -Sera

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  • Hi Sharon, I didn’t realize you’d lost your license! That sounds awful and I’m sorry to hear it. Interesting also to hear of some of your interactions at the HVN training, and I’m in total agreement with you… If there isn’t tension happening, there often isn’t change happening.

    -Sera

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  • Hi John, I totally agree (on compassion, encouragement, empathy, etc.) being able to come from *anyone*. I also totally agree that just labeling someone as being in a ‘peer’ role says very little about whether or not they’ll be able to connect with others to whom they’re presumed to relate. However, I do think there’s something important and worth preserving about having people available who are responsible to supporting someone and making sure their voice is getting heard without also having that person have to be responsible to the whole rest of the system at the same time. In my end of the world, we talk about that being ‘in but not of’ the system, and the role is supposed to have absolutely as little responsibility to the system’s systems (medication administration, documentation, blah blah blah) so that the person can be free to be at that person’s side and support them getting heard. Can’t say that it’s working very well and I’m skeptical ultimately about any of these roles being actually in and supervised by the primary system, but I like some of that idea.

    -Sera

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  • Jen,

    I have to admit that I find your comment pretty condescending. I didn’t expect everyone to like this post. It challenges many people’s practices. However, as you might have noted from some of what I wrote here, I *have* been meeting people from across the country and beyond and learning about their work. Often, it has led to my feeling stronger about all that I have written above.

    That WRAP being written into people’s plans isn’t unusual does NOT mean it’s okay. It’s deeply not okay. That it’s not unusual only means that the problem is spreading, getting bigger and thus we should be protesting these sorts of activities even more strenuously.

    Who cares if it’s an ‘EBP’? That it’s joined the ranks among the other ‘EBP’s (so many of which I wouldn’t give the time of day) does not mean it should be swallowed up by the system and warped in its giant system belly.

    For the record, I see posting this sort of perspective as an effort toward coalition building… with the people who share the same sorts of values and frustrations that I do and/or with those who are newly in a place of thinking it all through critically. If these sorts of perspectives are not shared then all the people who are quietly questioning what they’re seeing but not sure if they’re the only one are more likely to keep quiet and not find one another.

    Sure, we could be a country of united ‘peer worker’ and ‘peer specialists,’ but united over what? I’m not sure the point of a really large group of people united in name only. It’s the values and the purpose that count.

    -Sera

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  • One last thing (for now): One of the original reasons I posted this blog was because I was encouraged to help get the word out about the Maastricht Interview training.

    For those of you who are in clinical or other supporter roles, or those of you who know people in those sorts of roles… I’m hoping you will pass on the info… not as something that is the answer to everything, but as a great opportunity that certainly is a heck of a lot better than most clinical trainings being offered in the US right now but a couple of really great people (Peter Bullimore & Kate Crawford) who themselves identify as people who hear voices. 🙂

    http://westernmassrlc.org/images/stories/maastricht_app_update.pdf

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  • Dear all,

    At the moment, I find myself deeply frustrated with the Mad in America website, not because of any one-sidedness or lack of moderation, but because there is an unpredictable and maddening lack of ‘reply’ buttons in random places.

    Thus – at least for now – I am giving up on trying to respond to posts one-by-one, and posting some additional comments here. Perhaps some of you will see it. 🙂

    First, Timothy: You just posted that I’d misunderstood your comments about anonymity. I’m definitely aware that you spoke to the people who are publicly expressing much including their identities, but only privately willing to admit they share some of your concerns. I did get that. But in a separate place, you seemed to be criticizing anonymous for being anonymous which struck me as unfair.

    To Nev & all re moderation: I am admittedly a little puzzled by the complaint of lack of moderation. Maybe I’m missing it (that is a real possibility given how many comments there are, I suppose), but what precisely should have been removed? I’m personally all for fairly laid back moderation standards. I’m curious to better understand what others are looking for when they say the site is poorly moderated because at least at a distance it often looks to come up when someone has grown uncomfortable with too directly being challenged.

    Matthew: While I agree with you to a point that people can’t be held to ideas from the past, I’m fairly certain that at least in this instance, Nev has said in current-day public posts that she stands by her old posts and at least somewhat regrets taking them down. Nev, I’m not saying this to attack you. I’m simply questioning why you wouldn’t be reasonably thought to still believe the content of old posts that you have quite recently said you still believe.

    Most importantly, on the issue of oppression: I find it highly distressing when terms like ‘oppression’ get applied to the perhaps over-zealous-at-times promotion of some of these alternative beliefs.

    Let me back up a step and offer this explanation: Being mean to one another is an up-close-and-personal issue. Anyone can be mean to anyone else, regardless of race, economic status, gender, sexuality, diagnostic status, etc. etc. etc. Prejudice – at least at it’s most basic definition – is similar. We may all ‘judge the book by its cover’ in ways that are unfair.

    However, racism, heterosexism, classism, and the type of oppression that people who have been labeled by psychiatry experience is a SYSTEMIC POWER STRUCTURE. It can not simply be reversed with a few unkind words or a little misplaced anger.

    I can judge the hell out of the psychiatrist. I can kick him in the shins. But which one of us holds the power to lock which one of us up? Which one of us can put things in a file that will follow us around potentially for life? Which one of us can impact custody of our children? Force medications on us? Which one?

    The power dynamics are less clear when you’re talking about two people who have been diagnosed – where one buys into the medical model and the other does not. And yet, the truth is the one that does not still isnt’ any great holder of power. By judging the one who DOES buy into it, they haven’t shifted whose hand is on the controls.

    The notion that people who are forceful in their negative beliefs about psychiatry and the medical model are someone replicating the oppression of the system is one that I regard as about equally absurd as the people of christian faith who claim there’s a war on Christmas just because people are pushing for a little more equality in recognition of other holidays. In a country where the Christian God is recognized on our money, in our courts, in our pledge of allegiance, and in our employment laws it’s just utterly bizarre to claim that people who believe in Christmas are being oppressed with ‘Happy Holidays’ over ‘Merry Christmas.’

    Similarly, whether you agree with it or not, whether it is the most balanced view or not, we’re a LONG way off people who are horrified by the abuses of psychiatry and the damage that psychiatric drugs have caused having ANYWHERE near enough power to oppress anyone.

    Thanks 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for chiming in, Nijinsky. 🙂 I often find it maddening how easy people find it to accuse others of discrimanatory practices when they are largely only attempting to speak up against the din of the predominant belief system. I haven’t read closely enough through the comments here yet to fully understand how much of that is happening here, but it is a phenomenon with which I feel very familiar.

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  • Hey Anonymous, I have to admit that I’m completely overwhelmed by the number of comments and so am jumping around and trying to respond to the ones that seem to be asking concrete questions, since I still don’t really have time to read through from beginning to end.

    In terms of what you’re asking… I think someone already mentioned the Paranoia Network, so I guess part of the answer is ‘Yes,’ some people will break off and form other more narrowly focused groups. 🙂

    In terms of the pluses or minuses of the name, well, honestly, it’s not something I’ve spent a ton of time worrying about. Yes, there are people who debate about its narrow focus and it’s not being enough to just say that others are welcome. I think some have moved to change it.

    Personally, I’m not sure it’s worth getting stuck there. The name appeals to me in a few ways that don’t fit with what you’re saying. For example, you suggest that it fits into the knife-wielding stereotypes. I’d suggest that it was chosen specifically because it is one of the experiences that is most looked down upon or that brings up the most fear for people, and to call it ‘hearing voices’ rather than the ‘Schizophrenia network,’ etc. challenges the stereotypes all on its own.

    When we speak broadly in ‘survivor’ terms, etc., it happens all too often that people hear that as ‘Oh, you know, some people that have had a pretty hard time, but not of course, the people who are REALLY sick… like, you know, the one’s that hear VOICES and stuff like that!” Obviously, I’m paraphrasing and drawing upon zillions of conversations I’ve heard or read. It’s routine that – when we hold events – someone approaches and asks something like, “Yes, but what about the really sick ones.” That happened just this past week when we had Daniel Mackler up to do screenings of his latest film (Coming Off Psych Drugs).

    So, what I see the movement trying to do is say, “We’re not going to be vague about this. We’re not going to use some umbrella term. We’re not going to keep this secret any more because people find it scary. We’re going to put it right out there, own it, and change how the world understands what hearing voices looks like.”

    I think many (myself included) would agree with what you’re saying about hearing voices being on the same spectrum as some of our internal dialogues, etc. I’d say that many people who speak or train out of the hearing voices movement are careful to make that point. It’s been brought up in every training that the Western Mass RLC has offered. And yet, I still come back to the same point: People have felt a tremendous amount of shame and/or fear of other people’s fear of their experiences and part of the whole point of naming it hearing voices and *then* talking about the spectrum idea is to help people hopefully find some way to relate to it all and stop making it such an ‘other’ing experience.

    I think it’s absolutely and totally fine for you not to like it, though, and fine as well for you not to seek out such a group. It’s absolutely not for everyone, but it’s tremendously powerful for others. In the end, it’s about making space for people to own their own experiences, define their own stories, and speak without fear about something that perhaps previously got them shipped off so that they can have room to explore meaning and how it all is or isn’t working for their life.

    Hope that helps somehow.

    -S

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  • Timothy,

    I guess I just find it a little frustrating when a blog gets overtaken by a topic that isn’t particularly related to that blog, is all. I’ve seen it happen on other blogs, and I feel like it’s happened at least a bit here. I can appreciate the need to talk through some of these issues, but it would be great if it could be in a forum that’s more fitting somehow.

    As to charging for trainings making us into a service provider… I guess I really disagree. First of all, the Western Mass RLC has existed since 2007, and this is the first time we’ve charged across the board for anything. We recently asked for a $100 contribution for our last HV Facilitator training only for people coming from out of state, and are charging $150 for the Maastricht Interview training because we simply have run out of stretch in our budget. We wouldn’t have been able to do it otherwise. However, everything else – from acupuncture and yoga, to access to our centers, to all of our events and trainings has always been free. It’s been a value of ours to really have things been free and accessible, even if there is a substantial expense to us to make it happen. Regardless of the cost part, however, I’m just not sure I understand the link between offering opportunities to explore other ideas and ways of doing things and becoming a ‘service provider.’ What’s the value of drawing the correlation, exactly?

    You say: “Part of what that involves is representation in my view. On that note, you say you don’t identify as a voice hearer, but you are an organizer for a ‘peer’ based ‘hearing voices’ network? I guess this is an area where I take issue also.”

    Yes, all of that is true. I have experienced intrusive images telling me to kill my daughter. I have a long history of self-injury and wanting to kill myself. I struggle with other intrusive images. I have a slew of historical diagnoses and experiences with medications, but I do not identify as a voice hearer and I am always very transparent about that. However, my understanding is that my experiences are also a ‘fit’ for the network *and* the two people with whom I work most closely in facilitating the Hearing Voices trainings that we offer through the Western Mass RLC identify very clearly as voice hearers. Does that help clarify?

    You say, “For me, it’s about experiencing psychosis, which is simply not equatable to the ‘ups and downs’ of life for the vast majority of people. To suggest that it is, in my opinion, erases the experience of people who suffer-myself included-and also takes away our legitimate claim to speak and organize based on the ‘authority of experience.’ ”

    When I talk about groups of people at large, I try to use language that is open for others to apply their experiences to, but it’s impossible to do that in a way that works for everyone at all times and so ultimately I am speaking from my own experience. I definitely hear that the way I phrased that didn’t work for you. For me, it does work, though, including all of my own most intense experiences. I am not intending to erase anything you have or tell you you can’t frame it however works for you.

    You then move into talking about the broader hearing voices movement. That is not what I’m talking about in my blog. Again, I am talking about the Western Mass RLC and what we are doign here. And we are pretty transparent about who is who, who we are, what our goals are, what we offer, etc. If there’s something you don’t see on our website, you can just ask! *ALL* of us identify as having pretty deep experience with diagnoses, hospitals, deep emotional pain with many causes, etc. Some of us use meds. Some of us don’t. All of us are pretty critical of any system that doesn’t seem open to questioning.

    As to the broader hearing voices movement, or hearing voices USA in particular, I’d suggest that you go to http://www.hearingvoicesusa.org. There is a survey posted on their front page that asks about how to expand and better represent the country and lists everyone involved. That may answer some of your questions and give you a place to give feedback.

    Thanks,

    -Sera

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  • Nev, I don’t have time to respond thoughtfully to everyone right now and will have to go back and do that when I do have time.

    However, I do want to say that my blog is about people finding a way to take action and not just talk. It is also about sharing some examples of how we have done that through the Western Mass RLC, and NOT what has or hasn’t been done through HVN USA.

    I do not want my blog to be turned in to a platform for criticisms about how HVN USA has not yet been able to adequately represent the whole country and the variety of reasons that may be true.

    These are two different topics.

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • mjk, Yours is the second response in a row to my blog by which I’m feeling a little perplexed. The whole idea I’m getting at is that the hearing voices movement is all about accepting people’s understandings and interpretations for themselves as real and being more concerned with how that actually impacts their lives then what those understandings and interpretations are and who is ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’ Thus, anything from a medical interpretation to a trauma interpretation to a paranormal interpretation and beyond is ultimately seen as equal.

    -Sera

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  • Hi Tim, I guess my initial response to your comment is that I feel like you might be using this opportunity to make points that have less to do with what I actually wrote and more to do with some larger issues of polarization that you have been observing.

    You said, “So would I qualify as a ‘professional’ who needs this training you talk about so I can better understand how to work with people who have ‘anomalous experiences’ ? Or do I qualify as someone who-on the basis of lived experience- has special insight into these things, or needs to be supported to ‘integrate’ my worlds etc?”

    I’m not sure how to respond to this statement full of ‘needs.’ I don’t think I ever said anyone ‘needs’ it. It’s simply an example of one of *many* actions we can take that is beyond just talking to try and bring about the change we want to see in the world. It sounds like you exist in both worlds (professional and someone who has been diagnosed, etc.) as do many… as have I, at times. What you’d make of the Maastricht Interview training I do not know, but I do hope it will be a part of the change and I wanted people to know about it. Sharing that it was happening was, in fact, one of the driving forces that motivated the post and it remains so.

    Troll or not, I posted the comment exchange from HP that I did both because it’s the only comment I made on HP in relation to this topic and because it *does* represent a very common and accepted point-of-view, even if many who express it would do a better job of omitting the name calling.

    You said, “What about ‘recovery?’ I personally think it is problematic to emphasize ‘full recovery’..” I again feel a little uncertain how to respond, because I’m not sure I said anything about ‘full recovery’ here. In fact, I rarely use the word ‘recovery’ at all. I live life. It has its ups and downs. It has more downs compared to some, and less compared to others. For many who hear voices (I do not), I am fully aware that their life still includes periods of distressing voices but they – as you say – have learned how to manage it better and – as I say – may also have learned how to integrate some of those experiences (and living with them) into one world/one life rather than these pieces of themselves. Others may explain it all very differently. Some say they’ve left that part of their life entirely behind. Others will say it remains front and center for them. And yet, again, I am only talking about *one* tool that will impact *some* people in various roles to live life differently and raise their voices differently than they would have without it.

    You say, “So it confuses me when the perspective of a great many folks who have these experiences are discredited–almost as if they are brainwashed–because they take medication, identify with a diagnosis etc. I realize that powerful ideological forces can both constrain and produce experience and identity-for all us, no one is immune.” Again, I feel like what you’re saying relates less to my post and more to your broader observations. That said, I’ll respond briefly. I don’t personally discredit people who identify with a diagnosis or use medication. HOWEVER, so often, people who identify in that way (or believe in that approach, be it for themselves or others) hear the offering of alternatives as a full rejection of the medical model. What I personally reject wholeheartedly is the FORCING of the medical model on everything and everyone. And I have to admit that I do hear someone’s profession of their own benefits from medication and diagnosis, but NOT because I don’t believe it couldn’t possibly be true. Rather, it’s because it’s nearly impossible to tell if they believe that because it’s true or they believe that because they were told it was absolutely the only way. I still won’t argue someone, even if I wonder abut that for them, but I do see myself and our movement as having a responsibility to shift the system so that it does not force any one approach (including trauma and any other alternative perspective) and to make sure people really have access to make an informed choice.

    You ask, “Would you characterize me-based on all I’ve written here– as ‘stuck in the box of old perspectives?’” I’m honestly not sure what your full perspective is, so I couldn’t say. Personally, the new perspective I’m hoping to shift to is one where there isn’t ANY ‘one right model’ that’s shove down anyone’s throat.

    You say, “A good place to begin-in my opinion-is realizing that the ‘professional’/ ‘survivor’ (or whatever we want to call it) dichotomy is false. You and I both illustrate this.”

    It is… and it isn’t. Yes, human beings are much more complex than all that. Yes, there are people who fit in many categories. HOWEVER, people who have been diagnosed and received services in the psychiatric system are absolutely a part of a civil rights movement and are a part of a group that has been oppressed. Individuals can be exceptions, but the broader structure suggests that the people who make the rules, hold the power and hold the keys to the institutions are those who do the diagnosing and not the other way around (or at least who are willing to pass as those who do the diagnosing and not the other way around). So, yes, you’re right, it’s far more complicated than that… and yet, in terms of broad social structures, it is not. This is true of other civil rights movements, too, including those based in race, gender, sexuality and so on.

    Ultimately, the underlying messages of this particular blog post was that we need to do more than talk. More of us need to take action. More of us need to be working toward bringing our vision to life – whatever that vision may be. I don’t believe that I presented my particular actions as the only way, and if I somehow did give that impression, it certainly wasn’t my intention. Though I do stand by the alternatives I offered up! For more people than not, the hearing voices work is still a very new or unheard of idea and it has helped many.

    For what it’s worth, some of what you argue – such as the idea that promoting the new singular right way isn’t going to be helpful in the long run – is also what I argue in our film, ‘Beyond the Medical Model,’ thus I think much of your criticism is being misapplied, here.

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  • Hey Greg, Thank you for reading and for your post! I also really appreciate your and Deron’s work and it’s good to have found such close and supportive neighbors 😉 I really appreciate many of the points you make, but particularly:

    “I felt I did my job when I offended those that were complacent in the face of a 25 year life disparity,” and “I don’t think organizations should assess their contribution based on whether or not they meet the standard of being ‘better’ than horrible industries and corporations.”

    There’s something to be said for meeting everyone where they’re at, and understanding why people can’t just jump from A to Z… And then there’s the people dying who don’t have time for a slow and leisurely process of figuring it out!

    -S

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  • Thanks, Stephen! 😉 I appreciate your appreciation and particularly send appreciation back to you and others who are going in to work in environments where what I described is present even more intensely than what I must face day-to-day. It’s a hard place to be.

    -Sera

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  • Ted, I appreciate and agree with much of what you say. That said, I take a slightly softer view on it – in spite of my exhaustion – simply because I’ve crossed paths with some really great people working in the system (including the person with whom I refer to speaking at the start of this blog) who are trying to change things, as well. And I’ve seen some change. Just not fast enough and not without way too many casualties. I’m not convinced that real, fundamental change is possible without some major overhaul that is much bigger than that to which we have access.. And yet, I haven’t given up hope that the one-by-one approach will eventually tip the balance, too…

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  • Heya, Thank you for sharing your story. It’s incredible how much can get twisted… and how quickly… Once someone has been stamped with the ‘weird’ or ‘crazy’ stamp! Precisely the same actions can be interpreted on extremes, as you’ve clearly experienced and shared here.

    I’m sorry that that has been a part of your experience, and continues to be the experience of so many.

    I think I’ve shared this before somewhere… but it reminds me a bit of a time when I was watching a psychiatrist testify at someone’s commitment hearing… He had all these incredibly delayed responses and was speaking in this really flat monotone… But no one seemed to notice. Because he was the psychiatrist. If the woman who they were trying to commit had been speaking in that way, it certainly wouldn’t have been dismissed…

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  • Hi Matt, I haven’t had a chance to read through everyone else’s comments, so am not sure if mine are repetitive, but here’s my initial thought for what it’s worth:

    Although I appreciate much of what you’re saying here, I disagree with some fundamental piece of it. In my experience, anger, fight, and time spent on advocacy, telling one’s story, etc… Can all be very powerful and positive. For many, I have seen that sort of fight be just the energy that people need to move, and grab ahold of something very different than where they’ve been stuck for so many years.

    Yes, I’ve also seen people be consumed by it. It’s a delicate balance, as with so many things…

    But anger is important, and valid, and worthwhile in many ways… I’d hate to see that be minimized.

    -Sera

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  • Hey there, I imagine it’s highly variable! I know plenty of people working in peer roles or connected to peer-to-peer communities who are not on medications (including myself). I know others who are, and among both groups there are widely varying feelings about experiences with medications, their value, and how best to talk about them in general.

    Personally, I’ve become partial to the ‘psychoactive’ perspective. In other words, psychiatric drugs – not unlike coffee, nicotine, and many other substances – have effects on our bodies and minds. Some of those effects are desired and some of those effects are not desired. Sometimes we understand why those effects happen, and sometimes we do not. Sometimes the good outweighs the bad, and sometimes its the reverse. Just because we like the effects for a week, doesn’t mean we like the effects for ten years, but then again… maybe we do.

    The point is, if we take it for what it is, become well informed about all the choices, evaluate the risks and effects based on their meaning for our lives on an individual basis… Then we can each decide, and should not be judged for that decision.

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  • Thanks, Steve! 🙂 I’d like to believe it’s a good sign… However, I fear that too much of this is happening on an unconscious level just yet. Too many people haven’t taken the time to understand what peer-to-peer support *is* to intentionally thwart it… They’re just continuing on with business as usual and dismissing or devaluing anything that just doesn’t make sense within that context… Or so goes my experience. If they truly had taken the time to GET IT and THEN dismiss it, well, I think we’d have more to work with…

    -S

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  • Hey Nijinsky,

    You’re absolutely correct that oppression, discrimination, etc. lead to emotional distress… Of all ideas about which people working in the system tend to get most edgy, the idea that THEY are the cause of much the problem – regardless of any good intentions – seems to be really hard for people to swallow.

    There’s a line in our film, Beyond the Medical Model, that I really love where Ruta Mazelis talks about creating space for people in provider roles and people who have been diagnosed needing to create space to come together and grieve and heal….I wonder if/when we’ll get there. 🙂

    As to baseline (what we pretty much expect out of you day-to-day, no cause for major concern or sending you off to the hospital!) and decompensating (falling below ‘baseline,’ cause for concern, alert, alert, alert!)… These are at the top of the list of terms that need to be dumped by all.

    I was once facilitating a training on language and no one in the room (in spite of the fact that most of them worked in traditional settings)knew what the word ‘decompensating’ meant. I thought for a moment, “Maybe there’s been progress…” Until I offered a definition and someone said, “Oh, you mean decomp’ing!!” And the rest of the class responded with an, “ohhhhhhh! Yeah, I know that word!” Sigh.

    -Sera

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  • Hi Stephen,

    So, for what it’s worth, the ‘in but not of’ concept is actually one that I’ve taken from our state’s Certified Peer Specialist training and may even have been first born in Georgia (as Massachusetts took a lot of it’s material from Georgia, initially). That said, I think a lot of people use the phrase and yet haven’t really explored what it means (including people who’ve been through the CPS trainings in various states where it is used, and including those who fund the trainings, and even some who teach them… oy!). I’d say there’s an epidemic of simply not understanding what on earth ‘in but not of,’ mutuality, and the integrity of peer-to-peer relationships even means… If we could tackle that issue successfully, it would go a long way, I think.

    I’m with you on the Medicaid billing business… Most of the states that are adopting these Certification processes are doing so with billing in mind, and I think it is absolutely inevitable that the roles lose their mutuality and integrity once that happens. The presentations I’ve seen that come out of states where they’ve been successful at medicaid billing (e.g., Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, etc.) for these roles has always serve to support that belief.

    -Sera

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  • Hi David,

    I think it’s rare that this is happening successfully, but as I mentioned to Stephen, I’m aware that it happens in some places. Honestly, I think a much more sensible model – if we are to continue with this whole idea – is to have people in peer roles who are employed by an independent organization (such as a Recovery Learning Community or what have you.. provided they really truly ‘get it’) who is responsible for their training, supervision, hiring, etc. who then is able to send those people into the traditional environments…

    That allows for a number of things… First of all, it allows for there to be a much clearer reason for those people not to be put through all the awful traditional trainings without much of a fight. It supports hiring someone who’s really on the right track, rather than what happens in so many environments (where people seem to often either hire someone who won’t rock the boat or someone who that organization provided services to and hired for that person’s own ‘rehabilitation’ and who isn’t really ready or had the opportunity to figure out if they want to do that kind of work)… It supports the person getting the right sort of training.. It supports the person in being able to feel a part of a team and not along withOUT that team needing to be made up of traditional providers… It provides for people who are in automatic ‘back up’ roles when the provider organization wants the person in ap eer role to do something that doesn’t fit with the value… etc. There are downsides, too, but I think it’s a much more viable structure to maintain the ‘in but not of’ aspect.

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  • Hey Stephen, Thanks for reading and posting. The picture you paint is pretty dismal, but unfortunately I think it’s accurate more often than not. I will say that I’m aware of a few very isolated areas where it seems to be better. There’s one traditional organization in Massachusetts – for instance – that has really been able to hold their ground in not having people in peer roles participate in conversations about people without them present, does not touch medications, does not touch notes, does not read files, etc. They also offer hearing voices groups and we often collaborate with them to bring events like the recent ‘Withdrawing from Medication’ workshop that we offered to people in that part of the state. They give me some hope, though they certainly aren’t perfect either. 🙂

    It sounds really exhausting to work in the environment you’re working in, and it’s impressive that you’re holding out and have such clarity in your own vision of what should be!

    -Sera

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  • Hi there, Thanks for posting and sharing a piece of your story. As much as I think the state of ‘peer’ roles is not in a good place, there are some who are doing it well *and* addressing the medication issue. I know, for example, that the community I am a part of (the Western Mass Recovery Learning Community) addresses medication concerns in many ways. We offer groups – like Hearing Voices groups – where people are able to openly talk about and explore whatever topics they like, including not using medications. We have many books on the topic. Our website offers some resource links on the topic (something we’re growing). People are welcome to talk about it and seek support on it at our Peer Respite or in any other setting or connection that may occur in our community. And we periodically have community events that address the issue. (These events are intended to impact not just people who may be taking medication, but providers as well.) For example, we had Will Hall come in and do a workshop on the topic at one point, and we just had David Cohen come in and do a couple of Withdrawing from Medication workshops in June – one of which was co-sponsored by a traditional organization that has been working hard (and having quite a bit of success) in also creating peer roles that are consistent with peer-to-peer values. And we are not alone. There are other pockets of ‘good’ in the US and beyond. 🙂

    So, all that is to say that it’s not 100% hopeless or bad, but there’s much reason to be concerned and I hear awful stories about what people in peer roles are doing or being asked to do on a pretty regular basis.

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  • Thanks, Francesca. Reading your comment and others I’ve received here and on Facebook reaffirms for me how widespread this issue has gotten. Though, there are people and communities out there creating real peer-to-peer environments and relationships, and I’m sorry you haven’t had access. 🙁

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  • Thanks for reading and commenting, Ry. The confusion about where these thoughts and feelings come from and what they actually mean mirrors, I think, so many of the seemingly not understandable, feelings, visions, voices, etc. that so many of us hear. Hopefully, we’re getting to a point where it really will be easier to talk about that.

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  • Thanks so much for reading and commenting, Richard. Indeed, I think you are right about needing to really get comfortable with uncomfortable in order for real change to happen. I can only imagine what many doctors or therapists would have done had I shown up in their office and said that I’m essentially experiencing visions that are telling me to hurt my baby. There’s a part of me that would like to play out that experiment from a journalistic sort of perspective, but not while I actually have young children in the house, that’s for sure! I hope that some of what we’re doing here at Mad in America is not just the inevitable ‘preaching to the choir’ (which does serve a purpose, as I think the choir grows stronger as a result) but reaching others who are just exploring the edges of their discomfort. Even if they’re quiet for now. I hope that some of them are reading!

    Thanks 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Wyatt. 🙂 It was hard to write, yes, but once I get past a certain point of deciding to do something in my head the rest simply needs to happen or it causes more discomfort than not doing it. 😉 I’m glad that some of what I’ve shared felt like it created some space for you to share, as I’m sure your words created more space for many as well! I guess that’s really what our work is about more than anything else, right? Our individual stories, yes, but not just that. Moreso, it’s how our individual stories create connection and community and understanding and learning and then, ultimately (hopefully), healing between us all. Anyway, I’m not so good with effusive compliments (the giving or the receiving), but thank you and I’m really glad to be working and texting and friending with you, as well. 😉

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for reading and responding, Jen. I’ve definitely also had the ‘stick the kid in the closet,’ or fantasize about them having off buttons, as well. I think what was so disturbing about this particular experience for me is that I was literally seeing the images of me doing these things and it felt like the images were telling me that’s what I should do. But I think even that isn’t as unusual as it felt in the moment… Just unusual to talk about it, I think. 🙂 Yes, isolation, fear and judgment drive so much in our lives as parents and as human beings – particularly those of us who have been traumatized by the responses to our sharing in the past. I’m with you on creating more space for the sharing, and appreciate your work to that end! 🙂

    Thanks,

    -Sera

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  • Jill,

    Having now read through some of the comments in response to your blog, and your response to some of those comments, I feel compelled to highlight the most offensive statements you have offered therein:

    “For example, Susan A. Clancy, in The Trauma Myth, discusses the fact that sexual abuse of children rarely involves negative emotion in the child at the time of the event, because at the time the child had no understanding of what was occurring. Therefore, the rationale of extinguishing fear does not fit the situation.”

    “In Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankel, Frankel recalls while being in a concentration camp, that he realized it was up to him how he felt each day. No body can make this decision for anyone else. I think that’s real power.”

    “If a client feels hurt by a verbal insult, isn’t the problem that the client chooses to believe the name caller. How can one be hurt by another person’s words (short of a physical assault). I also remember Michele Weiner-Davis, talking about a client she had who was raped. The client did not wish to talk about it because she was not going to give the rapist one more moment of her attention. Seems to me a pretty healthy response. Moreover, I recall a fellow student in graduate school, who was raped by an intruder the day before her dissertation orals. We both talked about how what mattered was the dissertation orals. What your committee thinks about you should be of greater importance than what some twisted individual does or thinks about you. Bottom Line: If one isn’t dead, then move on to what you want to accomplish in your life.”

    Initially, I was just going to quote the most offensive sentence from that last paragraph, but honestly, it was too hard to choose which qualified for the honor of ‘most.’ I do hope you’ll return sometime soon and offer some sort of explanation for what otherwise comes across as misinformed and/or heartless and/or just downright disturbing.

    At least in these moments, you sound like you’re conjuring all the worst elements of the ‘pull yourself up by your own bootstraps’/just get over it/blame the victim attitudes that circle our culture and that I certainly would not be expecting to find in a room where therapy is occurring.

    And, as a very young child, I knew what was happening to me was wrong and made me very uncomfortable in my body and in the world.

    -Sera

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  • Jill, I have read your post but, I must admit, not all the responses to it (not most of other people’s nor yours in response to them). I will try and go back to read more tomorrow when I’ve got a little more energy, but feel compelled to respond to your initial offering now.

    Honestly, I’m quite distressed by it. Yes, therapy can be harmful. Therapy can be harmful, because the therapist is often a trusted person in someone’s life. And, even if they’re not trusted, the hold an awful lot of power. The therapist can be a part of labeling and telling someone what is wrong with them. The therapist can be complicit with a system that re-enforces a broken identity. The therapist can initiate the pressing of the panic button that sends someone off to forced treatment settings.

    And the therapist can continue to send the message that person does not know themselves, cannot trust themselves, and cannot be their own expert. You speak all in academic terms. Which clinical and ‘evidence-based’ approaches work. Which have been disproven. I’m not interested in any of it.

    I have talked with the woman who was told for YEARS that she should not be given space to speak about her trauma history based on therapeutic theory. I have been trained to use ‘distracting skills’ to combat distressing thoughts and feelings. I have been read to and labeled out of books.

    There IS value is sharing your pain. If someone’s really listening, it might be the first time you feel truly seen. There IS value is being ASKED how you want to approach an issue. If someone’s really curious in your response, it might be the first time you feel truly heard. There IS value is having faith in someone’s choices about themselves. If they are genuinely willing to walk with you, it might be the first time you don’t feel so alone.

    When I read what you write, I hear you talking about therapists having all the knowledge and making all the decisions and deciding on all the approaches. You may be saying some of them are getting it wrong, but only to hand the baton over to those you feel get it right.

    I can’t tell you how much harm I have seen done by ANY approach that holds the helper hostage in the role of ‘knowing.’

    -S

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  • Thanks for listening, Stephen! Your experiences sounds so consistent with what I’m hearing and seeing all the time, though the most frightening part is that not all people working in peer roles even realize it because their drive seems to replicate the system or they’ve not really ever been given proper exposure to what it’s supposed to be about.

    I agree on the titles, as well. We’re actually just gearing up to drop ‘peer’ from our titles entirely at the Western Mass RLC and just go with ‘advocate’-oriented titles. 🙂 The peer-to-peer part will still be represented in the job description of much of what we do and in our values, but the titles don’t seem to be leading anywhere good at all.

    -Sera

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  • Thank you, Jeremy, for reading and sharing a part of your family’s story. How awful to have to go through so much blaming and judgment when you should be getting support to go through such a difficult and already worrying time with your baby. Funny how much liability fears drive things… And how much the difference between ‘good patient’ and ‘bad patient’ can also come down to how difficult you are and and clear you are about what you want and need!

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for reading and commenting, CatNight.. And for sharing a piece of your story, as well. 🙂 It is indeed invisible… I recall some in my life saying that it wasn’t really like losing a baby, because it was just a grouping of cells. While I ‘get’ the perspective, it was not at all true to my experience and really felt like it dismissed the realness of what I was going through. There just doesn’t seem to be much space to recognize it as a real loss, let alone recognize how deeply it might impact people.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for reading and sharing 🙂 I’ve heard from a number of people since posting this who have shared similar experience with themselves or people they were close to, and it’s good to hear! Not good in terms of the amount of suffering and aloneness that’s out there, of course, but good to know we’re not alone and as ‘crazy’ as we think or are told we are sometimes. 🙂 And good that people are talking about it.

    It must be so exciting to see your daughter blossoming as a young adult. Right now, I’m in a phase where I’m scared of the 18 mark not because I think we won’t get there safely, but because I’m afraid of how much I’ll miss the giggly, cuddly little girl that I am enjoying right now. But I know it will be great all the same to see the young woman she grows into. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Jacqui. 🙂 And I have to remind myself that if I – who am part of such an open and understanding community that regularly talks about many taboo subjects – still felt this way… How must it be for so many others who don’t have that access?

    Thanks as always for your own bravery for all that you do and speak about. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Hi Chris, Thank you for reading and sharing your own experiences. ‘Irritating’ is a mild way to put it. 😉 It’s an important point: Having a baby *IS* life changing and it makes SENSE that such a big change in life isn’t always easy or smooth.

    I remember getting some sort of ‘check in’ call from a hospital nurse in the first week or so of my son’s life. My pregnancy with my son was wonderful and his early infancy was pretty great, too, but this happened to fall on the one morning after my son hadn’t slept a bit all night and I couldn’t get him to latch on to eat and we were both crying. She started on about Postpartum Depression almost immediately, and all I wanted was my baby to stop crying and be able to eat and me to be able to get some sleep! It’s maddening how quick that jump is rather than just some basic support and understanding.

    It would make such a difference in so many of these situations for people to acknowledge that our emotions and reactions and struggles simply make sense, rather than feeling responsible for taking control and ‘fixing us.’

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for reading and commenting, Dragonfly. And thank you for sharing a piece of your own experience in this realm! It’s such an important point – that it all begins with birth and how we support people as they enter this world and support the parents who are birthing them in.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, John. Yes, there are SO many seemingly easy and obvious questions that just get completely lost when people are perceived to have become a potential ‘risk to self or others.’ And I hear you on how long it can take to move past some of these sorts of hurts… I lost a job myself not quite for the reasons you described but related to my ‘coming out’ as having a history of psychiatric diagnosis, etc. It was an incredibly painful experience.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks, Cataract! It’s amazing how many stories there are about the pain so many of us have experienced as a result of the actions (or inactions) of the professionals (in all arenas) who are ‘just doing their jobs,’ but seemingly forgetting the human part.

    -Sera

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  • Nijinsky, So true! I’ve been TRYING to make my way through that awful Congressional hearing with all the politicians reading statements likely written by someone else about things they don’t understand… and there’s just… too much to even know where to begin!

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  • Thanks, Darby. 🙂 I’ve been knowing I’d share this at some point.. It probably would have been wiser for me to wait until my daughter’s a tad older as there’s a piece of me that still worries child protective services is going to show up on my doorstep for having revealed some of this! But I’m glad to have shared it and appreciate your reading! 🙂

    And no worries on the name spelling! Now that more and more people are talking to their iphones and such (and Apple products ALWAYS spell my name Sarah!), I’m getting use to it 😉

    -Sera

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  • Ted,

    There’s a part of me that agrees with both of your major points. However, there’s a large part of me that does not.

    There are absolutely times for working solely from the ‘outside’ and I think it’s important to have people doing that. However, if we were ALL working solely from the ‘outside,’ what of all the people on the inside that we’d be leaving behind? Although I’m not fond of the ‘peer bridger’ name (or any ‘peer’ titles at this point), much of this IS about building bridges OUT of the system. There are many EXPRESSways IN, and our ability to work on the paths OUT is diminished if we don’t make space for ourselves to be in all sorts of different settings. I don’t particularly agree with the idea of ‘peer roles’ existing in traditional settings where the direct employer is that traditional provider, but for reasons described above, I *DO* agree with going into these settings under an independent organization/group which is what we are trying to do in the situation above.

    And when I talk about ‘bridging’ or creating pathways out, I guess I am talking about creating pathways NOT Just for people who have been hospitalized, etc. In some ways, I’m also talking about the PROVIDERS. I guess I disagree with you as well that many of the people working in the system don’t really mean well. There’s lots of layers there… Yes – and without even necessarily talking about this particular situation – I think they sometimes have an awareness of their abuses of power, feeling better than, judging, etc. But I also think that everyone at every level has been trained and pushed by the system whether they’re working in or hospitalized in/etc. that place. There ARE those who enjoy that power, status, money (found only in the higher ranks, etc.), but there are many who also feel stuck, trapped, pushed, uncertain, wanting to ‘help,’ etc. who we could in fact impact and work with to make things different.

    If ALL people working in the system didn’t really at least mean well, then what of so many people writing on this website who are still working in the system? What of me? I gravitated toward working in the system because of my own experiences, spent some substantial time there, yes was indeed pushed to do some things that I feel were abuses of my power and that I now deeply regret, got out of the system and now work in a very different way. During my time working ‘in the system,’ I also was in a place to hire many people who were wonderful and absolutely meant well and were grappling as I was with what to do and unlearning so much of what we’d been fed by our whole culture. As I continue to walk through this struggle, I’ve met many more people who are grappling, wondering if they should be staying in the system, worrying about who they’d be leaving behind if they did go, trying to figure out what role they can play in change…

    Now, is that equal to the people who are hospitalized, forced, coerced, medicated to the gills, etc? Absolutely not. The power differential is tremendous between even the most entry-level mental health worker living in poverty and without many other job options and the person forced into the hospital. However, painting the provider group as one-dimensional, intentional villains… Well, it brings forth a cartoon caricature for me that simply doesn’t reflect the complexity of the truth of it all.

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  • Hi Michael, Thank you for writing this. I personally have been through losing my job in the traditional system as a result of not just challenging the status quo with my words and actions, but by admitting who I am and telling my own story. I actually just told some of that story in a Madness Radio interview (http://madnessradio.net/madness-radio-politics-language-sera-davidow, if you’re interested!). It can be so painful both personally and because of what it says about where the system continues to be.

    In my life, it was a very painful time that left scars I’m not sure have ever fully healed. And yet, it also opened doors to paths that were ultimately so much more fulfilling in the long run. I hope the same for you, should things actually head in the direction you describe!

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for reading, Nijinsky. I’m struck by how your response seems to hold both pieces… letting go of societal expectations, but still using the language of ‘overweight’ and feeling lucky that you are not that… Letting yourself eat what you want to, but restricting your freedom to indulge in sweets…

    It’s not that I can’t see the validity in some of it… But it does make me wonder and want to ask, ‘over whose weight?’ and what do you mean by ‘lucky’? Lucky because you do a relatively good job of naturally fitting societal norms and avoiding that particular pain, or lucky because you believe in that societal norm?

    A large part of the point of my piece was to speak to how those societal norms essentially set us up to hate ourselves and how that leaves us so much more vulnerable to all the rest of the bumps of life and further messages that there is something inherently wrong with us… And about how refusing to disparage our (own or each other’s) bodies in public is a political issue in need of much greater awareness and support…

    I am afraid that some of that feels like it has gotten lost in some of the comments from posters above, but I hope it’s still ‘seen.’

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  • Thanks for reading and sharing a part of your own story as a woman and most importantly, a woman with daughters! I know it’s impossible to totally shelter my own daughter from such ideas (as your story re-enforces), but being intentional about not only trying to limit some of it AND give her tools to talk back to it still seems so important. A long road, indeed! 🙂

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  • Thanks, Dorothy. 🙂 The message comes from so many places, it’s hard to imagine sheltering someone from it completely… And the voices of one’s ‘peers’ certainly tend to be louder than one’s parents at many points in life. I’m hanging on to the fantasy that enough strong women actually talking openly with young people about how to combat or respond to these ideas can have an impact… and at the very least, I think we need to do our best! 🙂 Anyway, thanks for reading and relating. 🙂

    -Sera

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  • Donna,

    I always wonder about the term ‘overweight.’ Over whose weight? The ridiculously skewed doctor’s chart? Media’s measures? Anyway, I don’t mean this as an attack on what you said… It’s just a word that people use so easily without really thinking about what it means a lot of the time, I think… I do think people can be over or under a weight that is ultimately healthy and comfortable for them… But I’m not convinced that there is a valid universally applicable meaning.

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  • Sure… I’m talking more about the daily, unconscious, habitual comments many women make in the lunchroom, at the restaurant, at home, at the hairdresser’s and everywhere else in front of whoever with no particular point, though… Which it’s hard for me to see as anything but damaging to the speaker and the ones who hear them!

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  • Stephen, I sit here responding to you as my 10-year-old son sits on the couch to my right poking at his stomach and wondering if he’s ‘growing abs yet.’ So, yes, indeed… the body obsession and never being quite right touches us all… Though I also agree with Joanna below that it continues to be more vicious and deadly for women.

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  • Thanks for reading and commenting, Cataract. There are more ways to fail than one can count, really! Imagine if we could all just spend a few days walking around in skin and minds we felt totally comfortable in! Wonder what we could all get done. 🙂

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  • Thanks for reading and commenting, Joanna. It’s all several books worth, really. I could write a whole book on the reactions of complete perplexedness I get from most women when I suggest that talking about their own body hatred, weight loss and diets is hurting people around them…

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  • So interesting, all of this marketing! Don’t forget all the tanning salons and self-tanning creams to help you get darker again once you’ve gotten too light!

    Great that you have found that sort of peace 🙂 I wish it on more women (and all people)!

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  • Thanks, Chaya. You’re right that so much of industry really is driven by the various ways we perceive ourselves to not be okay.’ I wish you the best in holding steady through your mother’s impending critique! 😉 I wish awareness was all it took to protect my children… Unfortunately, I already see how our culture’s ideas about bodies has begun to effect my 10-year-old son, and I know it will only be that much harder for my daughter. I’m going to keep trying to balance it all out for them, though, as best I can!

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for reading and posting, Marian! 🙂 I appreciate much of what you wrote, and particularly the last paragraph. It reminds of something Faith wrote in one of her earlier blogs:

    “This means I have recovered from the idea that the way I experience the world is an illness.”

    Thanks for reminding me of that, as well. It’s a line I really appreciate.

    -Sera

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  • Yes, there are many good people in the provider system who are also trying to change things or – at least – would want to if they were fully informed. Many people on the giving and receiving end of ‘services’ are equally as misled, misinformed, trapped, unsupported, disempowered, etc. Much of the real problem is bigger than any one person, though we all need to take responsibility for making it something different and surely some of us are hurt much more deeply as a result. I agree that we’ve gained some ground that we will probably never lose again, and hopefully we can get to a point where we can ALL grieve together the harm done no matter the role we played in it, so we can move forward that much further.

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  • Hahah. Yes, WRAP has become the answer to everything, hasn’t it? I want to respect that many people have found a lot of good in Mary Ellen’s and other people’s work around WRAP… but it drives me up a wall that so many people think throwing a WRAP plan at someone (whether they want it or not) and sticking things like ‘will create their own WRAP plan’ in ‘treatment’ plans is somehow empowering and a sign that they ‘get it.’ Sigh.

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  • Thanks, Steve. I appreciate your comments, and particularly about overmedicated which is a term I use and need to re-think now that you’ve brought it too my attention! What I, of course, mean is medicated into zombieland which is very different than implying that they are simply getting more than the proper dose. Thanks! 🙂

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  • I agree that ‘help me understand what you mean by that’ is a great question to ask… Approaching people with genuine curiosity is critical. But frankly, what I’m writing about is a moment in time when the problem is NOT that we’re all using words so differently and creatively that we need to ask for clarification… But rather, that many of us are using the same word repetitively as it has been packaged and provided to us and that doesn’t strike me as particularly liberating.

    Much of the time, when I have asked one, ‘What does that mean to you,’ it’s not because they’ve used a word in a creative way but because they’ve used it in a canned one.

    Anyway, as I said, not trying to stop you from using it, but it’s not helpful for me and I don’t see it as particularly helpful in the grand scheme of things.

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  • Kevin, I’m not sure I like having my perspective boiled down to the ‘Hegelian, Marxist dialectical anti-recovery backlash.’

    That said, I can appreciate your perspective and won’t try and take the word away from you.

    However, I don’t think it’s as simple as various words getting co-opted, choosing a new word, and then watching that one get co-opted, too. Yes, it’s a popular phenomenon. However, what I see as more important is getting out of the loop of developing these ‘one right words’ to apply to a whole group of people and just speaking human. Period.

    For you, that might still be ‘recovery.’ For me, it is not. But when a word is used across the board, it seems to me it often becomes a part of the framework and that can be limiting. That is largely what I am talking about here… where it seems to me that ‘recovery’ has become the framework within all those who have been psychiatrically diagnosed are expected to live.

    This is similar to the argument I make in False Arguments Part 1 about this weird phenomenon of moving from client to consumer to participant, peer, blah blah blah. It’s all rather missing the point.

    No one is arguing or campaigning against people ‘recovering,’ but I am arguing against people being fed a vision where marching about yelling ‘recovery is real’ is seen as the ultimate goal…

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  • Thanks, Faith. 🙂 Honestly, yesterday afternoon, I offered a presentation at a local hospital called ‘Recovery?’ that was sort of a basics introduction on some of the key concepts to what ‘recovery’ is all about. That said, during the presentation, I also told them about this blog. 🙂

    If we are to see this as a civil rights MOVEMENT… we can’t expect people to move from A to Z without a process and there’s no point in getting mad at people for going through their own process and coming to their own realizations. While I hope the endpoint is not ‘recovery’ but life, I can’t fault others for using the words that are meaningful to them right now or as a tool to connect with others. That said, I think we need to keep pushing, taking the next step and thinking critically at every turn or we really do run the risk of getting stuck in something that is much less than human.

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  • Good to ‘see’ you, Ron. I can appreciate what you’re saying about ‘recovery’ and the different contexts within which it can be used… It’s definitely occurred to me to talk about recovering my sense of self, recovering from trauma, recovering from the system… And I wouldn’t fault those people who do use it in that way.

    However, I’m always looking to the impact my words have on others and the question, what are we actually trying to move toward… And when I think about that and I see what ‘recovery’ has become in the system, it just falls apart for me, given the separatist nature that seems so intertwined with it.

    I also agree that the concept of ‘full recovery’ is still quite threatening to the system, and that to have that part of the process out, the use of the word may still be relevant in some ways…

    But, I’m not sure that it’s wholly possible to convince the system and our broader culture that what we’re REALLY talking about when we say ‘fully recovered’ is someone who is a part of the SAME crowd as THEY are… What I see more often – at least at this stage in the game – is people defining a ‘recovered life’ with a much lower bar than, say, a ‘successful life’ for themselves or those close to them. And I’m not sure we’ll ever FULLY get over that hurdle until we dispense with referring to the two in different ways…

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  • Thanks for reading and posting, Johanna! You raise a lot of really good points about a lot of interesting words, not all of which I’ve personally given up on just yet but all of which are indeed misused in many contexts.

    I, too, have never been able to stick it out in therapy… For me – for better or worse (and probably some of both) – I just can never get past analyzing what approach the therapist is using on me at the moment. I just have never been able to accept those interactions as entirely human interactions, and very often they’ve not been.

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  • Belinda, Thanks for posting! Your story is an important reminder of just how deep this problem can run… And about how embedded these ideas of sickness and disability really are.

    I hope you find more support to head in the direction you want soon.

    Are you anywhere in the vicinity of Australia where the World Voices Hearing Congress will be held in November? So wish I could get out there for that!

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  • Francesca, Excellent point re:the disability benefits. While I do believe that people do need extra support at times during their lives, the chronicity of being on disability ‘forever’ appears – at least some of the time – to be connected to buying into a particular way of thinking about one’s self and their own human potential.

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  • Thanks, David. I’m definitely aware of the challenge… People are forced on a daily basis to at least pretend they accept this particular paradigm to get healthcare coverage, social security benefits, certain types of housing, and – in some instances – to stay out of the grasp of forced treatment. The broader need is to change to a system where people can receive support because they really need it as a result of some major life interruption (due to impact of trauma, or whatever)… But we’re a long way off of that. In the meantime, I guess I’d choose a world where we’re at least more aware we’re playing a game. Perhaps some of our ‘what is mental illness’ psychoeducational groups can become acting lessons. 🙂

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  • Hey Laura, Thank you for your post. This is – as others have already stated – such an important issue and it’s going to take many voices to counter the deeply embedded beliefs so many have about medications and psychiatric labeling. On another note, even though I feel like I’ve gotten to know you fairly well over this past year, it’s always great to read bits of your story and learn a little more. You’re such a strong voice and I see your voice being a part of what is helping to draw out so many other voices! 🙂

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  • Wow. I’m afraid there’s no way I’m going to be able to catch up with all of this any time soon. I’m traveling and not really fully back at home until Thursday, with children, husband and a job that will all likely feel neglected at that point. So, as much as I like to consider it my responsibility to keep up with the posts on a blog I’ve written, I’m just not seeing it as feasible right now. 🙁

    That said, I wanted to at least offer a few points…

    1. I am someone who has relentlessly and inexplicably sometimes punched myself. Honestly, I’d kind of forgotten about it and then it all came back to me in a bit of a rush some months back. It often happened when I was lying in bed with my ex-husband. It came in the form of a tidal wave that was like tiny but relentless emotional ‘bugs’ crawling around underneath my skin and in my head and all I could manage to do was hit myself to try and make it stop. I suppose I wasn’t doing it that terribly hard, but I would go on for a while. My ex-husband would attempt to restrain me at times. I sure am glad he never thought to go calling anyone for help.

    I would tend to agree that physical restraint can be a lesser violation of one’s bodily integrity than chemical restraint. Although physical restraint brings up plenty for me, all that it takes to remove it is hands being lifted. Chemical restraint is not so permanently removed, and involves something going inside me…

    I can also much more easily justify physical restraint (at least in the context of my ex-husband getting scared and attempting to stop me from hitting myself) as a very human response. I can’t justify chemical restraint in that same way.

    But let’s be honest… It’s all pretty ugly, especially when we start talking about physical and chemical restraints in the context of ‘programmatic’ response and policy and not just human response.

    2. I’d just like to remind everyone that what seemed to have gotten this all rolling was my spoken desire to have more conversations (at some point, not the here and now!) about those people who – for whatever reason – are struggling with violence and who aren’t necessarily in a place to hold the values of a place like a ‘peer respite’ but who we don’t necessarily want to see fall into some crack where they get no support at all or are driven back into a system of force because we have nothing else to offer… The topic I was most interested in wasn’t particularly a debate between physical and chemical restraint, but what is missing in what we offer, how we look at things, how we might still avoid force, etc. And yes, questions like when DO we just walk away, etc. may be wrapped up in all that… but just a debate between one type of force and another wasn’t really what I personally had in mind.

    Anyway. All for now. 🙂

    Thanks!

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for posting, Alex. That’s a great quote (‘Before you diagnose yourself…’) Some of this gets to be about semantics. I would agree that there are probably meaningful ways to talk about ‘stigma,’ but more often than not I think it’s a distraction from the much more tangible activities of discrimination and oppression.

    I really appreciated what Faith said in her above remark: ““Anti-stigma” reminds me, ontologically, a lot of “tolerance” in that it implies that something is wrong that must be accepted or put up with. You can’t have an anti-stigma campaign without reinforcing the existence of a stigmatizing mark, just like you can’t have a tolerance campaign without supporting the belief that there is something to be tolerated.”

    I think she makes a really important point, because in my experience most anti-stigma campaigns seem to be arguing that we should accept the ‘mental illness’ that so many of us are questioning the very existence of… I think back to the poem I included in my first ‘False Arguments’ post about the shackles. It’s as if the system has come along and put these shackles on people in the form of diagnosis and then asked others not to judge them for the shackles… That’s my experience of the systemic version of the anti-stigma conversation.

    But I’ve said this all already and I can also appreciate your point. 🙂

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  • Jonah, Okay, fair enough. I’m sorry for projecting any thoughts I may have been having about your being intentionally difficult here. 🙂 I can understand why you would feel the want to push for clarity rather than the psychiatric system’s tendency to speak about violence as if it did happen and was clearly due to the person so labeled, when so often that’s just not true or nothing actually happened at all. (I give one such example in the original text of this blog post, actually.)

    That said, I really don’t want to get into details of some of the few actual situations I’ve been aware of over the years as there are too many people who would be quite familiar with them, but they are actual situations that involved people putting their hands on others in ways that have left marks, etc.

    When I brought this up in a reply to another person’s comment I have to be honest that I hadn’t anticipated having the whole conversation out right here and now. I’ve mostly been fantasizing about in-person gatherings where we talk about really difficult topics like suicide and where we really stand on supporting or not supporting choice in that instance, and violence and what we support doing when it actually does happen or the options we feel are missing that are leading to it happening where it does…

    I’m also open to having some of those conversations on-line, but that does feel trickier to me for a number of reasons… and especially when buried in the middle of an unrelated blog.

    Perhaps there can be a new blog post on this topic where such a conversation would make more sense or perhaps there’s another place altogether?

    -Sera

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  • Jonah,

    You’re twisting my words. I am aware – fairly closely – of a recent incident of violence where people were trying to support someone to withdraw from meds and go through their process and there was violence and they felt stuck with limited options and that person ended up back in a traditional setting for lack of other apparent choices. I don’t see the need to give further detail on it. I am also aware of other people who have struggled to create opportunities outside of the system who have had issues of violence come up and felt stuck. When do they call the police or do they never? When do they self defend and what does that look like? Is it better to have people trained in self defense or just acting in human ways in the moment? When is what happens too much and the person can’t stay? I have my own thoughts on many of these questions, but not a full answer. Again, I don’t see the need to tell specific stories here.

    I believe we are in agreement that violence is relatively rare in consensual, respectful settings.

    I believe we are in agreement that when violence occurs in the system, it is often in settings where people are defending themselves, feeling trapped, etc.

    I believe we are in agreement that fear of violence often drives people to act, and that there is often a huge gap between fear of violence and actual occurrences of it.

    I believe we are in agreement that the relationship between violence and psychiatric diagnosis is a myth, and that examples of violence that are products of many other things are often used as the supposed proof of that link but it is misguided.

    Here’s where we diverge.

    When we create alternatives, sometimes we cross paths with violence. Why? Not because people with psychiatric diagnoses are naturally dangerous, but because people have often been institutionalized, traumatized, and treated chemically in ways that have serious impacts on who they are and how they act. (I can’t claim that these are the only reasons, but they are certainly prominent and obvious ones.)

    At this point, I am seeing and hearing enough about this issue that I think it does need to be acknowledged and discussed. I feel like it’s a little too convenient for us to say ‘no force’ (which, again, I agree with), ask people to leave our communities when they cross a line (which, again, I agree with) and never bother to talk about what we actually think should happen in the gap there.

    You certainly don’t need to be a part of the conversation, if you don’t want to be… But I don’t think it can be entirely ignored. You can continue to question me for specific instances of violence and act as if they don’t occur, and I will continue to agree that they are comparatively rare but relevant. The most obvious gap I feel like I am seeing is the potential need for places that offer space for longer periods of time that are built around the idea of withdrawing from medication or other longer processes. Perhaps those alternatives, properly developed, would serve to make the violence I do hear of even lesser. Who knows. I don’t. And I don’t really experience it getting discussed…

    I’d like it to be… Though not particularly here, in the middle of a totally separate blog. 🙂

    Thanks,

    -Sera

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  • Hey Jonah,

    Just a quick note to say that I’ve got kids today and can’t really read and adequately take in long responses at the moment…

    But did want to say I am not speaking in fear of someone coming to the peer respite that is part of the RLC and being violent… We have a process that is working for us in that regard.

    What I guess I’m really saying is that I think there is need for MORE options…

    It’s great if we can establish that someone isn’t a match for the respite, but when they’re not because of issues around violence, or whatever how do we NOT turn our back on them and offer ANOTHER option.

    What I see happening to those people who are determined not to be a fit either because of a ‘screening process’ or because they go to a place and it doesn’t work out at the present moment is that they get filtered back into the system …

    I’d like us as a community to challenge ourselves further than that and have a greater diversity of options and have some really hard conversations about how we do handle violence when it arises.

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  • Anonymous, The ‘reply’ button isn’t appearing on many comments.. not sure why, but this reply is in response to your comment.

    I agree with everything you said, and certainly your assessment of the current system being a system of institutionalized violence however much people might think they’re dong things for someone’s ‘own good’… And I also agree that what you said here should be talked about and through through: “I am not against an alternative place having physical immobilization as a last resort. People in any environment have the right to defend themselves against someone INITIATING violence.”

    I tend to agree that this in response to an attack is okay as a HUMAN response, but the moment it becomes written down as a part of any policy and becomes a systems response people tend to jump to it out of fear rather than reality and then – as the system does now – provoke more violence as a result.

    I think part of what I’m looking for is the opportunity to have other places that can offer support to people for longer period than peer respites that aren’t typical system places, too… Soteria offers something longer, but generally geared toward people having first experiences. What about places really geared toward people withdrawing from medications, etc?

    What does it all look like? That’s part of what I’m talking about.

    I agree with you that ideally this would all happen in people’s own families and communities, but then there’s the reality that people either don’t have those families or those families are immersed in the same trauma and difficulties that led to the situation at hand in the first place…

    There’s lots of places to look and learn… Soteria, Open Dialogue, peer respites, etc… But still more work to be done on so many levels.

    -S

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  • Jonah,

    No, I am not aware of people becoming violent at respites, but I am aware of people not having access to peer respites because they have been recently violent toward others.

    In general philosophy, I agree with you.. That most people people are violent out of desperation, a sense of being trapped, a sense of being attacked and needing to self defend (and many of these senses are quite accurate to what is actually happening).

    The community that I most regularly operates pretty squarely in (which includes a peer respite) the philosophy that if you treat people respectfully, offer respectful and safe spaces, and have clear expectations for EVERYONE (no matter what emotional state they’re in) holds responsibility for owning and holding the values… then generally people really won’t interact in a violent way.

    In our now six years of existence with four centers, lots of events and connections happening in the community, and most recently, a peer respite we’ve never really had any violent incidents to speak of. This is true even though we’ve had hundreds upon hundreds of people in varying extreme states come into our spaces in varying levels of upset.

    That said, there’s at least one situation I’m aware of where we did not invite someone to come stay at our peer respite because of violent acts in another voluntary and supportive setting. (In that instance, that person was also quite recently withdrawing from heavy duty medications.) I’m also aware of people who living in community settings who have spent so many years being institutionalized that the way they continue to interact with people can very quickly have a violent edge to it. And I’ve certainly had conversations with others who have experienced similar. I’m reluctant to get more specific than that for privacy’s sake.

    The point being that these instances are comparatively rare and often the outcome of treatment in a traditional system, and I could go farther than I have to critique why the things that happened that I am aware of did happen even in the absence of forced settings. (It’s also very clear to me that just because violence occurs with someone who has been diagnosed or experienced extreme state that it does NOT necessarily mean that that violence occurs BECAUSE of that diagnosis or extreme state.) However, we’d be sticking our head in the sand to say that there isn’t something real about these situations, regardless of how relatively rare they might be. And so, I feel like we need to have SOME conversation about what else we might be offering people if we want to continue saying ‘no force’ and also not turn our backs on people that often have been so hurt by the system that they need more time to find some peace.

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  • Hey Jonah, For whatever reason, the system doesn’t seem to be allowing me to respond directly to your comment, but hopefully you’ll see this. Admittedly ‘acting out toward others’ is a weak term, and I could have done better though I struggle with what exactly that is… I, too, have been a victim of people forcing things on me because of their theory that I was a ‘risk to self.’ But I hope you’ll understand that my actual point was that sometimes people really are acting violently toward others .. Now, I tend to believe they’re often doing that because of how traumatized they’ve been (including by what happened to them in the system) and/or because they’re withdrawing from medications, etc BUT the problem is it DOES happen…

    And so what I really struggle with is that some of the environments we’re creating… like peer respites, etc. that work wonderfully for so many people… still might not be the right environment for everyone, and so what is? I don’t feel like we’re talking enough about what happens when someone really is in a violent place and particularly when they’re in that place because of trauma or a process of withdrawing from the ‘treatments’ of the system…

    I just think that sometimes we overlook that conversation and the chasm that sometimes exists between our ‘no force’ decree (with which I very much agree) and the fact that many of our alternatives (peer respites, supportive environments outside of the system, etc.) aren’t equipped to move through a violent place with someone.

    -S

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  • Dear all (who have made it this far down in the comments section of this blog),

    I would like to share that – while Ronald Pies and I have had some very brief and cordial subsequent exchanges via e-mail – he has decided (at least for the time being) to retire from this exchange.

    I do not know if he has read through all the comments here, but I sincerely hope that he has as many of you have share powerful stories and/or asked important questions. Please, of course, feel free to continue to use the space to do so and I will let you know if anything changes in terms of Pies’s willingness or time to participate!

    Thanks,

    Sera

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  • Thank you for sharing some of your story here, SA. A part of your story reminds me of someone who also shared with me recently that the most serious suicide attempt they ever made was directly following being released from a long-term hospitalization where he was being kept ‘safe.’ Traditional perspectives might suggest that they therefore released him too soon and he was still unsafe. However, I (and he) would argue that the ‘safe’ that they identified was only an illusion or a visual construct of concrete walls, but on an emotional level it was their actions that created the true lack of safety and led to the actions that followed.

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  • David, I so agree… and one question that I feel like we’ve really done a poor job of answering is ‘Where should people go when they really are in such a distressed state (due to extreme trauma, withdrawing from medications or for any other reason) that they are acting out toward others?’ Many of the alternatives that now exist (most of which are still funded by and thus technically still a part of the system) operate on values and expectations that do not allow someone in that place to remain in that space and understandably so… And yet, at some point, we need to have better answers when we’re saying ‘No forced hospitalizations, but you can’t stay here.’

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  • Michelle, Thanks so much for reading and more importantly, sharing so much of your story. It was really powerful to read some of the specific examples of what you and your son have experienced, so no worries at all for being a little off topic (and you really weren’t off topic anyway). What you are sharing needs to be heard just as much – if not more – than you may need to say it.

    -Sera

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  • Thanks for posting, AA! I completely agree that phrases like ‘anti-psychiatry’ are thrown around quickly and easily as attempts to discredit.

    Your also reminding me of my fave new vocab word of 2012: Anosognosia. I guess I DO have something to thank the Treatment Advocacy Center for, since they’re the ones who really taught the word to me. Who knew there could ever be such a medicalized word for what often amounts to disagreeing with the doctor’s view and interpretation of one’s self!

    -S

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  • Thanks for reading and commenting, Jen! I feel greedy this week – like I’m taking up too much space with all these Mad in America posts! But I hope people do generally feel like the exchange is worth seeing. I don’t know that this particular dialogue is moving toward anything so much, but I certainly have to keep believing that we are moving forward – however slowly – in the bigger picture.

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  • Birdie, Thanks for reading!

    I personally feel cautious about saying that psychiatrists do everything they do simply for the money, though I know many have said that in various threads and posts here and I do believe it certainly can play a role. I understand why people draw that conclusion, and yet I do try to hold that most people get into this work because they believe they will be doing good, and most people do many of the awful things we have experienced because they believe that’s what they ‘should’ be doing, that it is their responsibility, that they face liability if they do not, etc. I just think it’s so much more complex than the money aspect, which – at least for me – would turn psychiatrists into these black and white, one-dimensional characters that I don’t think they are anymore than the rest of us.

    I do think ego is often a part of it, though. I certainly agree with you there!

    That said, I so appreciate your sharing a part of your story and it resonates with so many I have heard.

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  • Thanks for reading and commenting Nijinsky. I had a little trouble following, but if I understand you correctly in your second paragraph to be saying that so many people treated in the system come to believe in it even if its to their own detriment then I wanted to chime in and say that I’ve seen that so many times, too… That’s not to say that some haven’t legitimately found benefit through psychiatric treatment, etc. as who am I to deny anyone else’s story and experience? But I find it so sad when I see people who have clearly become so shut off from medications, etc. talking about how the system has saved them!

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  • Agreed, Maxima! But I find that it is incredibly challenging to get judges, lawyers and legislators to listen, as well… Largely because they are so busy and have so many other people coming at them with other issues they need to understand… Also, many of them are elected officials who don’t want to be seen as ‘crazy’ themselves. So challenging!

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  • Cannotsay, I’m definitely not one for leaning on false senses of solidarity. Those who know me in person can probably testify to that, as I’ve said more than once in other circles that unity in name and not content/integrity is pointless.

    I don’t discount your message, though I don’t agree with all of it. Jim has indeed done great work (though paid a price for it), and yes, the tools to take action are a good thing. However, sometimes tools offered in a disingenuous manner can do more harm than good, in my opinion.

    For example, if everyone believes that someone is receiving ‘due process’ because they have the right to it and others go through the motions of pretending it actually exists… but in reality, it’s little more than pretend.. than I can see some feeling even more helpless and others even more readily looking away because they believe the illusion that due process was had. Sometimes, it may be better to just have things be what they are and not pretend there’s more there.

    But I digress.. In the end, I agree with you that that we should know and use the tools we have to their full advantage and support others to do the same, and that we should fight for the tools to exist where they currently do not… However, our reality remains that many are traumatized within the system regardless of where they are currently living and I don’t think the sense of solidarity around that needs to be false.

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  • Thank you for taking in what you could! 🙂 I can completely relate to how hard it can be to read through long posts and lots of comments. I have a hard time, myself, focusing for long enough to do that and often have to really struggle to keep bringing myself back to what’s in front of me. I’m not always successful!

    I agree with you re:trauma, though as I mentioned in the comment above, I’m cautious about saying that trauma is the cause of everything for everyone either.

    I can appreciate what you say about the arm imagery!

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