Also

[sabotabby]

I'm still uncomfortable with the concepts and rhetoric that make up Mad Pride.

Comments

[outcastspice.livejournal.com]

Based on only the wikipedia entry, i'm kind of into it. tell me about the problems? (if you have time and inclination, of course)

[sabotabby]

Other people have already brought up my objections below, but basically—

I feel that I shouldn't have to not talk about my tumor. I should be allowed to be open about it, and not face repercussions about it at work or in my personal life, and I feel that I have the right to informed treatment about it. But I'm not proud of it, it makes my life miserable, and it doesn't make me a special snowflake. I feel pretty much the same way about my one-two depression-anxiety combo. I think it has much more in common with a physical illness than it does with something intrinsic to my identity as a person. It's something that I've suffered through and that's changed me, but that I don't want to embrace or celebrate.

Also, a lot of the Mad Pride types I've met are anti-psychiatry. I know why, and their criticisms are valid, but I've really only had good, helpful experiences with psychiatry. This isn't the case for all people with mental illnesses, or maybe even most, but it's my experience. I might have died if I'd listened to the advice of activist people and sought "support in the community" or not gone on meds.

[pope-guilty.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of the criticism of Fat Pride that people who do want to lose weight shouldn't be made to feel that they're conforming or letting down the side of whatever by so doing or so desiring.

[lemur-catta.livejournal.com]

There seems to be a streak of that within the Deaf Culture movement as well. I wonder how many people really would reject the opportunity to hear if there was a simple, effective low-risk teatment for deafness .
And, in a situation where one's differentness involved limited mobility, discomfort or increased mortality as well it seems particularly perverse to blame someone for not being so keen on embracing it.

[sabotabby]

Oh God. The Evil Ex was one of those anti-cochlear people. He wore hearing aids, so I don't really see what the difference was, but I basically don't think that he had the right to decide anything for anyone else.

[audrawilliams.livejournal.com]

Cochlear implants are a lot different in that they are permanent and destroy any remaining "natural" hearing, and that's a pretty big choice to make for someone else.

[sabotabby]

Totally. But no one was advocating making it for anyone else in these discussions (you can get them at an older age, no?).

[sabotabby]

Does that really happen? I guess that probably does happen, but all of the Fat Pride people I've met seem so non-judgmental.

[pope-guilty.livejournal.com]

I've never seen it in person, but I've heard people who'd formerly felt part of Fat Pride complain of it.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

May just be something in the minds of the people who are trying very hard to eat healthy and work out and still gaining pounds.

As well intentioned as an event geared towards giving up clothing that doesn't fit anymore on the basis that one should just give up trying to lose weight, it's hard not to resent that kind of discourse when you have no intention of staying at your weight.

[lemur-catta.livejournal.com]

Gah. There's already enough anti-pharmaceuticals/modern medicine crap and medication-is-a-crutch crap floating around as it is. It really annoys me when its suggested that I'm incapable of using or rejecting any and all available psychiatric techniques, or other treatment options as I see fit, that I'm being misled and manipulated by someone else. I understand that it happens disparagingly often but, I find it intensely patronising when someone implies its always the case.

[sabotabby]

Yeah, I got that a lot when I was on anti-depressants. Sometimes by people who wanted to push herbal crap on me, sometimes by people who seemed to want me to get better by my own bootstraps or die trying. Both groups seemed to reject my analysis that their line was frighteningly similar to that of right-wing types who argued mental illness didn't exist or that you could get better through Hard Work! and Perseverance!

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

I remember someone on LJ a long time ago putting up a story about how there are some patients for whom there is a time release dosage in their heads. I have a feeling that it was mostly bullshit or in the planning stages. But basically it was there so people did not go off their meds when they were getting better.

This person stated that it was BRAIN CONTROL and that mental illness was a myth used to control people.

[pope-guilty.livejournal.com]

medication-is-a-crutch

I never understood why that metaphor was supposed to be anti-medication- who would deny a limping person a crutch?!

[sabotabby]

Libertarians.

[lemur-catta.livejournal.com]

It is a particulary bizarre and callous line of thinking. No, no those limping people are simply being lazy and slouchy or willfully supressing limb regrowth and should grit their teeth and stand up straight! Not to mention those molly-coddled diabetics who won't whip their own pancreas into shape....

[lemur-catta.livejournal.com]

I haven't heard enough of the rhetoric to know if I'd have a similar reaction. Is there some underlying idea that 'madness' is just a different way of perceiving that shouldn't be treated like a disease? If it was just about combating the stigma and misconceptions ,or 'coming out' as a mental patient with nothing to be ashamed of,then that sounds like a good thing but, if it creates some kind of pressure to embrace my condition and celebrate it, that is kind of unsettling.

[sabotabby]

Is there some underlying idea that 'madness' is just a different way of perceiving that shouldn't be treated like a disease?

Yep.

If it was just about combating the stigma and misconceptions ,or 'coming out' as a mental patient with nothing to be ashamed of,then that sounds like a good thing but, if it creates some kind of pressure to embrace my condition and celebrate it, that is kind of unsettling.

The former is the part I wholeheartedly agree with; the latter is what I object to.

[firecat]

Is there some underlying idea that 'madness' is just a different way of perceiving that shouldn't be treated like a disease?

"Madness" sometimes includes different ways of perceiving, which can be very useful, creative, beautiful, and valuable.

Nevertheless, some aspects of having wonky brain chemistry suck donkey dongs.

Can we have Cranky Pride?

[lemur-catta.livejournal.com]

Very much with you on that score. The thing I think it's important for the anti-treatment camp to consider is that a treatment model can include the desirability of retaining any of the aspects one sees as positive. I don't want to be free of mild halluciantions/visions or hypomanic highs that don't interfere with the way I want to live my life but, there was all that donkey dong suckage I did want rid of and it's possible to target and treat only that.

[sabotabby]

I want Cranky Pride.

[lemur-catta.livejournal.com]

I think where that aspect really fall apart is that it suggests there's some common unifying experience involved other than a shared stigma and that isn't even the same across the board. No community or common culture has evolved from it.

It sounds like they're trying to create a parallel with something like deafness, where there is a community and a language or, leprosy where people have been forced into isolation together.

Even in the days when forced hospitalisation of the mentally ill was common, the amount of social interaction was probably small.

[sabotabby]

Yeah. I think the parallels with the Deaf community, or the queer community (where "pride" and "coming out" are borrowed from), break down under analysis. I can see some parallels, but they don't have much to do with my experience.

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't really regard myself as a "survivor of psychiatry." I'm a survivor, if I'm a "survivor" (that's another crap trope), of mental illness.

[franklanguage.livejournal.com]

Oh—is that "mad pride"? I'm a survivor of psychiatry! I had at least ten years of psychiatric/therapeutic help, including meds and hospitalization, before I pronounced myself "cured" and quit.

What I had needed from the start was solid neurological help—being that I'd had my brain crushed and was trying to sort it out—and one would really think that at Yale-New Haven hospital they would have known enough to provide that. Unfortunately there's more money in the runaround that is psych hospitalization and $%#&^*# group therapy.

[sabotabby]

I don't think I'm a survivor of anything. I'm a "coper." I live with. I haven't died yet.

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

I am a black and blue but not wholly extinguished prey of [mental illness/capitalism/insert oppressive thing that usually wins.]

[ladypolitik.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's the *only* characterization of chronic illness that makes any sense.

It's also sketchy that there is that blatant appropriation of queer-positive language in matters having nothing to do with queer-positivity ("coming out"). Please, let's....not even go there.

[misslynx.livejournal.com]

Me too. I've read various articles and other exhortations from that crowd, urging "mad" people to embrace our conditions, celebrate them, enjoy them, consider them unique qualities to be proud of, etc. And all I could think was that whatever sorts of mental illness the authors had, it probably wasn't depression, any kind of anxiety disorder, or anything else that's seriously non-enjoyable. It's hard to be happy and proud about finding life intolerable and regularly wanting to die, you know?

There certainly are some forms of mental "difference" that come with features as well as bugs. ADHD, for sure, and I've heard people say the same about at least some forms of autism. And I will freely admit to enjoying the hell out of hypomania and wishing I could order it up on demand. But not every mental illness/difference/condition is like that, and to suggest that they're all things people should enjoy and be proud of having is a gross overgeneralization, and really disrespectful to people who are struggling with conditions that make their lives hell.

[frilled-shark.livejournal.com]

There's this persistent idea of psychiatrists as these evil predators pouncing on people and medicating them into zombies and taking away all their creativity. It doesn't seem to make allowances for the idea that people may not like feeling on the verge of a panic attack all the time for no discernible reason, or so crushingly unhappy they can't get out of bed.

It reminds me a little of those endless arguments that swirl around discussions on using painkillers or C-sections during childbirth, where one assumption I see a lot is that women who get painkillers or C-sections are coerced into them by evil doctors. What about if they wanted the medication themselves?

[misslynx.livejournal.com]

Yes. In both cases, it's an overgeneralization based on some individuals' experiences. It's quite true that some people pressured into psychiatric treatment and/r childbirth interventions that they don't need or want, and experience trauma or other negative effects as a result of this. But that does not mean that that's the case for everyone, or that those treatments/interventions are never appropriate or helpful for anyone.

[sabotabby]

Agreed.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

Seems very similar to pro-mia and pro-ana people.

The sad part is that even when they DO make good points about the psychiatric methodologies of treating mental illness, their points are invalidated and ignored by the overall extremism of the movement.

[sabotabby]

Yeah. I don't deny that they have good points. But they also want to erase my experiences and the experiences of people like me, which is just as destructive as what they're opposing.

[metalana.livejournal.com]

I wonder if one's viewpoint on psychiatry depends on whether one has
a) a mood disorder treatable with tolerable side effects
b) some disorder that is only marginally treatable, with nasty side effects
c) one of those disorders that makes you suspicious or paranoid about psychiatrists

I agree with you that there should be greater compromise between anti-psychiatry and pro-psychiatry.

[sabotabby]

I think so. Also, living in Toronto and having to deal with CAMH. If I'd ended up there, I'd probably feel very differently than I do.

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

Me too. I can't really celebrate or be proud of something that has seriously fucked up my life and stressed out my friends and family.

I'm reading The Noonday Monster right now, have you've read it?

[sabotabby]

No, but it was mentioned in the book I just finished about depression. Worth reading?

[lemur-catta.livejournal.com]

I think there's more than a little romanticism to it as well. There's that whole crazy,tormented artist , 'touched by fire' thing. There's the notion that left to themselves and free of their opressors, mental patients would have a delightfully eccentric, colourful community a la King of Hearts and live in a state of edenic contentment.

On one hand, it's not a bad coping strategy to be able to think of oneself that way rather than in negative terms but, I think it's something of a trap to think of creativity , individuality, or enhanced/different sensory experience, being necessarily linked to entirely unpleasant and debilitating things like depression, self-harming impulses, paranoia or agoraphobia.

It's exactly that kind of thinking that made me really hesitant to try medication for my condition. I had a fear that it would take something away from me that was essential to my identity. I asked friends who appreciated that side of me keep to an eye on me for that reason. I'm very happy to say that when I finally found useful treatment, it most certainly didnt turn me 'normal' suppress any desirable aspects of my personality or diminish my creativity in the least. If anything, all the aspects that I liked about my different way of experiencing the world were magnified because the self-consciousness, depression and out of control feelings were mostly removed or at least manageable.

I understand that for many people useful treatment isn't yet available and the existing options are frequently worse than nothing. I know I got particularly lucky. My point is that treatment that retains and even enhances all the positives someone might think of as part of the mental illness package is ultimately possible. That's what makes a trend towards embracing the whole package as inseperable or having some kind of causal relationship disturbing.

[sabotabby]

Hah, I only wish I got creativity or something positive out of it. Mine tends to manifest in long periods of sadness and dullness, with frequent spikes of panic and fear. If I got manic episodes I might feel differently, I dunno. But there was nothing romantic about it, and it kept me from doing anything creative and artistic.

I understand that for many people useful treatment isn't yet available and the existing options are frequently worse than nothing. I know I got particularly lucky. My point is that treatment that retains and even enhances all the positives someone might think of as part of the mental illness package is ultimately possible. That's what makes a trend towards embracing the whole package as inseperable or having some kind of causal relationship disturbing.

I got lucky too. But I mean, the whole approach ought to be rooted in autonomy and agency anyway. If I want to suppress my mad side and CONFORM, that's my right as well.

[audrawilliams.livejournal.com]

I haven't known a single Deaf adult who wanted to be hearing.

[sabotabby]

Neither have I, but I always attributed it to a) the particular Deaf people I've known, and b) that if they'd wanted to hear, they wouldn't be identifying as Deaf people anymore.

[rackletang.livejournal.com]

I'm not a fan, personally, but then I'd be way worse off without modern antidepressants.

[sabotabby]

I probably would have died without them at one point.

[rackletang.livejournal.com]

Me too. Even on them, I've held out due to stubbornness more than anything.

[seaya.livejournal.com]

Psst! I met someone who told me about this: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapentadol

She says it does really well with her chronic pain and leaves her more lucid.

[sabotabby]

Cool. So far my balance of meds is working reasonably well, so I don't want to do anything to fuck with it. But if, as seems likely, I'll be in chronic pain for the rest of my life, it's worth checking out.

[intangir-heath.livejournal.com]

I've never heard of "mad pride", but I'd arrange to have both my legs sawn off if it meant I didn't have my fucking mental problems anymore.