Kirjotusvihe

It's anti-psychiatry as an oppressive network of control. I don't know why people always assume that critiquing a power structure means you're saying individual people shouldn't do what they need and want to do to manage their wellbeing within said structure but those things are not the same. I'm an anarchist. I'm for disabled liberation. i'm literally never going to claim to know what an individual person should do.

If you support neurodiversity as a concept, you already support anti-psychiatry! It is literally an anti-psychiatry perspective. So is supporting self-diagnosis. Or informed consent approaches to drugs or to trans identity. Getting homosexuality removed from the DSM is an anti-psychiatry move. So is opposing forced institutionalization. So is opposing conservatorships.

With opposing conservatorships, is that just the abusive,exploitative kind for people who experienced a mental health crisis? Or all of them? And if all of them, how do you help people who need genuine supervision so as to not get lost and hurt themselves, like advanced Alzheimer's patients? Also, not trying to "gotcha", I'm genuinely curious and ignorant.

Supported Decision Making is the alternative model and it's one many disability advocates push for!

Conservatorships literally strip disabled people of all power and legal personhood. They can't access their own money, they can't get married, they can't have children, they can't maintain custody of the children they do have, they can't move, they can't go to school, and on and on and on. This doesn't just happen to the Britney Spears' of the world, and are more common than you may know.

Just to pull at another example, Wendy Williams was forced into a conservatorship last year simply because a former financial advisor of hers claimed she was no longer competent. That's all that happened: she had harmed no one, there was no proof of her being incompetent publicly, or anything like that. Just someone in a former authority position in her life claimed she was no longer competent and locked down Williams' access to all her financial assets. Williams couldn't even pay her own rent with money she had in the bank. (Emily D Baker on Youtube has many videos on this whole saga).

Contrast that with supportive decision making, in which a disabled person selects a person who provides them with information and guidance on the life decisions they may find hard.

For example, an adult with intellectual disabilities could choose to have a trusted friend advise them on how to handle their finances, rather than being forced by the courts to lose all control of their money and have it controlled by their parents (or whomever else the court determined should be in control).

If the disabled person has no one in their life that they trust to help them make decisions, or if they need specialized help, then they can be assigned a neutral party with relevant expertise. An accountant, say, or a medical liason who can help them with determining which healthcare approaches are best for them.

@drdemonprince So in that case, what happens when someone legitimately can't communicate their wants and needs, like with my grandma who had Alzheimer's and couldn't communicate in any way? How would the supportive decision making model work? It sounds great in the other instances you mentioned, and I'm all for it otherwise.

Great question! I think the really important thing to keep in mind here is that supportive decision making and disability justice in general are rooted in the ideas of body autonomy and respect. Those values can carry over into everything we do, and all policies we adopt should flow from them.

One thing we can think about here is how much people with Alzheimer's or dementia or high-supports-needs intellectual disabilities demonstrably cope better when they are not restrained, forced to do things that make them uncomfortable, and when they are heard and respected (including by respecting their behavior, because behavior is communication). Even if a person can't talk anymore, they have needs and reactions that are visible for a very long time, and deserve to have those feelings respected.

If a person's Alzheimer's has progressed to the point where they can't speak, can barely eat, have trouble navigating their home, etc, of course we can't expect them to make decisions about their 401k rebalancing or whatever. Asking them to go to the polls and vote for a political candidate would be cruel and unhelpful to them, and so would many other tasks.

That also means they're kind of past the point where they could even "hurt themselves" by making decisions regarding those matters in the way that people who advocate for conservatorships like to claim is necessary. Like, someone who can't read or work a phone anymore isn't going to be able to give all their money away to some smooth talker trying to scam them out of their retirement funds. If they were lucid enough to make that kind of decision, a supported decision maker could help explain certain concepts and risks to them. But if they can't even do the task anymore, they don't need a conservatorship to lock down their funds or tec.

Even once a disabled person loses the ability to engage in many complex tasks, or even to speak, we can still take notice of the person's actual priorities and interests and support them in meeting their own needs. For example, do they gravitate toward music? Do they pantomime changing an infant's diapers and rocking them to sleep? Does being around pets soothe them? A supportive decision maker can still follow the needs and preferences of this person, and advocate for them to have as much time and freedom doing the things that feel good to them as possible. They can get them babydolls to play with, put on music for them to listen to and help buy them more CDs, make arrangements for them to spend time around animals, etc.

A supportive decision maker can also help advocate for the person in medical environments. Are they having a meltdown while a doctor is trying to give them a vaccine? The supported decision maker can help articulate that the patient is obviously distressed and needs space, and help them leave the area safely. They can help guide them when they have a desire to walk around without a) locking them away in a room, worsening their agitation, or b) letting them wander without any guidance, out into the road.

The supportive decision maker is still helping the disabled person make their own decisions. It's just that what a person with that kind of disability values and what they make decisions about is different. They don't give a shit about their 401k rebalancing anymore and that's fine. They do want to be comfortable and free and talked to lovingly and to be able to do pleasant, comforting things.

Like it's genuinely not "traditional therapy or we abandon people to their needs and limited self-expression" if people think tbat is the case, there are so many differemt models of care and support out there. Our traditional understanding of therapy and the Jane Addams MAST model are only 2 of these.

can't sleep when you're in a dream

Wedding

Odysseus: Regret it why?

Cassandra: You won’t believe me if I tell you. If I prophecy, nobody believes me. That is my curse.

Odysseus: … I’m Nobody. Fill me in. 

*A couple of months later* 

Odysseus: HELLO PENELOPE, I AM HERE PRECISELY ON TIME AND NOT YEARS LATE incidentally I rescued and adopted a Trojan seer while I was away, she’s great, got me home really fast, Cassandra this is your new mother who’s not going to treat you like shit. 

Penelope: … I’m going to need more details, but okay, sure. 

Problem solving

valentine’s day is coming up, so here are some cards to bestow upon your friends, lovers, and—most importantly—enemies.