🧵Many talk about psych pathologisation but I don’t see much talk about individualisation.

Madness is individualised thru pathologising psych labels, or trauma practices that focus only on bodies & nervous systems, or even thru some ways folks talk about neurodivergence.

1/12 To me, any time we locate mad experiences primarily in the:

body
brain
nervous system
genes
biochemistry
or even in individual humans

—we risk obscuring the collective, political nature of our mad experience.

2/12

🧵 I dream of a public repository of suicide notes.

1/13 As someone who lives with suicide, I’m angry about media guidelines on suicide, produced by the psy industry, that discourage reporting the truth of our deaths & even our own words.

It silences our voices and furthers the injustices that killed us.
/2

I got sucked into trying to convince a defensive psychiatrist to change their thinking.

I forgot I'm not interested in that anymore.

My activist tweets are not written for psychiatry. They are for my own hurt spirit & for other victims and survivors of carceral psychiatry. I used to care about changing the system. I spent 9y as a survivor advocate inside the mental health system, in govt policy, peak bodies, services.

I learned that psychiatrists don't want to listen to those they have oppressed, abused and injured. They don't want to change.

We get told many ignorant, cruel stories about #SelfInjury & why we do it.

I feel like doing a myth-busting thread, with some of the real reasons from my own life.

Understanding *why* is important.

It can give us power to make the choices that are right for us.

1/

#selfharm Transforming pain

It’s hard to feel two kinds of different pain at once.

So sometimes, if my emotional pain feels unbearable, I create physical pain—like a kind of alchemy. It still hurts but it’s often more bearable.

This kind of SI can help keep me alive.

2/

Since releasing the Seclusion Report I can’t count how many times I’ve heard of #MentalHealth nurses saying ‘it’s not possible to eliminate seclusion & restraint because of occupational violence’.

I call bullshit on that excuse, and here’s why… 🧵

1/6 The cause of seclusion is not because we’re aggressive towards you.

The cause is *your* violent practice—and the larger violent system you work in.

2/6

For me, the big issue behind the serotonin myth about ‘antidepressants’ is not about whether they’re helpful for some folks.

It’s about a false narrative being so dominant that it has facilitated hiding/ignoring/denying collective injustices that hurt us. Of course some people find these drugs helpful.

Others find cannabis or heroin or sex or mindfulness or self-injury helpful. If it’s right for you that’s great.

There should be no judgement for any of us surviving as best we can. Shit is hard.

That’s not the point IMO.

I should not be surprised when powerful institutions deny violence & abuse.

Like the Catholic church & cops, the #MentalHealth sector is a well resourced PR machine that protects itself, not us.

Still, shame on you, @amavictoria.

/1

https://twitter.com/simonkatterl/status/1547549520791314434

I should not be surprised when DARVO is employed by abusive institutions like the mental health system:

“Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim & Offender”

These tactics are used by abusers & violent systems the world over.

@amavictoria is victim-blaming survivors.

/2

🧵(CW: child abuse)

Sometimes people wonder why I'm angry about psychiatry.

Many folks seem to think psychiatry would be expert at supporting child abuse survivors.

Let me share my own experience with some simple, but painful, comparisons.

1/ My abuser: Controlled me with substances

Psychiatry: Controlled me with sedating drugs & shock treatment

*
My abuser: Told me to submit. Consent was impossible, irrelevant.

Psychiatry: Told me to be compliant. Said if I didn't agree they could force me. Then they did.

2/

Great article on debates about psych diagnoses by @SEMcBain.

Reading it I was reminded how hard I sought a psychiatric diagnosis in my early years of distress…

🧵 1/

https://twitter.com/h_green21/status/1491751785278713858

I thought, if only they can diagnose me properly, I’ll finally get some treatment that will help.

I just wanted the emotional torment, the voices, the strange experiences, to stop. I thought psychiatry had the answers.

2/

Here's some snippets from this morning's lecture on trauma (Masters of Social Work at @UniMelbMDHS).

I give a broad lens on what trauma is. So it's not about types of trauma 'events' so much as personal experience & impacts. Not just emotional but also identity & belief impacts. I remind students that most psychiatric consumers are actually trauma survivors, regardless of 'diagnosis' - including folks with 'psychosis' labels.

Trauma impacts us differently, and there are usually good reasons for this if they take time to listen and explore with us.

🧵
I don’t like that I’m self-injuring again. I worked so hard to stop it years ago. I tried really hard this time too. I don’t like that we’re coming into summer & so every time I dress I’ll have to weigh the risk of stares & judgement with comfort and wearing my truth.
1/10 I won’t ever forget the time I was on a train and a stranger, a large, loud drunk man, started yelling ‘why don’t you just do it right and kill yourself?’ (etc)

What I remember most is the other passengers (bystanders) looking away until the next station when I escaped.
2/10

@FalteringlyOn @Psych4Men @Altostrata Interesting conversation guys (ta for saying nice things about me 🥰). Am feeling a good few SDs from the mean to be able to add much to your many wise words, but you’ve got me thinking.

But a few thoughts… @FalteringlyOn @Psych4Men @Altostrata I don’t hold out much hope for psychiatry to change (including related professions). Powerful systems don’t do that. I think there’s a duty to name & try & reduce systemic harms (which many of us try to do) but the whole premise of psychiatry & this system is ultimately harmful.

A survivor’s experience of surgery & trauma-informed practice
(a thread)

So this hospital stay was definitely an improvement on last time, but there was still some shitty stuff that’s not OK.

1/ I’d had my GP send a letter about my trauma history, bad veins & what I need to feel safe. I’d met with a liaison nurse, surgeon & anaesthetist beforehand and briefed them all.

But many times it was clear people hadn’t read this in my file.

Whyyyyy?!?!
2/

Our #MentalHealth system uses force on at least half of all inpatients.

One ‘justification’ I’ve heard from psychs is this:

“If we didn’t use compulsory treatment we’d be neglecting people.”

Is that so?

Let me call out this dreadful argument on #neglect... (a thread)

1/7 Check your #paternalism.

Thinking you know what’s best for others is paternalism. How can you possibly know? Many of us have healed without you.

Try trusting that your patients are the experts on their own lives.

That’s not neglect, it’s respect.

2/7

When I was a kid my abuser abducted me, fed me whiskey to make me compliant, then raped me.

My mum kept it quiet. Society told me the abuse was my fault.

I didn’t say no.
Girls ask for it.
Shut the hell up.

1/4 When pain sent me mad, cops dragged me to hospital.

Psychiatry locked me in. Drugged me into compliance. They stripped me, said my brain was broken. Locked me in solitary.

It felt like that abuse so I escaped. My govt said this is good healthcare.

2/4

I’m furious & heartbroken.

Just saw an ‘antistigma’ ad on schizophrenia from @MHReformVic & @VicGovDH.

This is NOT reform.

It’s more of the same dishonest medicalisation theories & false claims that hospitals are great.

I’m in tears.
1/

#ReformFail
@JamesMerlinoMP In the ad I saw, a person literally says these experiences are ‘biochemical reactions in my brain’.

What?! That’s just not true. The brain chemistry theory is well & truly busted as myth.

How do we have govt ads making these claims? Is anyone doing basic fact checks?

/2

A long thread:

Reflecting on my hospital day procedure, through a #traumainformed lens.

Yesterday I had a #gastroscopy with full sedation.

I’m also a survivor of child abuse & years of coercive psychiatric treatment, so it was a scary prospect.

Here’s my experience.

1/22 Leading up to the procedure, I was scared that somehow I’d end up with an unwanted psych consult. What if I cry too much or they just make assumptions based on my history?

This was a big fear. I almost cancelled. Thankfully, it didn’t happen.
2/

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be an ally to consumers & survivors in #MentalHealth.

Learning from my own lived experience, other survivors & consumers, and other marginalised groups.

Some thoughts...

(thread) 1. You don’t get to decide if you’re an ally. We do.

I’m not a fan of risk assessments.

But I am a fan of being able to talk frankly about #suicide followed by empathetic, rights-based support.

This thread does some good myth busting on that. And yes self-injury is different.

Here’s a few bits I’d add from lived experience...

https://twitter.com/sfreedenthal/status/1371158916990525440

2/ If we say we’re thinking about suicide, don’t panic.

It may or may not be a crisis. It may feel odd to you—but some of us have thought about suicide for decades, regularly.

I consider myself largely healed but I still have regular suicide thoughts.

(Don’t panic, I’m OK)

CW: Rape

If you’re not from Australia,, you might be wondering what the hell is going on right now.

It’s pretty awful.

Rape allegations were made by an ex-govt policy staffer, Brittany, against a colleague. A senior minister called her a ‘lying cow’ then went on sick leave.
/1 It took a conversation with his wife, and being reminded about his daughters, for our Prime Minister to acknowledge that he should take action so women were safe at Parliament House.
2/

1/8
IT’S PUBLIC!

My witness statement to Victoria’s Royal Commission into Mental Health is now available online:
s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/hdp.au.prod.ap…
@RCMentalHealth

More info in thread👇 2/8
Thank you to @abcnews & @Zalika_R for covering the story & giving profile to people & issues that are too often ignored. (Angus, my cheeky cat, steals the show).

Online story: abc.net.au/news/2020-05-2…

Tune in to tonight’s 7pm ABC news for more coverage.