CALL ME CRAZY - STORIES FROM THE MAD MOVEMENT

Great post from Pride In Madness



Call Me Crazy: Stories from the Mad Movement
APR 15. Posted by prideinmadness

http://prideinmadness.wordpress.com/2013/04/15/call-me-crazy-storie...

At 3 am I got the email saying Call Me Crazy: Stories from the Mad Movement by Irit Shimrat arrived at the library closest to and was ready for me to pick it up! As soon as I knew the library was open I went to get it! It is a Canadian book published in the 90′s.

The moment I read the first paragraph I was hooked. These are my people! I actually know (although not personally) one of the contributing authors, David Reville, who works at Ryerson University School of Disability Studies and teaches their Mad courses!

I would love to share with you some quotes from the book so far that have just rocked my world, strengthened my view of myself and reminded me why I do my work and that I’m not alone. These are people who have been diagnosed, hospitalized, drugged, shocked and much more but they have still said, “No, there is nothing wrong with me, this system is broken.”

How I relate to this book is that I identify as a Mad person. I do not think that I am sick but that I have a range of human experiences that have caused me great pain and joy. I am extremely critical of psychiatry and also do not believe that psychiatry and drugs hold all the answers to our problems and that we can find great strength in each other and being supported in being who we are. I believe in being free from discrimination based on how my mind works which includes being labelled as “sick”. I will never ask you to agree with me but I will ask that you respect how I am approaching my life. It is mine after all. I will always respect the rights of others to identify themselves and pursue treatment. I only ask that you do it because you want too and because you have been properly informed. It is your life after all.

WARNING: Be prepared for some VERY radical ideas!

First paragraph: “Call Me Crazy is about people who have done an unusual thing: we stopped being mental patients. That’s not supposed to happen, since mental illness is supposed to be an incurable biological disease. Certainly you’re not supposed to reject the idea that you’re sick, stop taking your medications, refuse to ever see a psychiatrist again, join with others in questioning psychiatry and get a life as a result. That would mean they were wrong about you. That might mean they’re wrong about a lot of people.” (pg. 1)

“Once you’re diagnosed, they’ve really got you. Laugh too much, cry too much, talk too much, don’t talk enough-or, god forbid, get angry-and the people around you think you’re getting “sick” again. And how likely are you to be believed about anything? Some people get beaten and raped in hospital, sometimes by staff. But they can’t complain about it, they may well be told they were hallucinating.

As a mental patient, you don’t just lose your credibility with other people; you’re taught not to believe in or trust yourself. You’re taught to doubt your own perceptions: they may be signs of your illness. It’s especially bad if you don’t think you’re sick. That means you have no “insight”-the psychiatric term for agreeing with your doctor about what’s wrong with you and what should be done about it. If you fail to appreciate the nature of your illness, you will be deemed incompetent to make treatment decisions.” (pg. 9)

“I believe that there’s no such thing as mental illness. But there’s something wrong with some people.What’s wrong with them is that they experience great amounts of pain and suffering. They may or may not be weird. If they’re not weird, they’re called “neurotic.” If they’re weird, they’re called “psychotic.” They’re called crazy: that’s what “psychotic” means.” (pg. 56)

“Sociologist Erving Goffman, in his book Stigma, talks about the fact that we have, as a society, expectations of how people are going to behave. We don’t, for example, expect someone to walk into a fancy restaurant and start taking their clothes off. When people violate the norms of societal behaviour, we’re taken aback. And one way of dealing with it is by pathologizing that behaviour. Instead of saying, “Here’s someone who’s done something I didn’t expect,” we say, “Here’s someone who must be sick because he’s done something I didn’t expect.” (pg. 74)


About prideinmadness
I'm 23 years old and live in Toronto, Ontario. I have risen above my psychiatric labels and now use my experience and passion to help improve the conditions for those with mental health issues and changes societies views on mental illness.

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