claire fleszewska

I want people to stop being forced into hospitals and stripped of their autonomy.

I want people to stop being backed into a corner where they feel their only options are homelessness or suicide.

I want people to stop being murdered via their monetary benefits being cut, even though they desperately need them.

I want mentally ill, Mad and neurodivergent people to be supported in all areas of their life and enabled to live in the community. Not locked away in institutions.

I get that we need people to understand mental health better. But so much of this month is people watering down inclusion and equity to mean "Mad people should just stop being visibly Mad and then they can be accepted".

So. I don't know. "Mental health awareness month" falls so fucking flat for me. I don't want to assimilate, I want to be respected as an autonomous being and enabled to live a good life. Not fed another platitude about how "CBT will definitely help this time, trust, you just need to do it for a fifth time and try harder to get better!".

in reality, the concept of self-harm is heavily socially constructed and an issue of bodily autonomy. as humans, we seek out physical pain all the time. we eat spicy foods. we get tattoos and piercings. we engage in BDSM. so why do we forbid self-regulation through pain?

when people are told to cover up their scars, when people are kicked out of DBT support groups for self-harming, when people are conditioned to lie about their self-harm to avoid getting sent to the psych ward, you are telling them that their body is not their own.

yes i have readings >:)

first of all, the anti-psychiatry bibliography and resource guide is a great place to start getting oriented in this literature. it's split by sub-topic, and there are paragraphs interspersed throughout that give summaries of major thinkers' positions and short intros to key texts.

it's from 1979, though, so here are some recs from the last 4 decades:

overview critiques

mind fixers: psychiatry's troubled search for the biology of mental illness, by anne harrington

psychiatric hegemony: a marxist theory of mental illness, by bruce m z cohen

desperate remedies: psychiatry's turbulent quest to cure mental illness, by andrew scull

psychiatry and its discontents, by andrew scull

madness is civilization: when the diagnosis was social, 1948–1980, by michael e staub

contesting psychiatry: social movements in mental health, by nick crossley

the dsm & pharmacy

dsm: a history of psychiatry's bible, by allan v horwitz

the dsm-5 in perspective: philosophical reflections on the psychiatric babel, by steeves demazeux & patrick singy

pharmageddon, by david healy

pillaged: psychiatric medications and suicide risk, by ronald w maris

the making of dsm-iii: a diagnostic manual's conquest of american psychiatry, by hannah s decker

the myth of the chemical cure: a critique of psychiatric drug treatment, by joanna moncrieff

the book of woe: the dsm and the unmaking of psychiatry, by gary greenberg

prozac on the couch: prescribing gender in the era of wonder drugs, by jonathan metzl

the creation of psychopharmacology, by david healy

the bitterest pills: the troubling story of antipsychotic drugs, by joanna moncrieff

psychiatry & race

the protest psychosis: how schizophrenia became a black disease, by jonathan metzl

administrations of lunacy: racism and the haunting of american psychiatry at the milledgeville asylum, by mab segrest

the peculiar institution and the making of modern psychiatry, 1840–1880, by wendy gonaver

what's wrong with the poor? psychiatry, race, and the war on poverty, by mical raz

national and cross-national contexts

mad by the millions: mental disorders and the early years of the world health organization, by harry yi-jui wu

psychiatry and empire, by sloan mahone & megan vaughan

ʿaṣfūriyyeh: a history of madness, modernity, and war in the middle east, by joelle m abi-rached

surfacing up: psychiatry and social order in colonial zimbabwe, 1908–1968, by lynette jackson

the british anti-psychiatrists: from institutional psychiatry to the counter-culture, 1960–1971, by oisín wall

crime, madness, and politics in modern france: the medical concept of national decline, by robert a nye

reasoning against madness: psychiatry and the state in rio de janeiro, 1830–1944, by manuella meyer

colonial madness: psychiatry in french north africa, by richard keller

madhouse: psychiatry and politics in cuban history, by jennifer lynn lambe

depression in japan: psychiatric cures for a society in distress, by junko kitanaka

inheriting madness: professionalization and psychiatric knowledge in 19th century france, by ian r dowbiggin

my friend was left alone in an empty rubber room overnight. for at least part of this i believe she was strapped down to a gurney. i saw her when they put her in there and it's an image i will never get out of my head.

i was forced to take antiandrogens (im intersex) at the state ward. when i initially declined (i'm transmasc), they labeled me noncompliant and threatened to take away "privileges" like socializing with my peers, going to school (we had our own school), going outside, and having certain foods.

being put on CO (constant observation) and having to have people watch you shower, change, and go to the bathroom. or, upon admission, being forced to strip and put on paper garments, and not being allowed to wear your own clothes for 48 hours. not even your own underwear. that's paper too.

these are just 3 examples, from 3 different hospitals. what they have in common is the systemic destruction of your dignity, autonomy, and personhood. that's not healing. that's not care. that's abuse and torture. psych wards employ literal torture tactics.

If the concept of gender has been abolished and forgotten, how does transition work?

Wouldn't people just live with the identity they choose, without the burden of having to transition from the one assigned at birth?

If they didn't get a gender assigned when born, what are they transitioning from?