This is so fucking blatantly ableist and sanist. This was said about a homophobic church advocating for queer people to be killed. The asshole who wrote the comment and all of the assholes who liked the comment have decided conflating bigotry with mental illness is a-okay. Fuck these assholes. Stop saying ableist shit about mentally disabled people! It's not fucking hard!!!!!!
I had an extremely bad experience with NOCD—a company that sells OCD treatment to clients—and a YouTuber I watch just promoted the company on their channel. So, I'm making this post to warn people about the company. I do not recommend NOCD.
The company expects you to fit into their cookie cutter therapy model as if their clients aren't all individuals with extremely diverse backgrounds. I especially do not recommend NOCD if you have more conditions than solely OCD. They do not know how to handle people who have multiple disorders and mental conditions.
The only positive I will say about NOCD, and this is a major stretch to count here, is that NOCD's website has a lot of information about different OCD subtypes. You may learn you have more OCD subtypes than you realized by reading NOCD's webpages about the disorder. Did the NOCD therapist I had actually treat me well with multiple subtypes? Absolutely not.
Keep in mind that the therapy that NOCD offers is a type of exposure therapy made for OCD. This means that if the therapy is not done correctly, there is severe likelihood of psychological harm to the client, which may worsen the client's OCD symptoms. NOCD therapists do not work with their clients on trauma either. They solely "treat" OCD. If you want more than your OCD to be treated, especially if your other mental disorders intertwine with your OCD, do not go to NOCD for therapy. You will be forced to have a separate therapist for everything else, which means paying for two therapists (and NOCD will demand multiple NOCD appointments a week as well, so you'll be doing way more therapy than what's healthy). For months until I finally cut ties with the company, I was having three therapist appointments a week, which was harmful and expensive.
To make matters worse, NOCD does not allow you to choose your own therapist. The company will assign you a therapist and hammer home that they don't want you to switch to a different person. The therapist I had was so bad that she started forcing me to look into residential treatment as "homework" instead of putting me on the waitlist for a NOCD therapist trained in PTSD, which she had promised to me that she did. She told me to keep meeting with her while I was "on the waitlist," so she was lying to me about the situation while trying to shove an intensive residential treatment option on me that I didn't need and would have harmed me even more.
NOCD ghosted me as soon as I asked about the possibility of being given a refund—such a great example of professionalism. /s And what I've written here isn't even all of the problems I had with the company. Please potect yourself. I sincerely suggest finding a therapist outside of NOCD who is trained in treating OCD specifically. That therapist will also be able to treat your trauma and other mental disorders too. You'll be saving money and not paying a horrible company to worsen your OCD symptoms. You'll also have a therapist who doesn't shove you into their company's mold and expect you to magically fit. Your therapist won't have a manager telling them what to do; your therapist will focus on what you as the client want and need.
If you need proof of my validity, I just finished my MSW degree. Therapy and trauma were main focuses of my master's degree program. Do not use NOCD.
Reblogged xhungryheart
Quick someone show this to all the old shrinks who “didn’t want to label” us
After being diagnosed with autism and ADHD at the beginning of this month, I bought this little guy:
A rainbow zebra, and the rainbow infinity symbol is the sign that represents neurodivergence (my friend told me a gold infinity sign is specifically for autism). I had bought this little guy because I didn't want him to be lonely anymore, to be waiting for someone to love him. So I accidentally bought a neurodivergent zebra friend without thinking about the symbolism
(Note: I use the word neurodivergence to mean any person with a mental condition. I do not support exclusionism)
Reblogged
My therapist and I accidentally ended up personifying my OCD and phobia as an Among Us imposter today, which is so fitting. Now whenever my disorders give me thoughts that make me afraid, I’m going to try to think of this picture of the button in the game
By the way, this helps with basically any mental disorder, especially mental disorders that involve intrusive thoughts. This also helps with stuff beyond mental illness too, such as internalized oppression. To my fellow fat people, whenever your mind tries to tell you "You're too fat to wear this outfit" or "You shouldn't eat today" or any thought at all that wants to do the work of fatphobes for them, pretend that thought is an Among Us imposter trying to do this to you:
And if the Among Us theme isn't your thing, you can adjust this strategy.
Personify these thoughts and disorders as an ex-best friend, someone who always lies, a fake person who hates you, someone trying to tell you what to do while knowing nothing about your life. Because why would it ever make sense to listen to an ex-best friend talking shit about you? They don't care about your wellbeing. Why would you care what a person who hates you thinks you should do? You hate me and are telling me to be afraid of eating this sandwich/touching this table/wearing this outfit/etc.? No, fuck you. In fact, I'm going to do the exact opposite of what you tell me just to spite you.
Another strategy is to give these thoughts/disorders a name. So when you have a thought like "What if my friends secretly hate me?" you can then think "Ugh, Samantha is at it again." Maybe even give it a silly name to make the disordered thoughts seem more absurd. "Are you kidding me, Bartholomew? No, I don't care." "Mmhm. That's nice, my cousin Throckmorton. I'm busy watching a movie though, so please be quiet."
You have a fictional character you cannot stand for the life of you? That could be a good motivator to dismiss thoughts that want to hurt you. "Suzaku, stop telling me this fork is contaminated. You were annoying as fuck in Code Geass and now you're trying to make me afraid of this fork? Uh uh, nope. Not today, bud!"
Or you can just acknowledge when the thought is your disorder if that's what would be most helpful for you. "That thought was my depression that wants me miserable."
I hope these strategies will be helpful to someone. I need to start doing this again myself. What I tended to do was use the imposter theme and also say stuff like "That was my OCD that hates me and wants to make my life as hard as possible. Fuck you, OCD."
To everyone who reads this post: you're strong for getting this far, no matter what your disorders or internalized oppression say
I'm so sick of having to say this over and over again because no one fucking listens.
If you use phrasing like:
- "Disabled and mentally ill"
- "People with mental illnesses or disabilities"
- "Neurodivergent and mentally ill people"
- "Disabilities or mental health struggles"
- "Mental illness and neurodivergence"
and anything else like that
You are being ableist and sanist
You are inherently saying with that phrasing that mental illnesses are not disabilities and not neurodivergencies.
You are pretending that "disabled" solely means "physically disabled."
You are saying that the only neurodivergent conditions that "actually count" are autism and ADHD.
Stop. Supporting. Disability. Exclusionism.
I shouldn't have to scream this from the rooftops and make five million posts about this.
On the same note:
"Able-bodied" is not the opposite of "disabled." These two words are not antonyms. The opposite of "disabled" is "abled." Stop pretending only physical disabilities are "real disabilities." Stop saying that only a single type of disabled person matters.
People with mental illnesses are given no support. We're not welcome in the disabled community nor the neurodivergent community despite mental illnesses counting as both. Do you know what that's like? To be shoved out of communities that are supposed to care about you and then be left with nothing?
And because exclusionists are going to froth at the mouth if I don't say this: Yes, I have mental illnesses. Yes, I have autism and ADHD. Yes, I have physical health disabilities. Yes, I even have mobility issues because of hand tremors that affect my fine motor skills. So don't try to @ me or pretend I'm "just a whiny abled-bodied who doesn't know what REAL disabilities are like." I've had to see you exclusionists literally start using "able-bodied" like a derogatory term because THAT is how much you hate mentally ill people. That is how much you believe that mentally ill people experience nothing.
The exclusionism in the disabled community is so bad that it's arguably even worse than the rampant exclusionism in the queer community, and that is a feat to accomplish. (And yes, I'm queer. Don't tell me I know nothing about queer exclusionism when I have been putting up with said exclusionism forever.)
Disabled exclusionism is so bad that exclusionists attempt to rewrite history so they can erase mentally ill people from it. They pretend mentally ill people have never been included in the word "cripple" and also pretend being called that word is the be all end all of whether you're oppressed.
They say that it's okay for cripplepunk to be an exclusionist movement because the person who invented it is now dead, so we gotta respect their wishes no matter how bigoted. It doesn't matter that the original cripplepunk rules literally call "able-bodied" people the opposite of "the disabled." Since we apparently can't fix bigotry when it'll make a bigoted person who's not even alive anymore sad, I'm assuming disabled exclusionists also think we shouldn't change the constitution because "It's what the Founding Fathers wanted." They took the original John out of Papa John's due to his bigotry too. Sorry for your loss. I know how much you believe things shouldn't be changed, especially when they solely benefit yourselves.
Disabled exclusionists even try to erase mentally ill people from issues like ableism. I have seen so many posts that talk about ableism or even disabled representation and SOLELY talk about physical disabilities. Do you know how bad exclusionism has to be in the disabled community to pretend that there's no ableism against mentally ill people in horror movies? You know, the genre that almost every single plotline depends on fearmongering about mentally ill people? Funny how mentally ill people face no ableism when I have heard of countless movies involving mental hospitals but have never once heard of a horror movie in a regular hospital. I wonder why?
I have to hear people say that mental illnesses are INHERENTLY "less bad" than other disabilities, that you apparently know MY body and MY life experiences SO WELL that you know I don't "have it bad enough." You claim that mentally ill people are "overrepresented" in the disabled community because we "don't even have it hard." Meanwhile, I have to fight just to even be included. I have to see posts about disability and disability-related blogs and even progressive organizations and events for disabled people, and I'm so excluded that I have to literally ask if my mental illnesses "count" every time.
You make social hierarchies in this pitiful excuse of a "community" to put yourselves on top. You even did that with "visible" and "invisible" disabilities, all while ignoring that mental illnesses can be just as visible as anything else. Whatever you can do to put one type of disabled experience on a pedestal.
These communities are not communities at all. They're exclusionist circle-jerks. And I'm done being forced to defend my right to exist to these people.
"Oh, it's just anxiety."
It was PTSD
"You're just very good at acting."
They were motor and vocal tics
"You just need to try harder to lose weight."
It was PCOS, and fuck you
"You just need to stop being lazy."
I actually had ADHD, amazing, right?
"You're just a lesbian."
I'm bisexual and have vaginismus, it was never my sex life
"You just drank too much caffeine."
Funny, they were hand tremors due to low B12
"You just need to pay attention more!"
It was literal goddamn memory loss
"Are you sure you aren't just anxious?"
Let me double check my plethora of autism symptoms for you
And yet
I'm somehow lucky
"You just need to lose weight"
It was five years
It was every doctor's visit
It was a tumor
It was a touching funeral
I love being told by fellow disabled people that mentally ill people face no ableism or hardship at all when, out of the plethora of ways we do, this is one of them:
[Image ID: "Alongside this, trans people with mental health conditions and those below the age of 21 in Kazakhstan are barred from applying to legally change their gender. In the UK, there is no such restriction for those with mental health issues and people must be over 18 to apply."]
And even when not written into law, societies around the world still use mental disorders as an excuse for not allowing mentally ill people to transition.
If you're a disabled person who excludes and shits on fellow disabled people for not meeting your bigoted and willfully ignorant "standards" of "having it bad enough" (aka "Your disability must be the same type as mine or else it's not valid uwu"), you are a horrible person and a goddamn exclusionist. Fuck you.
It's wild how much sanist language people use every day. I'm watching a 17 minute video, and within the span of just 14 of those minutes they have said multiple times the words "cr*zy," "psychotic," "psycho," and "psychopathic." And this video is just about reading AITA posts. They're using these terms over and over again to describe stuff they consider evil and bad. Do we not see...how horrible it is that this society's first instinct...when describing evil...is to use words that oppress and stigmatize people with mental disorders? And if you somehow don't see the problem, people with mental disorders are neurodivergent and part of the disabled community. We are disabled people. Please fucking stop using my disabilities as your metaphor for evil. I don't care what mental disorder you weaponize or whether it's a mental disorder I specifically have, I refuse to sit by and listen to people worsen the oppression, stigmatization, and ostracization of my fellow mentally disabled people. There are plenty of words in the English language. You can even invent a word. This very post is an example of how to not use ableist language while still conveying what you mean. Instead of saying "It's cr*zy" at the beginning, I said "It's wild." Not being ableist is that easy. Please at the very least just fucking try.
As I've been learning that I've actually had autism and ADHD this whole 25 years of my life but just never knew I did, I feel like that Monster Factory clip of Griffin McElroy laughing and saying "Uh oh. Whoops! Oopsie daisy! Uh oh. Ooops!" at increasing intensity to match his realization. With my every new understanding of "Wait, that's a symptom of autism/ADHD??" all the way to my international friend who told me I remind her of her autistic friend within just two hours of knowing me, I feel like I'm just laughing while going "Uh oh. Whoops! OOPSIE DAISY!"
(To be specific, I'm not talking about stuff like when Justin in this clip says "He's a shame of god." I don't see my autism and ADHD as making me inferior. I wanted to mention that before anyone misunderstood. )
Reblogged
able-bodied people always have the audacity to say “you’re tired because you sleep too much”
This is a pretty fucking wild thing to say considering that your fellow disabled people who have mental disorders that cause fatigue, tiredness, sleeping far more hours than abled people, as well as other sleep problems also get told this shit too. I wonder if you might have some bias against disabled people who you view as not "disabled enough" to count as part of the community even when they experience extremely similar and even the same oppression you do 🤔 Physically disabled people and my fellow chronically ill people always have the audacity to say "Yeah, but you still need to submit your pain and suffering to me in a 10 page, APA-formatted paper with one inch margins and a proper reference page before I approve your deservingness to be included in the disabled community and treated as equal to the rest of us who inherently belong and automatically deserve respect and compassion—unlike you, of course."
"Shout out to disabled LGBT people! Shout out to disabled LGBT people who have these experiences that are universal to all disabled people! I <3 you all!!! THIS POST IS ONLY FOR PHYSICALLY DISABLED PEOPLE. DO NOT DERAIL THIS, YOU ABLE-BODIED SCUM. I'm not even sure why you would think this was for ALL queer disabled people other than the fact that I specifically said 'Shout out to disabled LGBT folks' which is clearly, undeniable phrasing that addresses all disabled queer people. If you thought I was talking about you able-bodieds because you believe you count under the term 'disabled,' then you hate physically disabled people and are trying to take over cripplepunk, which has extremely problematic origins to begin with. If you want to join so badly, then break your legs, you pseudo-abled freak uwu"
And yes, I have actually been told by a physically disabled exclusionist to break my legs if I want to be part of the disabled community.
If you can't see why posts like the one I screenshot are ableist, sanist, and exclusionist, then you are not reading the post. It is completely possible to make blogs and posts specifically about physical disabilities without being an exclusionist shit head who believes "disabled" only refers to the one type of disability that has the luxury of actually being automatically viewed as deserving of inclusion in the disabled community.
It is completely possible to talk about physical disabilities without pretending that there are rigid boxes with no overlap that every disability fits into and that the box people put you into determines if your disability is actually "Real" and "That Bad." It is 100% possible and even easy to not make social and oppression hierarchies in the disabled community to make you feel superior over other disabled people.
And I know the person in this screenshot does all of this shit because they have me blocked, and the only reason they would have blocked me is because I am against exclusionist assholes who do all of the bigotry above.
I am done being painted as evil by exclusionists for rightfully speaking out against exclusionism and people who think certain disabilities are more worthy than others.
My worth goes beyond the scale you put me on, fuckers.
To not only separate neurodivergent people from the disabled community but then also separate mentally ill people from BOTH communities, it is so fucking incredibly obvious that people like this person view mentally ill people as the bottom of this ladder they've made out of exclusionist beliefs.
"Neurodivergent" does not just mean "Autism and ADHD, and if you're good maybe we'll let a few other people stay uwu"
"Disabled people" means ALL disabled people, including mentally ill people. If you want to specifically mention physically disabled people like you're obviously meaning in this post, then you can just say "physically disabled people!" It's that easy!!!!
No matter how many exclusionists try to derail my posts and pretend I'm wrong, LITERALLY TREATING THE WORD "DISABLED" LIKE IT MEANS ONLY ONE TYPE OF DISABILITY IS EXCLUSIONISM! Especially when it's the one kind of disability that is automatically accepted as part of the community and receives the most visibility in disability activism.
When you literally can't even include other types of disabled people under the term "disabled," there is exclusionism in the community.
Reblogged
People need to stop acting like therapists and other mental health professionals all know everything there is to know about psychology and can never be wrong.
First of all, they can be (and many of them are) racist, sexist, ableist, etc either on a conscious or subconscious level. I've seen people say "I was denied an autism diagnosis because my psych didn't believe women could be autistic" and then there's dozens of comments saying "well they're a professional so they're obviously right!!! Just admit you don't have autism!!!" even when the person explicitly said they were denied a diagnosis because of a sexist and inaccurate stereotype.
And also, I guarantee you most psychs are not as educated as you think they are (which plays into the above point, they aren't educated enough so they have these biases). Despite how long they spend in school, they often come out knowing about MAD and GAD (without tangible causes) and CBT, and that's about it. Often times certain disorders get mentioned once for a single paragraph and that's it, and/or taught about incorrectly. I've heard people say that Split was shown as an accurate representation of DID in their psych class. Unless a psych has specialist knowledge in a certain disorder, it's safest to assume they barely know anything about it, unfortunately.
Even when it comes to well known disorders. I'd say most therapist are not trauma informed enough to treat PTSD and C-PTSD. I've had MULTIPLE therapists admit to me that they know barely anything about OCD and I had to explain to them how to treat me. They don't even know about PTSD and OCD, so how they hell do you expect them to know about dissociative and personality disorders???
This is not to say all therapists and mental health professionals are unqualified. This is to say that they have biases and prejudices, and that the psychology training system teaches you about depression and anxiety and not much else. So no, you shouldn't treat them like flawless gods that can never be wrong ever. So yes, sometimes they misdiagnose. Sometimes they fuck up. That DOESN'T mean that the patient is faking. And this ESPECIALLY means you shouldn't believe a therapist's take about a certain disorder just because they're a therapist. For example, all the therapists who are not qualified at all in personality disorders saying shit about "narcissists" and "sociopaths" (especially on social media, because they do that stuff for clout and don't care about facts).
So the bottom line is: stop assuming mental health professionals know everything. And if they don't specialize in a certain disorder, don't take their word as law. You wouldn't take a dentist's opinion on cardiology, don't take a depression/anxiety therapist's opinion on NPD.
This this this
I worry a lot about how the internet seems to believe psychiatrists are incapable of having biases, of making mistakes, of misdiagnosing or mismedicating patients. The reality is that psychiatrists fuck up allllll the time and more often than not, you're going to have to do a lot of self advocating. I've had psychiatrists who are super good about covering all bases and being able to spot symptoms and disorders without me having to say anything, but the VAST majority of the time I've always had to be the one to bring up my symptoms and potential diagnoses to them.
People tend to have a poor understanding of psychiatrists- I think a lot of people have this idea in their head that as long as you get a professional diagnosis, that is the correct diagnosis no matter what, but misdiagnosis is not only possibly, but common.
A study was conducted where they sent those who qualified for bipolar to go talk to psychiatrists and see what diagnosis they walk away from. Now, you'd hope the misdiagnosis rate was low, hopefully something like 5-10% at most. 25% is surely where I'd start having serious concerns.
60%. 60% of the time those who walk in to see a psychiatrist despite presenting with bipolar will not get a bipolar diagnosis. 60%. (Wolkenstein et al., 2011) And that's not even mentioning the fact that, on average, onset of bipolar symptoms to diagnosis is nine years. Nine YEARS. (Gruber & Weinstock, 2018) Psychiatrists are fucking up diagnoses regularly
The reality is that psychiatry is not perfect, and the internet seriously needs to stop acting like it's the only way to process mental illness
Christ. Thanks for the info, really sad but interesting.
I just wanted to add to this too
I'm doing a social work master's degree and specifically chose a university that has a macro social work program (macro is essentially large scale stuff like policy work) since I don't want to be a therapist, which is pretty much the most common social work job. I'm not kidding when I say that in any class I take, at most there will be like 3 students in the macro track. I think I was told 90% or more of the MSW students are doing the clinical program.
Even though I'm macro, I'm still required to take some basic clinical classes that are essentially classes on how to be a therapist. Please take what I say here with a grain of salt since I'm not in the clinical track, but at the end of these classes I'm always like "Wait, that's it?" I never feel actually prepared to do any therapy work or even talk to a client. For the intro class about doing one-on-one therapy, everything was lecture and discussion. We didn't actually practice doing therapy by roleplaying with each other until the very end. We had like two class meetings for roleplays and then immediately afterwards a final roleplay assignment that zero students felt prepared for. I kid you not, the roleplays we did in class were scenarios like "A client who is having difficulty with their boss" and then for the actual roleplay assignment my scenario was "A client who recently lost their house in a flood." The professor expected me to know how to help with trauma and loss when the few practice roleplays we did were about helping a client feel confident enough to do a work presentation.
A lot of classes are electives, which I guess is so you can choose what populations you want to focus on, but some classes that are electives I'm like...what?? Like the class on loss and bereavement is an elective. Human sexuality is an elective too (though we do talk about the LGBTQ+ community and queerphobia in other classes).
And again, take what I'm saying about the clinical track with some healthy skepticism since I'm not in it. We also have two internships and there is an extensive, long process to get licensed, which is a requirement to be a therapist. There are also more degrees than just social work that lead to a job in therapy, and you have to not only renew your license every few years (which requires taking more classes) but you also have to be licensed in every. single. state you offer your services in. However, I still am surprised how my clinical classes have been (My one good clinical class has been group therapy. I love it, and we actually were our own therapy group together in class, so we essentially got practice every single week plus "free" therapy. It's been amazing. 10/10 would take this class again.)
Another thing that really upsets me and rubs me the wrong way is how common ableist language is in my degree program. Not only the students but even my professors who are experienced therapists will use words like "cr*zy" or say insensitive stuff. The classes also hammer in the idea that empathy is everything instead of acknowledging that empathy is not a synonym for compassion. And I have had classes where (and I'm pretty sure this was not the professor's word choice but instead a requirement for the course) they would talk about "difficult clients" and show material that was super ableist about people who experience psychosis and personality disorders. My group therapy professor was wincing the entire time she had to discuss the "difficult client" chapter because of how awful it is, but I'm assuming she was required to discuss it because she visibly did not like the wording used and said to us that the terminology is bad. I can't find the powerpoint about the chapter for some reason, but here are some screenshots from my textbook of some of the most egregious pages of the chapter. Warning for a ton of ableism against people with psychosis, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, and personality disorders in general:
Another thing is that science in general is not automatically correct or devoid of bias/oppression. The DSM-5 literally pretends that fat people can't have anorexia. If a fat person experiences every aspect of anorexia EXCEPT being thin, then they're categorized as having "atypical anorexia." The majority of the scientific/medical field is extraordinarily fatphobic and ignorant. Information and studies that disprove common bigoted beliefs about fat people/fatness are suppressed. The majority of studies about weight and nutrition are severely flawed, and that is still true even after taking my research course this semester that explained all about how to design a study and the types of threats to a study's validity. Almost every single flaw my professor said a study could have I was like "Yep, I've seen that in [blank] fatphobic weight study." And as for other oppressed groups, society used to believe that women had "female hysteria," that AIDS was "the gay disease," that gayness was a mental disorder, that different ethnicities were scientifically proven to be "inferior," etc. So even if a therapist knows everything about current therapy, they can still be wrong if the science is wrong.
One thing I can say is that we're taught to refer clients to other therapists and resources that can help them when we can't. So if your therapist isn't helping you, especially if they don't know anything about your mental illness, they were trained to help you find someone who CAN help. If they don't refer you, then they aren't even following what they were taught.
Anyways, I hope this doesn't make anyone too disappointed in humanity
It’s really sad that they made a DSM-5/mental illness joke in the My Little Pony comics (Yeah, I can’t believe it either).
The context of this picture is that in issue 65 of the MLP: FIM comic, Princess Celestia disguised herself as a regular pony to listen to her subjects’ honest opinions of her and her work (with good intentions). She used an amulet that had a magical ability to disguise its wearer. Someone steals the amulet in the comic and she goes to Twilight Sparkle for help while still not looking like her normal self. Twilight doesn’t believe her at first and the comic makes a joke about her and Starlight Glimmer believing she’s neurodivergent. The book titled “DSM” is a reference to the DSM-5, which is used to diagnose mental disorders. Starlight asking about a “delusion of grandeur” is a reference to psychosis, particularly people who experience delusions.
So they made a joke out of mentally disabled people and a book of diagnostic criteria that has major problems with contributing to oppression and medicalization, and keep in mind that this is a comic based on a KID’S CARTOON about colorful, happy ponies. This is so messed up, and it’s disappointing to see mentally disabled people made into nothing but a disrespectful “joke” yet again.