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I’ve been feeling an increase in skepticism and an increase in overall energy for a while now… It usually hits around September and lasts through December before I crash a bit.
The weird thing is… This time people are agreeing with me. I’m connecting with more and more young people who are fed up with being deemed incompetent and too young to understand.
I watched the third movie of Hunger Games tonight and it struck me how we need to seek opportunity to demand changes.
We, as people who are at the will of the mental health system and organizations that claim to have our best interest in mind, need to rise to the challenge to achieve our self defined purpose.
This song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r-Oi43EsQNU really got me during the movie…. We need to inspire hope.
We need to ask of those who demand that we conform that – we’re equals right? As in we’re people. Yeah, we might be younger and less experienced. Yes, we may have less of an education, and haven’t attended as many meetings. Yet, at the end of the day, we are equals – right?
Because if we are really equals you would step back and think about that feeling that is boiling in your gut as being a response that has been programed to be there. If we were equals you would open your door and say come in and join me to understand what needs to happen next to achieve the best outcomes for all…
As I say f— you authority, you may have a response… “I am the boss, I am the leader, I am the person who has been entrusted to lead.” By who? The people? Who are the people that gave you this authority to decide what is best for me?
Are they the ones who have risen out of the ashes of a broken system to find grace and wisdom?
I have been feeling an increasing level of unrest lately and I haven’t been able to put my finger on it. It is clear that my unrest lies in a raising of consciousness.
My intention is to build partnerships with those who share in the mission to liberate those who have been systematically marginalized and deemed incompetent by the very system that uses their disability to justify expenses.
This is a compilation of a few pieces I wrote while being “stabilized” that I found related to the hunger games movie. It’s so weird how ideas come together sometimes…
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Katniss Everdeen is my girl! I love Hunger Games and its so interesting that you gained inspiration from it in this way, because it inspires me also.
It ignites a fight in me to demand respect and to fight oppression & all things just downright unjust. Katniss is a fighter.. a true hero. As a young adult, I completely see where you’re coming from. I get the idea of no one truly giving us an opportunity to speak our mind (if they do, they haven’t really listened to me.. they just let me speak to be fair) and I def have dealt with discrimination just based on the fact that I’m “young”, so I see and feel your frustration….
While I would love to say eff the authority and all that, I cant see how that really works in this young adult movement that you’re talking about. We need to work with those leaders of those orgs and get them to understand where we are coming from. Yeah its annoying that everyone can’t agree with young adults and won’t give us the chance to prove what they think about us wrong, but i think thats the beauty in this fight. The challenge is getting people to believe in us and getting people to see things our way… and I personally love that. We need to get closer to the “authority” and work with them to make changes with and for young adults. I think its best to reciprocate what we want from them– instead of fighting them, lets give them a chance. A chance to understand where they’re coming from, just what we want. I dont want them to say eff us, so maybe we need to work on embracing them or at least pretending to do so until we get our seat at the table with the stakeholders.
*does Mockingjay whistle call**
I’m all about getting people with mental health problems what they need, and it is painfully obvious we are being ignored, but I think it’s important to humanize the issue. We are not trying to get what we need from the authority, we are trying to get it from people who are in a position of authority. We are not fighting oppression we are fighting people who can be oppressive. I see a problem in us people with mental health problems (or just the Warmline group) demanding empathy from mental health employees and decision makers when we are obviously not reciprocating. As much as it often does not seem to be this way, remember that us people with mental health problems have a relationship with those in the field. You can’t always demand things in a relationship. It’s vital to see things from the other person’s perspective and compromise. It’s not about us getting exactly what we want, it’s about coming up with something that both people agree on.
We are the undisputed experts on our experiences, but that does not mean we own the relationship. I remember during the Newtown hearings, I testified against involuntary outpatient because I didn’t believe it would work. If an outpatient group had many people who didn’t want to be there, it would really harm the recovery of those who are ready to create positive change in their life. I wrote this because I knew I needed to address the relationship. The panelists were there because they care about effective mental health treatment. Keeping this in mind I told them that involuntary outpatient wouldn’t be. Most of the other testimonies from people with mental health problems said that involuntary outpatient is against their rights. This is true, and the last thing I would want if I had to go back into the hospital is for a doctor to have free reign over my treatment. But by saying this and simply shutting the professionals down instead of addressing their concerns, the relationship was ignored, and people with mental health problems basically said they were the only important side in the relationship.
If people with mental health problems and professionals were truly empathetic to each other, I think the solution would come a lot more easily. However, when we go to meetings and events, we often reassert that we are the only ones who should be making the decisions, and we are the important side in the relationship. I believe this results in us being seen as a roadblock, and is a major factor that stops us from planning our own treatment.
I don’t think professionals necessarily exclude us because they have an aversion to us as equals. They probably think if they include us, they can’t be equals.