📰EXCLUSIVE: Adeshola Ore on our advice to the Minister for Mental Health #NotBeforeTime A world-first report Incredible work @Bullyresearch, Chris, Flick Grey, Lorna, Morgan Cataldo, Katrina, Sharon, @timheffo & Kerry Hawkins Pls read & share! 1/5 theguardian.com/australia-news…

Today is a huge day for many of us who have experienced harm in the mental health system - as consumers, survivors, family members, carers or supporters. What a brilliant and TOUGH process to arrive at this report: livedexperiencejustice.au

I sincerely want this in my world Indigo Daya Simon Katterl. Just imagine having a hospital alternative where we could share stories and co-create robust understandings together! The hermeneutical resources of co-conspirators & Mad Studies saved my life, dignity & sense of hope.

Here here 👏 “Depression” was egregiously unexplanatory for me - it charged the subject from my (depressing) conditions to my pathological “condition”. Locating distress within individuals is a very serious social and moral problem.

Rufus and Elisabeth are space holders I hold in the deepest of tender respect. If you can get to the UK, you won’t regret it! Elisabeth taught me so much about my own sensitivity and Rufus’ barefoot keynotes gave me courage to show up ever more authentically. Such profound wisdom

Unconscionable. Carceral systems enable dehumanization. Debbie Kilroy is one of the most profound social change agents I’ve had the deep privilege of learning from (I’d also have been incarcerated by prisons rather than psychiatry were it not for privilege & circumstances).

Sociologically-informed perspectives found to more self-esteem promoting than psychiatric labels. I found adding social theory (former sociologist here, social theory goes much deeper) + stigmaphilic Mad Pride (=Mad Studies) transformative. Stigmaphobic (normative) stories kill.

It's incredible how rich entitled men in public life are able to construe situations so they are a victim. They seem incapable of holding others in mind or of being curious about potential learnings. It's classic DARVO - deny, accuse and reverse the victim/offender relationship.

A new personality disorder has been discovered! “Normal Personality Disorder”. Symptoms include inability to express feelings, rugged personal independence, getting over grief & other tender feelings by repression etc. Alarmingly, it afflicts many psychiatrists & world leaders.

What has the titan experience proved to us? We can definitely coordinate internationally with ongoing rolling media coverage to search & rescue refugees who seek safety while traveling across international waters to ensure no one dies but we choose not too #Titan #Titanic

An impressive group of humans have been speaking about the harms we experienced in the mental health system. We want the system to listen deeply to our experiences, acknowledge the harms and transform how we respond to folks at our darkest moments. Very proud to be part of this!

Absolutely shocking & absolutely endemic. A young woman in distress is labeled as BPD and then treated with contempt resulting in death. The take away for the hospital is to deny care to people with a BPD label. We need to stop pretending this label is legitimate medical care.

Remember how we reported COVID deaths using the phrase “with comorbidities” to minimise COVID’s impact on “people like us” (aka valued humans). I’ve got long COVID (I had super mild asthma pre-COVID). I sincerely hadn’t realised how deep ableism runs until my own lungs taught me

This is so relevant to mental health reform- the Royal Commission described a “catastrophic failure” of the mh system. We need to seriously attend to the paradigm shift - where humans are recognised as resourceful knowledge creators with agency rather than things to be managed.

I suspect this applies to all kinds of humans who become dysregulated & punished (Eg folks in psych units, or other carceral contexts) - I know for myself loss of autonomy => dysregulation. This is especially true for folks the normative world wasn’t designed for.

Incredibly powerful thread. Accountability and discomfort as *essential* to community. Calling out colonial notions of community as extractive and comfortable. Accountability as a gift not a threat. Feeling this and unsettled by it (yes, usefully)

Love this! Imagine if mental health services considered mental load! Last time my mental health went south, it was 99% mental load. Did I need a hospital admission/meds? Nope. Meals, childcare, cleaning, admin help (esp online 🤯🤯) while solo parenting an infant under lockdown…

Dehumanization of folks already in distress is horrific and endemic in our psychiatric system. It happened to me too, 5 years ago (it sears like it was yesterday). Our humanity should not be eviscerated in the name of health care. Thank you 🙏 Nicole Lee theage.com.au/national/victo…

Great to see Prof Ian Hickie resisting the narrative that trans youth should be denied respectful medical care. Of course there is complexity, but fear mongering harms us all, but most especially trans young people who deserve wholehearted support and collective listening.