#disclaimer: i have benefitted IMMENSELY from psychiatric treatment

[naamahdarling]

If you look into antipsychiatry as a movement you will find a lot of suggested alternatives. I don't subscribe wholeheartedly to every part of the movement, and it has meant different things at different times, but as an angle of activism, I do agree with most of the points made by the people who define themselves as part of it. In its current form, psychiatry exists primarily to oppress. (see: the purpose of a system is what it does.) It was founded on the oppression and suffering of stigmatized human beings.

To begin with, the abolition of psychiatric imprisonment is absolutely required, and destigmatization of suicidality and most other behaviors that psychiatry currently deems worth imprisoning people over. The acknowledgment that the current system creates suicidality and trauma, and that way, way more people emerge further damaged from inpatient treatment than healed. Reparations to those who have been harmed, or their surviving loved ones.

Crisis prevention in the form of resources including UBI, health care, and housing for all.

Holding medical professionals and therapists heavily accountable for their behavior, with patient-led enquiries into abuse (i.e. review boards are not solely or primarily medical professionals, but patients, including those with trauma).

Community-based support such as drop-in centers staffed by peers and peer counselors, short-term lodging for those who want observation. The establishment of hotlines and warmlines staffed by peers and which do not funnel into the 911 system (in the USA).

Making psych meds (ALL meds) available without contracts that demand patients comply with restrictions, on an informed consent model. (Specialists in these meds and in mental health should exist! Just like we have specialists for heart or skin conditions. They should not have the power they do. They should not wield more legal power over a person than a cardiologist. The psychiatric profession as it currently exists will never give up that power willingly, which is one of the reasons it needs to be completely reimagined from the patient's perspective.)

Abandoning the DSM as a primary diagnostic tool. Abandoning the idea of discrete diagnoses as definite and certain things, and of the idea of a specific diagnosis being required for treatment. A priority placed on patient experience, not medical control of the patient. Redefining things from an inside perspective and not an outside perspective (people with ADHD often dislike the term, for example, because they see it as defined by what others observe and are inconvenienced by).

Destigmatization of addiction, decriminalization, harm reduction, the rejection of the 12-step model as THE model for recovery (or even a particularly effective one), the abandonment of recovery as the primary goal of treatment for addiction or ANY mental health condition.

Making meds equitably available to those who want them, neither forcing patients into them nor withholding them entirely.

There are valid questions about how to handle certain kinds of crisis. What if someone is a threat to others? Well, in a less horrible system, the following would be true: the person would ideally have supportive people around them that knew they had these issues and could intervene sooner and provide information to responders, the person would have a home and food and health care they could not lose (people who don't have these unsurprisingly wind up in crisis waaaay more often), the person would not have been provoked by law enforcement or psych staff (a VERY common reason for psych patients to lose their shit), the person would have a safe place to self-isolate in advance if necessary, the person would have time to recover and STOP being a risk, the person would be able to access help afterwards to debrief and develop helpful strategies to avoid or manage another such event, the person would have access to an environment that felt safe to them in which to be helped, any round the clock care situation they entered into would be by consent only and hopefully part of a preestablished protocol....

A person in this kind of environment would be far less likely ever to BE a danger to others in the way we imagine (and what we typically imagine is already inaccurate and heavily biased). MOST crises could be avoided entirely, leaving the subset that could not be avoided by these means to be evaluated separately as a group, and better strategies developed for them.

There are few easy answers, and the easy answers we do have (stop abducting and imprisoning people) do not possess easy solutions. But any of the things I have described would reduce crisis. Many of them are goals of social justice anyway.

Anyway, I encourage people to look into these issues and into criticism of and alternatives for every aspect of the psychiatric field, because most are broken or at the very least inadequate. If you can't quite bring yourself to abandon the idea of locking suicidal people up, fine. But look into alternatives to inpatient facilities as they currently exist to see what else is out there. If you can't bring yourself to abandon the idea that people should be forced into addiction treatment, look into the effectiveness of coerced treatment, and look into the effectiveness of traditional models of addiction treatment, look into harm reduction. If you can't abandon the idea of mental illnesses as being definite entities as opposed to useful generalizations, look into the origin of each diagnosis, and how people with it were treated 20 or 50 or 100 years ago.

You don't have to agree with everything to change your thinking about something, and I highly encourage every single one of you to do so.

It would help reduce great social harms, and you'll meet some pretty cool people on the way!

One major factor that makes the nature of psychiatric treatment intrinsically violent is the fact that the boundaries of the patient is considered an obstacle to treatment. The lack of consent of the patient is considered an obstacle to treatment. These obstacles are abhorred by psychiatry and considered things that much be broken down. If the patient has a disagreement with the treatment, or objects to it, this is considered a symptom and therefore is seen as something not to be validated or respected. Thoughts, behaviors, beliefs; these are all considered symptoms if they are in opposition to treatment and must be broken down. However, compliance with treatment is almost never seen as disordered or symptomatic, even if the patient is fawning or similarly complying to avoid more harm done to them. The fact that only extreme compliance is accepted by psychiatry is inherently violent and conditions people to accept abuse. Isolation and violence are not vectors of healing.

[daughter-of-flowers-divination]

🌱I have a dog named Zeek, a boyfriend named Jerod, and a passion for gaming, reading, and writing.🌱

💐Hello there flowers! I wanted to talk a little bit about myself: where I've been, what I've done, who I am, my tarot journey, myself as a reader. All to hopefully satiate your desire to know more about me, while also answering questions you may have. If you have any more questions email me! You can find my current email at the bottom of the page. There is also a Contact Me form with page labeled as such on my website too. Make sure you use the correct form on that page!

     Let's start with school. I used school as an escape from an abusive home situation. I felt great at school, because I felt wanted and good at something. That started to change when I hit sixth grade. I began noticing how other families behaved, how it differed from how I was being treated at home. I also realized not everyone was my best friend and I started to become depressed. On the bright side, I had just started band and was loving that. I played alto saxophone. Junior High was awful let's gloss over it. I was a band geek trying to be a cheerleader. It's also when i started developing an eating disorder. In high school i found my people in debate and forensics, which is basically structured arguing and the track and field of speaking and acting. I was awesome at it. I went to the state tournament many times and the national tournament three times as well earning top 60 of the nation in one of my events. In band, I was allowed to play the baritone saxophone. Google that instrument if you haven't seen it, and know that I am 4'11". It was a fun time. I even marched with it once. That was...not fun. I then also did improv my senior year, which was wild because my sister and I got to act together even though she was only in 7th grade. But it wasn't all fun. I started having panic attacks and more severe symptoms like hallucinations and suicidal ideation. I was told i "just had an overactive imagination" when I asked for help from an adult close to me. So helpful. I bit my lip and pushed forward graduating from my small high school with honors.

     These troubles continued into college. I wanted to be a teacher and an author, so I double majored in English and Secondary Education. I dropped Secondary Ed. after I couldn't keep up when my mental illnesses took over my life. I kept pushing on though. No therapy, just my almost-perfect (let's face it he sometimes farts on me in his sleep) boyfriend of now over seven years to keep me from killing myself, and a job working as a Debate and Forensics coach for a local high school. That job was one of the best I have ever had, but I pushed myself too hard and ended up in a short term inpatient psychiatric treatment facility for the first time. Then it happened four more times. I managed to graduate with my English degree and Primary Text Certificated with honors (Magna Cum Laude), and I believe this degree is part of the reason I can read the story in the cards so well. I'm trained in interpretation and creative thinking. During the time I was graduating, I also started to get incredibly sick. Turns out I have Hashimoto's Disease--which is basically hypothyroidism-- that wasn't diagnosed until December of 2018. I felt lost, and even more unsteady in my faith, so I began researching Wicca and witchcraft. I felt very drawn to tarot, but I didn't have the energy to start learning and I'd been told for the longest time that the cards were the devil (the devil is a really helpful guy if that's the case).

     After the fourth time of visiting an inpatient facility, I decided enough was enough and started paperwork to apply as a patient to a residential psychiatric facility on the east coast. Some of you may know what this rock bottom feels like, and heck that may be why you're looking at my website. You and I both know what it's like to look up at the afternoon sun from our beds and think, "there's nowhere else to go." But we were wrong. We can still go up. It's the only option. We can always go up from anywhere we are at in life.

     I got accepted for an evaluation, drove to Massachusetts, and got accepted for treatment May 6th, 2019. I stayed in residential for six months. It was grueling work. Not only was I away from my loved ones, but I was in therapy four times a week, surrounded by a group of people constantly, and pushing myself to attend dismal group therapy (I say dismal, because I'm just not really cut out for group work). Then I met Michelle. She was a patient for a little while that I was at this facility. She not only introduced me to oracle cards, but she gave me the push I needed to learn tarot. I was a facing a huge decision in my treatment as I had violated the patient agreement by seriously self-harming. Michelle could tell I was scared about the decision coming the next day and offered me an oracle card reading about the potential outcome of the administration's decision alongside what I can do to roll with it. The reading was scary accurate. She predicted the outcome and my best path forward flawlessly. I would get to stay at the facility for another five months, choosing to leave on my own terms. I would get a second chance at healing. That night I decided I wanted to be able to do that. I did not initially intend to read for others, but I did intend to add reading the cards to my therapeutic activities, because for the first time I saw strength in myself despite the abuse, the rape, and the death. I saw the cards as an amazing tool for self-improvement and healing.

     Michelle let me take one of the tarot decks (which I accidentally took the wrong one...its a "card game" but not tarocchinni the game that is actually played with tarot cards) that was in the patient run library in the main residential building on campus. I immediately started reading for myself, and was immediately hooked. I got (a few) more decks to work with, and as I became more proficient in tarot and oracle I began reading for other people. I even read for other patients and staff at the Halloween party the patient government puts on on Halloween. That was a ton of fun, and I hope to read in a setting like that again.

     Anyways, I left the hospital feeling immensely better in November 2019. I started reading cards for people on Instagram in December 2019, and well, here we are. I decided that I was capable enough to help improve people's lives and make a little money too. I still don't quite know who or what I believe in or how the cards work (the main contenders are nature, the fae, and our own higher selves); I'm still on my journey too. I'm a lifelong learner. Always have been, always will be. So don't be nervous if you haven't found your beliefs right away. It takes time.

     I do know that, as a reader (and person too) I take ethics very seriously. I have a whole section on my Disclaimers, Policies, and Ethics page for my reading ethics. I plan on creating an explanation video just on why my ethics are what they are, but for now there is a blog post about it. If you come to me with a question that violates my ethics, I'll work with you to make a questions that jives with my ethics while giving you the most benefit. Your questions (no matter where they start from) are the small rocks heralding an avalanche of understanding, of clarity.💐

--Taken from the About Me page on my website