"Set your life on fire.
Seek those fan your flames."
--Mevlana Rumi
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.
5th April 2013
Notes: 2
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.
(Source: megannnnleona)
Reblogged From latac
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 albeism says “Just don’t let things bother you so easily.”
(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
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!
TW: POLICE BRUTALITY
Justice for Deaf Woman Tasered and Jailed by Police!
Lashonn White is a deaf woman who called 911 after being attacked in her apartment. Instead of being helped, Tacoma police tasered her and put her in jail for 60 hours without an interpreter.
Two police officers were dispatched who had been told that she is deaf. She ran outside to meet them, and immediately, Officer Koskovich tasered her in her rib and stomach. Because of the fall, she suffered heavy bleeding from her knuckles, injuries to her cheek, chin, ribs, neck, and arms, and swelling on the right side of her face.
Then they handcuffed her — she was incredibly confused as to why she was under arrest, and couldn’t talk to the officers because they don’t know sign language. Koskovich said that he had yelled for White to stop, but she had ignored him, when she actually couldn’t hear him.
Please tell the Tacoma Police Department that all officers need to receive training concerning disabled individuals and to do a full investigation of the incident. Get justice for Lashonn White!
Sign the petition here. Sources are here and here for more information.
— Brittany
She is also BLACK. Please note that deaf black people have been harassed and threatened many more times than white deaf people. Maybe if she was white, this would have never happened. FUCK THE POLICE.
WTF is wrong with cops in my state? Well, cops pretty much everywhere, but there are tons of local stories like this. It’s sickening.
God damn it, Tacoma.
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.
What an awesome resource—-I wish I knew about this sooner!
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
In addition to the problematic underpinnings of the two justifications for involuntary commitment and the exclusive models of citizenship that frame them are questions surrounding the efficacy of involuntary treatment and the medical model of mental disability. The question of efficacy is essential to the conversation surrounding involuntary commitment because “the parens patriae justification for commitment contemplates both that the individual suffers from cognitive impairment that makes rational decision making concerning whether to accept hospitalization and that hospitalization would be (or is thought to be) in his or her best interests” (Winick 43, emphasis in original). If the State is to take away the right of mentally disabled individuals to make decisions concerning their own treatment, there at the very least should be conclusive evidence that the mandated treatment renders positive outcomes. In the section that follows I will discuss the ways in which evidence concerning the efficacy of involuntary commitment and the medical model of mental disability are inconclusive, and in their practice, coercive.
I feel like there’s not a lot of discussion going on about the intersections between queerness and mental disability.
Am I wrong? Either way let’s start discussing that more. Plz.
Pfizer: Why don’t we put this company out of business?
By Adbusters
“In 1996 Pfizer carried out unlicensed medical trials of its drug Trovan on critically ill children in a Nigerian slum, leaving 11 dead and many more plagued by serious long-term side effects. Trovan was banned and Pfizer eventually payed a $75 million settlement. Pfizer was forced to pay $430 million in 2004 for illegally marketing the drug Neurontin for unapproved uses. Despite pledging to obey the law, Pfizer was levied a $2.3 billion fine in 2009 for once again recommending its drugs for potentially dangerous uses. The largest criminal find in history, it amounted to less than three weeks of the pharmaceutical giant’s sales, and business continues as usual.
Why should Pfizer be too big to fail? From Philip Morris to Goldman Sachs to Exxon Mobil, corporations that break the public trust must be held criminally responsible for their actions. Send an email to Attorney General Holder asking him to adopt a three strikes rule against corporate criminals. Break the public trust three times and you’re out: We’ll revoke your corporate charter and put you out of business.
No exceptions.”
streets in dry August sunlight:
what offends us is
the sanities: the houses in pedantic rows, the planted
sanitary trees, assert
levelness of surface like a rebuke
to the dent in our car door.
No shouting here, or
shatter of glass: nothing more abrupt
the the rational whine of a power motor
cutting a straight swath in the discouraged grass."
The forest creatures gather underground inside the root tree cave away from The Natural Elements and look deeply into each other’s eyes. Communicating telepathically the way animals do, they sigh and whisper and share.
[I can’t figure out how to reblog the whole post so click on the link to read the rest!]
