so left but she's right though

An anti psych perspective on life with mental health issues. Previously known as compassionatereminders. Please read my pinned post before sending me asks! Run by Kat - 29 years old, Danish, she/her, on disability pension, aroace. Officially psychiatrized as a cognitively disabled schizophrenic. Also has experiences and symptoms associated with autism, generalized anxiety, OCD, trauma disorders (mainly OSDD) and addiction.

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

Read this before sending me an ask

I am not comfortable taking on a responsibility for anyone's recovery.

Don't ask me to diagnose you.

Don't ask me to tell you how to recover/cope.

Don't ask me how to help a mentally ill loved one.

Don't ask me how to cope with/escape/recover from a traumatic situation.

Don't ask me to talk you out of self harm or suicide.

Don't ask me to provide comprehensive in-depth resources or final answers to big questions.

Don't ask me for links/direct references to other resources - I do not collect them, nor do I have the academic background needed to easily find them.

I'm not comfortable taking on the responsibility for representation:

Don't ask me for writing advice.

I am limited by my personal experience, so don't expect me to speak specifically about:

Studying or working. I'm on disability benefits and never had an education or a career, so don't come to me for advice related to those subjects.

Marginalizations I haven't experienced. These include being a person of color, childhood abuse, being physically disabled, being poor, being gay, being homeless, being fat and being transgender. Discussions of all these experiences are in fact welcome in my inbox, but don't expect me to have relevant personal experience with them.

I am not comfortable with my blog being used for promotion by strangers since I don't have the skills to check up on the validity of a tumblr strangers claims, so I have decided:

I won't be sharing any fundraising efforts.

I won't be signal boosting anything no matter how important.

Keeping this in mind, I love to talk to my followers, and the asks I'm comfortable answering include:

Sharing my advice or opinion on something (while keeping the above guidelines in mind).

Answering personal questions of all kinds.

Responding to vents that don't expect me to be the one to provide specific solutions.

Providing a bit of compassion and encouragement (though I don't intend to agree with everyone in my inbox and might state my opinion even if it's negative).

Comments or questions related to something I've posted.

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

Can anyone tell I'm on my way to shark movie club?

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

thoughts on dissociating?

I try not to think about it.

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

thoughts on board games?

I hate them with the hyper specific vengeance of a heavily medicated cognitively impaired person who constantly frustrated everyone because I really couldn't easily pick up on the "really simple" rules. Trying to play boardgames always just felt like failing a test and it was always too hard to actually be fun.

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

thoughts on outdoor cats?

There are a lot of dangers and risks associated with outdoor cats and I am fully committed to only ever having indoor cats that are only allowed outdoors with leashes and constant supervision (if going outside at all is relevant for them).

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

thoughts on FASD?

I haven't studied it enough to have anything relevant to say about it.

[madgirlramblings]

To the Psych Workers Who Want to be my Friend:

You tell me about how much you hate your job

You tell me how burnt out you are.

Was it from watching other

burnt out inmates-patients-never-people

Be kicked around by your work buddies who are burnt out too?

And you tell me about your new job lined up after this because I’m your favorite pet-patient-never-person

And you’ll miss me—not enough to free me—then you clock out and go home

And watch whatever you want and microwave as many burritos as you wish

Take the edge off after a long day of being complacent, why not?

And then you go onto the anti-psych hashtags on Tumblr and share your sympathy with us

And yap about how you wish things were better while the money from our families (if we aren’t paying for our own capture) fills up your wallet

You talk about how sad you are for us in our spaces and communities

As if our liberation was ever meant to be yours.

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

Thoughts on mpreg?

I don't care for mpreg the fanfiction trope, but I'm not gonna dismiss it as a haha funny or ew gross fiction thing when reproductive rights for trans men is very much a real issue which deserves serious attention.

[equalperson]

i think we should always take predominant sexes and races for psychiatric disabilities into question.

are men really more likely to be antisocial or narcissistic, or are women just overlooked because ASPD/NPD are seen as too "aggressive" for them?

are women really more likely to be borderline or histrionic, or are they just seen as so "hysterical" that they have to be feminine?

are black people more likely to have schizophrenia or ODD, or are labels of "psychosis" and "defiance" simply used to further dismiss, oppress, and imprison BIPOC?

are white people more likely to have autism and ADHD, or are doctors just more willing to accept that white children are disabled and not just "bad?"

oppressive biases are everywhere in psychiatry. never take psychiatric demographics at face value.

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

Longer hair

I envy everyone who can grow it.

[lovphobia]

can y'all send some asks that are like “thoughts on ______”

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

thoughts on bugs

I'm not personally delighted by them, but they have just as much of a right to this planet as I do.

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

Thoughts on ADHD (diagnostic process, treatment, comorbidity, etc)?

ADHD is one of the psychiatric diagnoses I have the least beef with as it seems to be a genuinely useful framework in making sense of certain struggles for a lot of people and because unlike most psych meds the stimulants used to treat ADHD genuinely have a noticeably helpful effect for a lot of people. My concern about ADHD is mainly how the existence of this label is being used to completely individualize structural issues in how much focus + productivity can realistically be expected from anyone, so that instead of talking about the fairness of the 40 hour work week and tons of homework after an 8 hour school day we're medicalizing failing to keep up with that as an individual mental disorder. But even accounting for that, I don't think the label of ADHD is inherently useless and malicious in the way I consider a lot of other psychiatric labels to be.

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

Thought on short blond hair

A whatever hairstyle to me.

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

disability rant: I recently became angry on behalf of my 85 year old grandma because the banks here have recently redesigned their cards and they are now vision-impaired unsuitable; all the raised numbers have been removed and replaced with small print on the back, they don't even have the bank name on the front of the card, just a logo. below is a comparison of the old cards with the new design

laughably, they count the little notch out of the bottom of the card as an accessibility feature but like, if you have more than one card how are you meant to tell which one you're holding? not to mention how much harder it is to grip to pull out of a purse when it's so smooth.

we lodged a formal accessibility complaint but like you'd think a big bank redesigning their shit would take an hour to sit down with an accessibility consultant before releasing this design with no alternative options available 🙃

God I hate the enshittification of literally everything. Fuck this world

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

Thought on fans and family love in return

"Fans and family" is a completely insane relationship correlation I hope no one in the world is seriously making. Fingers crossed you just mistyped "friend"

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

Thought on nose piercing

I'm very neutral on that body modification. Do whatever you want forever though!