wires crossed

from instagram user @/thebooksmartbimbo

Title: You're not paranoid if someone's really out to get you.

Subtitle: The racism behind Schizophrenia Diagnoses

Section 1: How racism transformed the Schizophrenia Diagnosis

In the 1950's, the Schizophrenia Diagnosis was mostly given to white housewives. Schizophrenia was associated mostly with withdrawal, catatonia, and depression.

However, during the civil rights movement, psychiatry started committing more Black men in order to deligimatize the movement and its leaders. Many of these men were diagnosed with Schizophrenia.

As a result, Schizophrenia became associated with more "aggressive" symptoms and Schizophrenia became both racialized and gendered towards Black men.

Section 2: The Protest Psychosis.

During this time, Black men who protested racial injustice were said to be suffering from "protest psychosis". Speaking out against racial injustice was thus legitimately considered to be a symptom of mental illness, and potentially contribute to forcible commitment.

Sidenote: Check out "The Protest Psychosis" by Jonation M Metzl for more about this historical shift in psychiatry. Attached is a picture of the book cover.

Section 3: This racialization is part of Psychiatry's design.

Psychiatry diagnoses are written by humans (mostly wealthy cishet white men) and are influenced by human biased, intentionally and unintentionally.

Psychiatry has historically been used as a system of control, policing and eugenics. Diagnoses were written with the motivation of labelling and locking away society's "undesirables", including POC.

Section 4: Subjective Labelling of symptoms leads to racial biases in the MHIC [Mental Health Industry Complex].

It is well known that white people experience conscious and unconscious biases that perceive Black people as "threatening" and "violent".

This means that Black patients are more likely to be perceived as "agressive", which makes them more likely to experience carceral psychiatric practices. It also means they are more likely to be given diagnoses that are considered "serious" such as Schizophrenia, while a White patient with the same symptoms might be diagnosed with something less stigmatized, like Depression.

Section 5: "Delusianal" is defined in a White CisHet Male perspective.

People in power have been telling marginalized people that their experiences aren't real forever. So of course white psychiatrist will label BIPOC experiences as "delusional".

Things that are commonly labeled as "paranoid delusions" include that the CIA is targeting you, bugging of phones, police persecution, etc— all things that really did and still do happen to Black activists.

Section 6: Psychiatric Gaslighting and the enduring legacy of the Protest Psychosis.

Marginalized people continue to be gaslit by psychiatrists who label rational emotional responses to injustice as "delusions" or "chemical imbalances". Labelling these experiences as symptoms invalidates the real lived experiences behind them.

There has been a recent push for more POC workers in mental health care. However, since racism is still systemically written into the fabric of the MHIC, this is not enough to solve the problem.

Prosthetic hands from the Wellcome Collection.