Mad Matters

Daniel, 23, Mad/mentally disabled queer tranz kid who likes to rail against the biomedical industrial complex and find new ways to navigate through extreme mental states and the stigma surrounding them. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx "Set your life on fire. Seek those fan your flames." --Mevlana Rumi

[coral]

I didn’t know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of my throat and I’d cry for a week.

Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar (via feellng)

[realsesmith-deactivated20190307]

Why Are Huge Numbers of Disabled Students Dropping Out of College?

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US colleges and universities need to do better at meeting the needs of disabled students.

[flugor]

[17st]

I guess I never believed that I deserved to live. The way other people do. I needed to justify my life every hour. I needed your permission.

"Blonde" by Joyce Carol Oates (via 17st)

[serialstranger]

[pussybusy]

you you you you

[coyns-blog]

Jan Kriwol Afterlight

[pavorst-deactivated20181204]

Do you know what people really want? Everyone, I mean. Everybody in the world is thinking: I wish there was just one other person I could really talk to, who could really understand me, who’d be kind to me. That’s what people really want, if they’re telling the truth.

Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook (via pavorst)

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The following is an excerpt from my Feminist Studies capstone/thesis:

In 1974 a group of mental service users came together and published a pamphlet called “The Need for a Mental Patient’s Union,” (which later became known as the Fish Pamphlet), and marked the beginning of the psychiatric...

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this is part of my undergrad feminist studies thesis--envisioning alternative forms of support for folks with psychiatric labels

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I realize how terrible I've been at updating this blog, but I'm pretty consistent at posting when I'm upset and have no one to talk to so...

Recently came out as a transguy and it's been hard getting used to the new pronouns interrupting my interactions like commas where they don't belong.

I just want someone to tell me I make a really great guy. That's all I wanna hear. 

Instead I'm getting "it's just weird for me, I mean, you don't even hang out with other guys do you?" and "aren't you just moving to another side of the binary"

cry.

[mad-matters-blog]

Tonight I was looking through a zine I found at Monkeywrench (austin's anarchist bookstore) called "Reclaiming Your Mind." It was cool and everything, I just don't see why the only things out there for madpeople are mainstream narratives/solutions to extreme emotional states or lit that shits on pplz desires to take meds or be "involuntarily" committed. I hate my meds and love them. I hate hospitals and I love them. 

We need theory that reflects these ambiguities instead of shitting on feelings that are already pathologized.

I'm queer because I can't decide which I want more, to feel everything or nothing. I need a revolution I can dance to.

[meganleona]

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when you're a topic of class discussion

This semester I'm taking a class called Twisted: Race, Sex and Disability. At the beginning of our first class yesterday my professor asked everyone to go around the room and say why they decided to take the class (which is like my least favorite way to have to introduce myself aside from 'oh shit, I'm so sorry I didn't see your car there').

Anyway, when it was this one girl's turn she said, "I just think Disability Studies sounds really great...in a sad way."

wtffffffffff

My face got hot, my heart started pounding, I was, in short, MAD. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it would really benefit me and probably my other classmates if I didn't respond to everything like it's an attack on my person. Of course, that's hard to do as a mentally disabled student in a Disability Studies class with predominantly able-bodied and minded individuals. Objectivity is not only impossible to attain, faux-objectivity isn't usually very helpful (in my opinion). My body/mind is implicated in the discussions we have in class, sometimes marginally, sometimes explicitly, and I'm mostly glad that my person is so invested in these conversations. But I'm still navigating through what it means to participate in discussion as a subject, without disassociating OR lashing out (esp when it's clear the individual in question wasn't intending to be harmful). I need to figure out a way to communicate to someone that their comment was hurtful without...being hurtful.

Lemme know if you have any experience negotiating (or not) situations like this.

orrrr just lemme know if you wanna talk about anything, because I like you and want to exchange thoughts.

Mad solidarity,

Dannie

[casual-isms]

Casual albeism says “Just don’t let things bother you so easily.”

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on your post "deserter"

(sorry this didn't fit in the ask box <3)

i don't think you are a deserter!! a mad medicated body is still mad. hopefully with new clarities and anything else you deem as important (happiness.. less boredom.. more naps.. more energy.. whatever u felt was missing you know?).  i guess some important things are your beliefs about the meds, understanding that they are odd compasses, not a location/destination.  maintaining a belief that they aren't "fixing" you, because you are already wonderful, they are helping you in your autonomous, empowered, and active shift in methodologies & modalities of madness. u deserve to be mad productive! mad reflective. it seems important that you feel u are personally/politically/medically in a position to come off the meds, should u choose to do so in your therapeutic & personal work.

i think if the meds ever lead you to extreme boredom, dissociation, or a lack of passion for continuing to work on yourself, then u might critically consider something new! :)

love your blog as u know <3 <3 <3 <3

sincerely,

k. adelle

fuck yeah mad pride!!

Thanks so much for your insight and support! I've struggled a lot with my decision to take psychopharmaceuticals...I've ranted and railed against them, which I think is definitely appropriate in some circumstances. At some points in my life though, my unmedicated state has been nearly incapacitating, and the 'choice' to take meds or not to take meds hasn't been much of a choice at all. Take meds or spend the week in bed. Take meds or feel the weight of incapacitating guilt over things that are inconsequential. Recently things have felt so calm in my body it's hard to adjust to the lack of extreme states. It's hard to remember what it's like to feel life so intensely, and sometimes I miss it. I think maybe I've been deadened. It's hard to get excited about things I used to be passionate about [hence my long absence in mad-blogging], but I also remember what it was like to be blocked from my own creative flow because anxiety seemed to take up most of the space in my brain.

Though I'm rethinking my decision to take meds (for the millionth time it seems) I would like to make clear to everyone who reads this that I have no judgement for whatever decision you make regarding medicating your own body. It seems absurd for such a complex issue to drive a wedge between us. Madness can feel so isolating at times, it makes no sense for us to isolate ourselves further.

Love your blog too, it's so wonderful to read your thoughts <3

Mad solidarity and love,

D

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Deserter?

Lately I've been trying to work through what it means to identify as mad/crazy/mentally disabled when I have periods of so-called stability. The other day I was sitting in class and realized I felt 0 anxiety, and I thought, "Is this what able-minded people feel most of the time? Am I an able-minded person?" I think maybe I've finally found the cocktail of crazy meds to make me feel more or less stable the majority of the time, though they come with their own unwanted side effects. And I'm starting to wonder if it's what I want...am I abandoning my community by pumping artificial chemicals through my system so I can feel less? Am I becoming so removed from other crazies that I can no longer relate to them, or identify as one?

Fucks with my head. Your perspective on the matter would be much appreciated!

Drop your thoughts here 

[mentalillnessmouse]

Link for med help

I was recently diagnosed as bipolar.  I found the Crazymeds site extremely helpful in describing, in simple terminology, what to expect from the cocktail of medications I was put on. 

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What an awesome resource---I wish I knew about this sooner!

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The Reign and Coercion of the Biomedical Industrial Complex and the Medical Model of Mental Disability: Excerpt from "The Dreadful Dependent"

Another excerpt from my capstone, hope you enjoy!

my body an atlas

the brain as capitol, a nucleus of synapses firing and backfiring, doctors talking about fear conditioning and my amygdala, the need to burn new pathways and learn new responses but i don’t want to draw over these maps, i want to remember, maybe even retrace my steps

Though careful to highlight the absence of empirical evidence on the subject (Winick 24), Winick is highly suspicious of the efficacy of involuntary treatment because the feelings of distrust and outrage which are often experienced by an individual upon her/his commitment is usually directed at the doctors and counselors in charge of her/his care (Winick 33).  The deep mistrust that coercion (rightly) produces in those who have been subjected to involuntary commitment fractures the therapeutic relationships between patient and doctor(s) from the start of treatment.  Winick argues that “[a] relationship in which the therapist is permitted to treat the patient as an object of paternalism whose participation in therapeutic decision making is unnecessary and undesirable will not inspire the needed trust and confidence and may therefore be counterproductive” (Winick 33).  He also explains that perceptions of coercion are highly subjective, and many patients feel coerced where the legal criteria for coercion has not been met (Winick 20).  This happens in large part because many “voluntary” admissions to psychiatric wards are made “under the threat of involuntary commitment or similar coercive pressures applied by their family, physician, or the police” (Winick 3).  In a chapter titled “The Moral Career of the Mental Patient” Erving Goffman describes the coercion through which many are lured into psychiatric admission.  According to Goffman, clinicians and doctors are more likely than others to view psychiatric wards as temporary places of rest and treatment rather than “places of coerced exile,” and to describe them to people in mental distress as sanctuaries removed from the pressures and painful individuation of the public sphere (Goffman 140).  When possible, an individual’s admission to a psychiatric ward should appear to be voluntary.  Requests are made before demands, he argues, and “[i]f the prepatient heeds all of these implied requests and is reasonably decent about the whole thing, he can travel the whole circuit from home to hospital without forcing anyone to look directly at what is happening” (Goffman 141).  Feelings of coercion in those committed are often increased upon arrival at the psychiatric ward, when it becomes clear that the hospital was inaccurately characterized so as to make the transition from relative autonomy to absolute dependence met with the least possible opposition (Ibid). Though there isn’t any conclusive evidence as of yet that involuntary commitment negatively affects treatment outcomes, there is ample theoretical evidence suggesting that allowing consumer choice in the treatment process affects outcomes positively (Winick 27, 35), along with studies that “failed to demonstrate superior outcomes for inpatient hospitalization as compared to less-restrictive and usually consumer-preferred alternatives” (Gomory et al. 145-146).

 Assessing treatment outcomes of voluntary versus involuntary treatment is only one facet to be considered concerning the efficacy of psychiatric treatment, however.  There is a disturbing lack of evidence that there is a biological basis for mental disability, and as a result the process of involuntary commitment to psychiatric hospitals which “treat” mental disability according to a biomedical model is ineffective and inhumane.   In their article, “Clinical Social Work and the Biomedical Industrial Complex,” Gomory, Wong, Cohen and Lacasse critique clinical social workers’ adoption of the rigorous biomedical model touted by psychiatry, and their move away from a more biosocial understanding of mental disability.  They argue that the biomedical industrial complex, which “refers to the reinforcing and interlocking connections between the pharmaceutical, biotechnological, and medical industries that—together with [others] such as the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)…promote and support a biomedical model of psychosocial distress and disability” (Gomory et al. 137) has made this shift almost obligatory for mental health professionals who want to be seen as legitimate in the eyes of the rest of the medical community. They mark the beginning of psychiatry’s shift to a biomedical model of mental disability with the production of the DSM-III, and the postulation explicit in its diagnoses that mental disability is in fact manifested as biological illness, and that there are distinct boundaries between the “sick” and “healthy” mind (Gomory et al. 146).  However, Gomory and his colleagues note that “when the APA in 2002 explained the need for a fifth revision of the manual, it acknowledged the lack of any evidence supporting claims of biological etiology of mental disorders in the interval…a goal…[that] has remained elusive” (Ibid).  If there isn’t any empirical evidence to date that suggests the legitimacy of the biomedical model of mental disability, how is the discipline of psychiatry upheld as the authority on the subject, and in most cases the only form of treatment mandated by mental health courts? Perhaps it’s because the same problematic hierarchy of “rationality” over “irrationality” that is at the root of so much of the stigma surrounding mental disability is key to the legitimation of science as a credible discourse. 

            Interestingly, though there is no evidence proving that mental disability has a biological basis, an unethical insistence upon (and requirement of) the biomedical model and the quantifiability of mental disability in the DSM-III allowed the psychiatric community to hide behind a fictive state of scientific “objectivity” and “rationality”.  Bradley Lewis exposes the biases behind such a throwback to neutrality, arguing that “[t]hough the DSM-III developers claim to use a neutral rhetorical frame, when we connect their work with the models-of-madness literature we see that they actually use a very rigid ‘disease model’ (also called the ‘medical model’)” (Lewis 107).  Psychiatry can thus, in many ways, be seen as the result of the disgust invoked by the abject identified by Young, as discussed earlier.  The fear of the “degeneration” of the mind, and the fluidity between states of “rationality” and “irrationality” has resulted in the adoption of the illusion of psychic abstraction from the body and the self-proclaimed “neutral” standpoint of scientific objectivity that follows, allowing for the creation of fast and hard distinctions between “diseased” and “healthy” minds.  According to Gomory and co-authors, the DSM:

enables the conduct of clinical trials which are predicated on the existence of distinct mental disorders—for which the FDA grants pharmaceutical firms an exclusive patent to market branded psychoactive drugs, most of which reap revenues in excess of $1 billion per year shortly after marketing. A DSM diagnosis also serves as a necessary condition for a wide range of services and resources, especially as federal funding for social services decreases and that for health services increases (Smith, 2010). For these reasons, the manual serves both as economic incentive and constraint on mental health professionals (Kirk & Kutchins, 1988). (148)

The hypercapitalist, symbiotic relationship between the APA, psychopharmaceutical companies, and mental health professionals allows for a mutual, circular reinforcement of each facet of the medicalization of mental disability.  NAMI’s 2011, fourth-quarter contribution reports lists major pharmaceutical companies, such as Pzifer, Eli Lilly, and Merck (among others) as donors (“Q4 2011 Grants and Contributors”).  The research behind the assumption of biological etiology of mental disability goes largely unquestioned by the public because the biomedical model is so stringently reinforced by each cog in the money-making machine of the biomedical industrial complex, illegitimating or shutting down alternative models of mental support

Because psychiatric treatment is founded on a biomedical model of mental disability which is largely unfounded, “patients” continue to be coerced after their commitment to  psychiatric wards.  The biomedical model roots the “problem” of mental distress within the individual, ignoring the social dynamics in and around which mental disability is experienced.  Thus treatment is largely a focused effort to change the way in which one’s “brain” functions and experiences the world around it.  Goffman explains this phenomenon:

The more “medical” and the more progressive a mental hospital is…the more he [the patient] may be confronted by high-ranking staff that his past ahs been a failure, that the cause of this has been within himself, that his attitude to life is wrong, and that if he wants to be a person he will have to change his way of dealing with people and his conceptions of himself.  Often the moral value of these verbal assaults will be brought home to him by requiring him to practice taking this psychiatric view of himself in arranged confessional periods, whether in private sessions or group psychotherapy. (Goffman 150)

Sadly, compliance to psychiatric treatment within this framework often means a pathologization of one’s psychic and emotional experiences.  Though contemporary rhetoric around mental illness reminds the “afflicted” that “you’re not your diagnosis,” it is impossible in practice to separate one’s “symptoms” from one’s “valid” thought processes and emotional responses, resulting in confusion regarding the boundaries between one’s “self” and one’s “illness.”  This ambiguity is due to the indistinct boundaries between irrational and rational psychic responses to external or internal stimuli.  Even with the symptoms of these “illnesses” listed clearly and unapologetically in the DSM-IV, many of these signs of mental “illness” are typical emotional responses which only become atypical within certain contexts or extremes.  When is it okay to cry, and how much?  What is the appropriate level of anxiety to experience in this situation?  Am I manic, or just hyper? Of course, certain “symptoms” are exempt from this ambiguity in medical discourse.  For example, it is never considered “healthy” or rational to hear voices others can’t hear, or see things others can’t see, just as it is never considered “healthy” or rational to cut or burn oneself, or especially to attempt suicide.  But even when the medical literature is explicit that one’s experience is a symptom of a mental defect, one can never experience it outside of one’s self.  Because of this, the biomedical or “disease” model forcibly implies that the problem is, in fact, you.

            Finally, many people with mental  disabilities are forced to read their experiences through the pathologizing framework of the biomedical model if their mental distress is to be seen as valid, and worthy of support.  Here I find it useful to draw upon one of my own experiences with this specific type of psychiatric coercion.  Last January I visited the emergency room at the local hospital in Georgetown seeking treatment for a laceration.  During the intake interview the nurse asked me a host of questions relating to my medical history, and after learning that the laceration was self-inflicted, became especially interested in my psychiatric diagnoses.  I am used to uncomfortable questions posed by “medical authorities,” and because I have learned to use my diagnoses in a number of ways that have proved useful to me, especially in explaining my experiences of disabling mental distress to the gate-keepers of mental health care, I rattled off the string of acronyms recently applied to my person.  However, one seemed to catch the attention of the Williamson County “medical authorities” more than the others.  After having my wound treated, I was sent home with a discharge packet documenting everything from hospital policies and anti-smoking propaganda to a section on the “home care” of lacerations, and—was that….a section on personality disorders?:

The diagnosis “Personality Disorder” refers to a pattern of thinking, feeling or behaving.  This affects how you feel about yourself, your relationships with others and your ability to control your own urges…A personality disorder is not a true illness.  It is a label given for ways of living that cause distress for you and/or those you relate to.  For example, you may blame others for your problems.  You may believe that you cannot control what happens in your life.  There may be difficulty seeing another person’s point of view.  There may be a lack of concern for how others are feeling.  These patterns of seeing the world may lead to unhappiness, anxiety or depression. Therapy and medicines can help.  But to get better, you must want to change your life and the old ways of behaving.  No one can do this for you.  This means changing the way you think about yourself and others and changing the ways you act.  With a support system (therapist, group support, friends, family) it is possible to heal and learn a healthier more fulfilling way of living.

I was livid.  I sat down at my computer and pounded out a seething blog post about the stigma surrounding personality disorders, which they didn’t even bother to specify between in their cheerful diatribe (boy—I sure showed them!).  And what did I end up arguing for?  I wanted my diagnosis to be seen as a true illness.  At the time I had been so caught up in the pain inflicted by the condescension and the invalidation of those words I didn’t notice the coercive framework underlying them.  Implicit in the idea of “true illness” was the recognition and legitimation of mental distress, and by positioning “personality disorders” outside of its boundaries, my particular moment of distress was illegitimate, and something I somehow brought upon myself by unhealthy “ways of living” and “seeing the world.”  The biomedical model is further reinforced by this coercive type of discourse. In such frameworks, many times the only option available to people excluded from medical legitimation for unblaming validation and support in moments of mental distress is to argue for incorporation into the biomedical model!  It is clear that this is in part how the biomedical industrial complex continues to thrive; it makes sure that nothing outside of it, whether disability or method of treatment, is seen as legitimate.