tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25406675704535506832024-03-12T21:44:28.902-07:00Acting NTTwo adults in a trenchcoat <br>pretending to be a child <br>
(They/them) <br> No Rights Reserved.Acting NThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634541399722254936noreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2540667570453550683.post-51176552284292766062019-10-15T19:30:00.000-07:002019-10-15T19:30:03.253-07:00A Trans Reading of The Beginner's GuideThe Beginner's Guide is a game about games, and a game about game development, but what does it say about the role of gender in human relationships?
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/r0fIlgTPMzc" width="480"></iframe>
<br />
No-commentary play footage by Pascal Schuster: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/DaChekah400/">https://www.youtube.com/user/DaChekah400/</a>
<br />
<br />
The Beginner's Guide can be purchased on Steam: <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/303210/The_Beginners_Guide/">https://store.steampowered.com/app/303210/The_Beginners_Guide/</a>
<br />
<br />
To see more of our videos, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/c/ActingNT" target="_blank">visit our YouTube channel</a>.Acting NThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634541399722254936noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2540667570453550683.post-65879821674283913322019-08-09T18:54:00.000-07:002019-08-09T18:54:01.537-07:00Everything Wrong With Adam (Autism Sins)Adam (2009) is a story about a disabled man and his personal care assistant who also has sex with him. It's no wonder they break up.
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/92ItMlrA-VE" width="480"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
To see more of our videos, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/c/ActingNT" target="_blank">visit our YouTube channel</a>.Acting NThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634541399722254936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2540667570453550683.post-36972120252842764762019-07-02T19:30:00.000-07:002019-07-02T19:30:09.012-07:00Autism Sins: Adam from HouseEverything Wrong With House M.D. season 3, episode 4 "Lines in the Sand" and its portrayal of Autistic patient Adam Kelvey.
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IUJZUOKttC8" width="480"></iframe>
<br />
This was the very first Autism Sins video, now remastered for 2019.
<br />
<br />
To see more of our videos, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/c/ActingNT" target="_blank">visit our YouTube channel</a>.Acting NThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634541399722254936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2540667570453550683.post-79375463026280318262019-06-25T20:31:00.001-07:002023-03-26T13:36:21.335-07:00Everything Wrong With Atypical, Episode Five (Autism Sins)Teen Sheldon's girlfriend read about autism on Wikipedia, and now she's an expert! Her acts of abuse will almost make you feel sorry for Atypical's Misogynist In Chief. <br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0LV_sLWDvgg" width="480"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
To see more of our videos, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/c/ActingNT" target="_blank">visit our YouTube channel</a>.Acting NThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634541399722254936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2540667570453550683.post-44595070152761016242019-06-11T21:00:00.000-07:002019-06-17T08:58:51.686-07:00Everything Wrong with Autism In Love (Autism Sins)Have the rich complexities of Autistic love finally been shown on screen, or is this another lazy cishet sob story? It turns obvious pretty quick, so place your bets now!
<br />
<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qTbfV8tgcj0" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br />
<br />
To see more of our videos, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDzIdcGEqc4kINPet77PZng" target="_blank">visit our YouTube channel</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2540667570453550683.post-29095103405015979042019-05-01T19:30:00.000-07:002019-05-01T19:30:03.371-07:00System Pride Day: An Exclusionist Double FeatureFrom TERFs to ace exclusionists, every identity group has people in it who think they get to decide who is and who isn't allowed in. The multiples community is no exception.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NGxeTASSEbQ" width="480"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
To see more of our videos, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/c/ActingNT" target="_blank">visit our YouTube channel</a>.Acting NThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634541399722254936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2540667570453550683.post-35242440083347696182019-04-01T12:11:00.001-07:002019-04-01T12:11:10.567-07:00CinemaSinsSinsSinsSins: SinceptionYou ain't never seen meta like this.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UEvEj8HDCAk" width="480"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrgXtfDQ13o">Click here to watch the original video from Jay Exci's SinsSins</a>
<br />
<br />
To see more of our videos, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/c/ActingNT" target="_blank">visit our YouTube channel</a>.Acting NThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634541399722254936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2540667570453550683.post-20206262856894945042019-02-03T12:00:00.000-08:002019-02-20T21:02:23.535-08:00Fad Diets For Psychiatrized Children: The Drug Paradigm In Disguise<i><b> "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."</b></i><br />
<i>–English proverb of unknown origin, meaning people often do bad things for seemingly good reasons</i><br />
<br />
As fighters of what seems like a losing battle, and in some cases really is, we are often tempted by what <i>look like</i> concessions to our cause, but are really not. For psychiatric survivors, Mad/Neurodivergent people, and anyone else critical of the mental health system, <i>drugs</i> often take the focus, thanks to their dangerous or even deadly "side effects" and multi-billion-dollar marketing campaigns. It can be a relief to hear the story of a parent going against doctor's orders and sparing their kid the harmful drugs. However, that doesn't necessarily mean no harm is taking place. There are lots of ways to hurt children besides drugging them, which many parent organizations are advocating for.<br />
<br />
Look no further than anti-vaccine cult groups, and you will see people who are not only fond of resurrecting deadly diseases, but also of any other so-called alternative said to fix their children who aren't broken. They eagerly spend thousands at a time on vitamins, consultations with nutritionists, oxygen chambers, and anal bleaching (and not the fun porn variety). These are people who hate drugs not because they have demonstrable negative effects on people's livelihood, but because <i>Big Pharma</i> is a scary name. At best, we could conclude this pattern is evidence of our movement gaining traction− that someone would go out of their way to deceive us. More likely, these parents are only specifically against psychiatric drugging, and for bad reasons, while still operating within a pathology paradigm, potentially doing greater damage than drugs would.<br />
<br />
Look further than anti-vaccination, and the bleach goes away but the diets remain. Healthism has gotten so out-of-control that it reaches beyond fatphobia and convinces people that ALL of their problems, real or perceived, can be solved by giving money to a nutritionist. The most popular diets bubble up and blow over in a series of fads, much like the fad drugs that proliferate advertising space until our culture gets tired of the name.<br />
<br />
The Feingold diet became one of the most famous in the 1970's, still referenced with admiration today, despite a lack of credible research supporting its effectiveness. Growing up in the 90's and early 2000s, I remember when the headless torsos started appearing on television, scaring people into counting carbs and calories lest they become another anonymous fat body. At time of writing, the big fads are now eliminating gluten, fear of GMOs, "organic" versions of food typically farmed with pesticides, and flirting with overdose on vitamin supplements. The gluten-free fad is the one silver lining on this list: people with celiac disease or other gluten sensitivities can now more easily find food that is actually edible. Forcing gluten-free on a non-gluten-sensitive child, however, is imposing a restriction for no reason.<br />
<br />
Fad diets are not harmless nor above criticism. They are not inherently challenging to the drug-based, pathological worldview. In fact, media messaging to promote diets, when not accompanied by a clear anti-psychiatry stance, often does more to support pathologizing madness/neurodivergence than to challenge it. These are more than pitfalls– they are fundamental patterns of ableism and abuse culture.<br />
<br />
<h4>
1. You are still trying to "treat" a perceived "mental disorder".</h4>
<br />
The definition of <i>psychiatry</i> is the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders.<br />
<br />
Not all practitioners of fad diets do so under the pretense of treating a disorder, but those who <i>do</i> are amateur psychiatrists operating under a drug-based paradigm. They are treating food the way a psychiatrist treats a drug: A substance you put in someone's body to cure them of their alleged illness. It's tempting to see a parallel between avoiding certain foods and avoiding psychiatric drugs, but since we actually need food to live, a message that your current diet is causing problems necessarily holds the subtext that putting something <i>else</i> into your body would solve those problems. Fad diets for psychiatrized children <i>are psychiatry.</i> They are also abuse.<br />
<br />
No matter the method, regarding someone's natural state of mind as a health condition and attempting to eliminate it under the guise of "treatment", without asking whether they agree that it's unhealthy and consent to treatment, is psychiatric abuse. When it comes to children, we are usually talking about those labeled as "ADHD" or Autistic. Accurate or not, the label is the first psychiatric act against the child– I say "against" because what immediately follows is almost always a discussion of "treatment" options, skipping over the question of whether <i>any</i> intervention is actually necessary or beneficial.<br />
<br />
New opinion articles appear on the daily, expressing concern about "over-diagnosis" of ADHD, and more recently autism as well– the latter held back by alarmist rhetoric claiming there are <i>actually more Autistic people</i> than before (Oppositional Defiant Disorder on the other hand can't be over-diagnosed, lest we imply that in some cases, disobeying your parents is not a mental illness). Children who are prescribed amphetamines based on a label that wasn't even the correct one to begin with are harmed immensely by forced drugging. In the same way, if you change a child's diet because someone decided they have a disorder now, when their diet was already healthy before, that's harmful too.<br />
<br />
For someone who really is Autistic or kinetic or has some other real madness/neurodivergence that's just been pathologized with "disorder" affixed to its name, the harm remains. Responding to the correct label with a fad diet marketed as "treatment" is still trying to fix someone who isn't broken. They aren't broken because being Mad or Neurodivergent isn't an illness. If your coincidentally gluten-intolerant Autistic child has fewer Autistic meltdowns in the absence of constant allergic stomach aches, good for them. That doesn't mean autism is "caused" by gluten or "cured" by going gluten-free.<br />
<br />
There is one difference though: Your correctly labeled child is not going to shed the labels as they grow up. The lasting internalized message will not be "my parents tried to cure my nonexistent disorder" because while the attribute in question isn't a disorder, it is real. No matter how much influence food has on surface states like fatigue or migraines, it can't change a brain attribute that is fundamental and pervasive, but if it could, that would still be abuse. When you talk about your child's state of normal as something unwanted, what you are saying to your child is "you have this label and that's a disorder. You are ill. The way you naturally are is bad and wrong." It doesn't matter if your strategy is drugs, food, or positive reinforcement. For adults, dying and being replaced by a more lovable doppelganger is the plot of a horror movie. Telling your child that you wish it upon them in real life is abuse. Maybe the literal drug approach would be extra dangerous, but take away the drugs and you still have a pathology problem. Not only do the ends not justify the means, the ends condemn the means.<br />
<br />
<h4>
2. It's still about control, not support.</h4>
<br />
Whenever concerns about fad diets reach the ears of parents who use them, one rebuttal is ready in the chamber: This isn't about changing someone's personality, it's helping them grow by removing toxins. Perhaps, for children who haven't been psychiatrized, this is sometimes true. Neurotypical children with no added labels get to eat a reasonable variety and treats in moderation, with an eye toward what is actually healthy and keeps them feeling good. Fad-inclined parents still overstep on occasion, but it's not about rejecting the personhood of their own child. That is until a pathologized label or deviant behavior enters the picture. At that point, dietary adjustments become about <i>correcting behavior.</i><br />
<br />
When your greatest hope for your child's new diet is that it will cause them to speak orally, or sit still in a classroom, or stop hearing voices, or stabilize their mood, I call bullshit on this being about support. Surely some parents genuinely believe that those things are necessary for enabling a child to thrive, except that "thrive" means "according to cultural notions of success" and success means fitting in and "fit in" is code for "be neurotypical." Like when a fat adult sees a doctor and automatically gets told to lose weight, "hit the treadmill for a month and <i>then</i> we'll talk about that broken leg," a neurodivergent child needs to be cured of an alleged mental illness that isn't really hurting anyone else. Only after that "cure" can we even ask the question of whether there is a legitimate physical problem to address.<br />
<br />
Ultimately the presence or absence of a medical or health issue is irrelevant though. Ableist parents and their rarely-licensed doctors may claim that madness is somehow located in other places besides the brain, but even then, body changes are merely a strategy to cause mental changes. Literally everyone has gut bacteria, but only the ones that allegedly "cause mental disorders" are considered a problem.<br />
<br />
Children can't consent. Somehow, this phrase manages to take away rights and protections rather than increase either of them. Children can't consent, so we should make the least dangerous assumptions? Get them vaccinated and wait on madness until they're 18 and can decide if it's a disorder or not? No. Children can't consent, therefore it's the parent's right to decide everything. Just like mentally ill people can't consent, therefore it's the medical professional's right to decide everything. Paternalism is paternalism, including when it involves a literal parent.<br />
<br />
For children, the definition of a mental disorder can include talking too much, having too much energy, being easily distracted, playing loudly, not wanting to do their schoolwork, not obeying commands from adults, fidgeting, running and climbing. That's not one blogger's political commentary– those examples are all explicit diagnostic criteria in the DSM, the aptly nicknamed "Bible of psychiatry". Take away all those characteristics, and what are you left with? The end-goal psychiatrists have sold, and parents bought, is an emotionless drone that completes assigned tasks as commanded. A drone that doesn't play, think, explore, speak unless spoken to, express individuality, or ever disobey an adult. What you are left with hardly seems <i>human,</i> much less childlike.<br />
<br />
Yet this is exactly what you are asking for when you lament your child being too loud, too talkative, too fidgety, too… human. Too "out of control"– whose control? Certainly not their own, or we would have that supposed disaster scenario where children do what they want. Surprise: raising a human being is not as simple as a pet rock. Independent thought and action don't prevent anyone from thriving, they're just too much of a burden on the parent. <i>That's </i>why they need to be eliminated. You figured out that punching your child is a bad way to do this, but you still haven't figured out how to teach through conversation, so now you are trying to control your child by deciding what goes into their body.<br />
<br />
<h4>
3. The problem of "ADHD"</h4>
<br />
I put "ADHD" in quotes only to point out that it is one of the most ill-conceived titles in the DSM (second perhaps to Borderline Personality Disorder). Someone must have really hated these people to put both "deficit" and "disorder" baked into the name, and still be so unsatisfied to then add a ridiculous contradiction that spells out "Attention Not-enough Too-much Disorder."<br />
<br />
I don't, however, make the mistake of going on to say that there's no such thing as having a kinetic cognitive style. Yes, "ADHD" is over-diagnosed to sell drugs, but implicit in the term "over-diagnosed" is an admission that some non-zero number of people being labeled would be the correct number. Psychiatrists are terrible at describing things accurately and unbiasedly, but just because some number of people are bad at their job, or corrupted by bribes, doesn't mean their focus of study is made-up wholesale. "Schizophrenia" isn't a mental illness, but some people really do hear voices that aren't from other people. "Bipolar Disorder" isn't a disorder, but bipolar people are real. In the same way, kinetic people really do respond to drugs differently from neurotypicals, whether or not a million non-kinetic children are <i>also</i> incorrectly labeled as having ADHD.<br />
<br />
It makes sense to identify as anti-psychiatry, if you believe that the whole system ought to be burned down and built anew, but that doesn't mean the concept of medication is fundamentally wrongheaded. People who want to alter their own mental state by ingesting a substance should be able to buy that product with informed consent, which we can because it's called food. People who want to use drugs for that purpose and give informed consent should be able to buy drugs as well. That includes children. Minors can't consent in the legal sense, but in practice with a truly caring parent, a little information and some yes-or-no questions go a long way. If you really can't reason with your child, either you the parent have a problem, or your child is too young to be in school. <br />
<br />
Kinetic adults who choose to take drugs for focus used to be kinetic children who wanted them. The problem with psychiatry is the corruption and incompetence among the people recommending which drugs to take, not the chemical content of the drugs themselves. Some chemicals actually are beneficial for some category of people. <i>If you can't make your own neurotransmitters, store-bought is fine.</i> The goal of forced dieting is still to alter the brain; why not be open to whichever method is most effective?<br />
<br />
<h4>
4. Unhealthy relationships and eating disability</h4>
<br />
So what if people like fad diets? The real problem is treating made-up mental disorders, so why single out one particular strategy? Why such a fervent reaction to food? It's not like parents can harm their children just by changing what they eat. Except that <i>they can.</i> In fact, if you claim food is so powerful that a good diet can cure Mad/Neurodivergent people of our already non-diseased brains, you've just admitted that a bad diet can cause a comparable amount of damage.<br />
<br />
The phenomena we hastily truncate as "eating disorders" have an underlying truth, and that is an unhealthy relationship with food. This simple language correction helps us recognize the lack of evidence to justify calling these patterns disorders. Relationships aren't spontaneously manifested chemical imbalances. Relationships are born from experience.<br />
<br />
Some sociologists put paradigm before language and talk about "eating disorder culture"– that is, the combination of trends in media messaging, peer attitudes, and parenting styles, which create and reinforce the emergent patterns we're still calling eating disorders. The media teaches us that we're supposed to want skinniness no matter the cost; our friends guilt us for eating the wrong things; and parents punish their children with shame (refusing to eat this means you're bad), Sophie's choices (you either eat this or I take away your privileges), sometimes physical abuse or even starvation, to correct for a natural, youthful disinterest in raw vegetables. The vegetable craze is so pervasive it can't even be considered a fad any more, but it perfectly illustrates the logical fallacy: Inflicting emotional and psychological trauma on a person, in an attempt to make that person <i>healthy.</i> It's the same logical fallacy used to justify confinement, electroshock, coercive behavior therapies, and forced drugging.<br />
<br />
Growing up with excessive rules and restrictions around eating, enforced through manipulation and coercion, can lead to an unhealthy, restrictive relationship with food later in life (and with other things: teach a child they're not allowed to refuse broccoli and see what skill that future teen or adult has at refusing alcohol). It's not hard to trace causation from loss of autonomy to attempts at abstinence. From obsessive parental criticism of portions to binging and purging. From panics about "childhood obesity" to an anxiety around every meal as either a reward or shameful self-harm.<br />
<br />
Considering that disabilities exist, you don't even need the manipulation or coercion. The food restriction itself can be a form of abuse. If your child has such intense taste sensitivities that they can only bear to eat five (5) different things, taking those away isn't going to expand their horizons. You can't increase variety using restrictions. That's another logical contradiction. All you're going to accomplish is to create an actual health condition, called starving. If your child has an allergy (or similar biological sensitivity) then of course you put safety first and restrict that particular allergen. That's the unfortunate fate of people with actual biological restrictions, not something you want to artificially imitate.<br />
<br />
The dangers of food restriction don't stop with the individual either. In a world where not every host of a play date, party or co-op is enlightened about accommodating disabilities, there are social implications. Children below a certain age don't know to avoid their own allergens, so their parents have to watch over them and pull out of any event serving those allergens. Parents who play pretend as if their children have allergies are just as committed. Both groups wind up with a restricted social life, which can lead to other real problems like anxiety, depression, and self-perpetuating social isolation. Someone can't attend a social function because they are restricted from engaging in the planned activities– that sounds like an access barrier. If this kid wasn't disabled before, they are now!<br />
<br />
Fad diets are not an alternative to psychiatric drugging. They are more of the same. Just like drugs, they don't "cure" any imaginary mental illnesses, and if they did, that would make them worse than drugs. They prevent people who would actually want drugs from getting them. They don't teach any life skills and may even take some away. They hinder social lives and disable the people they're imposed on. They create trauma, with lifelong ramifications.<br />
<br />
My list of neurodivergences doesn't include kinetic cognitive style. As a child, I would have reacted to a prescribed amphetamine the way most people do. Yet I still would rather my parents have drugged me, than force me on a fad diet.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wsWJF67WDjE/W3E6thIKDQI/AAAAAAAACSo/_BRLJLGp6aMGmUMwxdPLvHl6BIGAx_lCQCLcBGAs/s1600/the-pill-1136271_1920.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wsWJF67WDjE/W3E6thIKDQI/AAAAAAAACSo/_BRLJLGp6aMGmUMwxdPLvHl6BIGAx_lCQCLcBGAs/s200/the-pill-1136271_1920.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #073763;">Image description: Open tin with pellets inside, unclear whether they are candy or drugs</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />Acting NThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634541399722254936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2540667570453550683.post-83014751023075794852018-08-18T10:18:00.002-07:002018-08-18T10:18:15.941-07:00Everything Wrong With Atypical, Episode Four (Autism Sins)We're back with more Atypical, where every episode is worse than the last! Here we dive deep into parent sympathy, with an extended support group full of functioning labels. The toxic masculinity, of course, goes unchallenged as well.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dVIc_BRmb_c" width="480"></iframe>
<br />
Autism Sins is a snarky, sometimes satirical series, where I review media portrayals of autism in a rip off- er, I mean, an homage to the format of CinemaSins.
<br />
<br />
To see more of my videos, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDzIdcGEqc4kINPet77PZng" target="_blank">visit my YouTube channel</a>.Acting NThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634541399722254936noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2540667570453550683.post-55014776907703972402018-07-20T12:26:00.003-07:002018-07-20T12:26:55.198-07:00Lessons Animation Taught Us About Institutions - Madness In MediaWhat lessons can children's cartoons teach us about confinement in psychiatric hospitals and institutions? This journey through time will show how these depictions have evolved over the years.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PtfNqVXNQbE" width="480"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
Welcome to Madness In Media, an exploration of works that feature mad themes and mad characters, and what they say about our society.
<br />
<br />
To see more of my videos, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/c/ActingNT" target="_blank">visit my YouTube channel</a>.Acting NThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634541399722254936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2540667570453550683.post-52902150332798307462018-06-29T18:44:00.000-07:002018-06-29T18:44:42.810-07:00Autism Sins: Carl from ArthurThis Very Special Episode makes a puzzle piece the center of the plot, and yup, that pretty much tells you how this is gonna go down.<br />
<br />
<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YniJnSgcoL8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/InvaderMea" target=_blank">Thanks YouTube user Nava Candi for recommending this episode</a>.
<br />
<br />
Autism Sins is a snarky, sometimes satirical series, where I review media portrayals of autism in a rip off- er, I mean, an homage to the format of CinemaSins.
<br />
<br />
To see more of my videos, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDzIdcGEqc4kINPet77PZng" target="_blank">visit my YouTube channel</a>.Acting NThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634541399722254936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2540667570453550683.post-57217382574552406862018-06-15T12:00:00.000-07:002018-06-15T12:00:04.321-07:00What 13 Reasons Why is Really About - Madness In MediaWhat is 13 Reasons Why? A gross glorification of suicide? A reckless cash grab? Or a poignant social commentary aggressively ignored?<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/J47XkU9F1lU" width="480"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
Welcome to Madness In Media, an exploration of works that feature mad themes and mad characters, and what they say about our society.
<br />
<br />
To see more of my videos, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/c/ActingNT" target="_blank">visit my YouTube channel</a>.Acting NThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634541399722254936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2540667570453550683.post-92000773386637309432018-03-15T10:27:00.000-07:002020-04-19T11:45:52.803-07:00How Would We Know If We Overthrew the Mental Health System?The radicalness of the anti-psychiatry movement has unfortunately
become one of its greatest hurdles to overcome. Even in otherwise
radical spaces like <i>prison abolition</i>, <i>neurodiversity</i>, or <i>intersectional feminism</i>,
the most common reaction to anti-psychiatry ideas is to dismiss them as
so intuitively ridiculous they need not be engaged with. Sanism,
behaviorism, drugs and force have permeated our culture to the point
many people literally can’t imagine life without them.<br />
<br />
On a good day, our leaders pontificate about “reforms” that would
somehow fix a system whose deepest foundation is a bed of violence,
oppression, and at best pseudoscience. They ask for <i>cultural awareness training, yoga classes, art therapy,</i> and <i>healthier food options</i> in psychiatric facilities, without ever questioning the confinement that made those
things unavailable in the first place (let alone the coercion involved
when participation in such activities becomes a condition of
release).<br />
<br />
<b>Reform is a jail cell with pretty wallpaper. We don’t need
mental health reform, we need total abolition of force and coercion. The
system doesn’t just have problems, it <i>IS</i> the problem. So if we really fixed everything that’s wrong with the mental health system, <i>there would be no more mental health system.</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
We have to be careful, of course, about rebranding. We’ve seen this
happen with institutions for disabled people, renaming themselves to
talk about independence, while still keeping people locked in and
forcing drugs on them. Changing the name to something other than “mental
health” means nothing if whatever name we replace it with offers all
the same abuses. If we truly eliminated all the horrid practices that
are currently committed by the mental health system, what would the
world look like? <i>What would it take to go about abolishing psychiatry and the mental health system?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
<div style="background-color: transparent;">
What follows are 15 ways our
society would need to change before we could be confident that we are
free from the tyranny of the mental health system.<br />
<br />
<h3>
1. No one would be deemed incompetent.</h3>
No person would ever be declared unqualified to make decisions about
their own life. Not because of a mental illness, disorder, diagnosis,
health condition, disability, nor any other title. There would simply be
no system in place to allow such a thing. The idea of meeting legal
requirements to be conserved, confined, or made a ward of the state
would become as anachronistic as the idea of meeting legal requirements
to be enslaved. Everyone would be the ultimate authority on their own
bodies.<br />
<br />
“<i>Mentally ill</i>” is a legal term which translates into plain language as “<i>unable to make decisions</i>.” Not biologically, but legally. Unable to decide where to live, <i>whether</i>
to live, who to live with, what food to eat, and what drugs to take or
not take. Efforts to attack the term “mentally ill” as an offensive slur
haven’t done anything to combat this legal designation. All that’s
changed is that people with “<i>mental health challenges</i>” or “<i>psychiatric diagnoses</i>” are deemed unable to make decisions.<br />
<br />
The fact that such a designation exists within the law — in letter,
spirit, and execution — makes the mental health system, and by extension
our whole society, intrinsically unjust and oppressive, because <i>someone</i>
will always be designated by it. Truly overthrowing the mental health
system, as opposed to just forcing it to get more subtle or rebrand,
would mean that any remaining systems fully support cognitive liberty:
the principle that everyone can do whatever the hell they want, with
restrictions only ever placed on actions that harm <b>other</b> people.<br />
<br />
<h3>
2. All psychiatry programs in all schools would be replaced with Mad studies and neurodivergent studies programs.</h3>
As part of a total abolition of the mental health system, it would be
necessary to put a complete halt on any influx of new mental health
practitioners. For students in the middle of their training, it would be
unfair to pigeonhole them into finishing, with a degree in a field that
no longer exists. Instead, those students would be given transfer
credits and an opportunity to change programs with full scholarship.<br />
<br />
<i>Mad studies</i> and <i>neurodivergent studies</i> would open
up as new programs that these students would have the option to transfer
into. These areas of study already exist in a small number of
universities, but by freeing up funding from psychiatry programs, they
would have the opportunity to expand.<br />
<br />
The meaning of the prefix “psychiatric” is undefined in all fields,
so the only difference between a medical drug and a psychiatric drug is
that one is <i>called</i> a psychiatric drug. The study of these drugs
would be taken up by medical doctors, who are already required to learn
about drugs.<br />
<br />
<h3>
3. Mad and neurodivergent people would be managers, not “peer specialists.”</h3>
The creation of various “peer” positions has accomplished very little
besides handing out a few minimum wage jobs to disabled people. <a href="https://www.unfitchristian.com/white-church-black-reader/">A requirement of “lived experience” rather than a degree makes a vaguely defined identity group into the primary qualification</a>.<br />
<br />
The essential function of a “peer specialist” is to appear non-threatening, earn people’s trust, <i>and convince them to stay on their meds</i>.
Hiring managers know that these positions only exist because others
don’t, that there are far more job-seekers than jobs to fill, and thus
that anyone they hire is easily replaceable. “Peer specialists” are
grunt laborers with no real power to meaningfully affect the
establishment that brought them in. If a radical abolitionist gets the
job and conscientiously objects to their assigned duties, they just get
fired like in any other job.<br />
<br />
If a patient is prisoner to the medical facility, while their
counselor has never been imprisoned and is free to leave at the end of
their shift, then the counselor does not have the same lived experience
and is <b>not a peer</b> to their client. They are just
another generic white coat whose income stream depends on keeping others
locked up and coercively medicated.<br />
<br />
If the “peer specialist” has more power than the patient, then
they’re not a peer, and if they have the same or less power, then
they’re not needed.<br />
<br />
Advisory committees made up of “peer advocates” are not effective
either. They are a token position with no actual power. They can tell
the managers what to do, but the managers have no obligation to follow
their advice. In many cases all that’s accomplished is to create the <i>appearance</i> of listening, placating any protesters while creating no real policy change.<br />
<br />
What reformists say would be fixed by additional “peer specialists”
would actually be fixed by having Mad and neurodivergent people in <i>management</i>
positions, with actual decision-making power. This situation could be
achieved legislatively, through diversity quotas, or culturally, through
the understanding that Mad and neurodivergent people not only have
instant added value in their wide range of lived experiences, but also
can be just as skilled or more than any neurotypical. (Or though a socialist revolution, but that's a bit far off.)<br />
<br />
The hierarchal structure of business means that putting good people
at the top would eventually improve the immediate service at the bottom,
because we understand our own needs better than someone who just needed
a job. (Better yet, flatten the hierarchy by turning these businesses into workers' cooperatives.)<br />
<br />
<h3>
4. Crisis hotlines would be prohibited from tracking callers or dialing law enforcement without the caller’s consent.</h3>
In today’s cultural landscape, crisis hotlines are being pushed as a
way to access the mental health system quickly and without insurance.
Currently, <i>all</i> hotlines train their staff as mandated
reporters, to listen for key phrases and if the caller utters one of
them, secretly send people with guns and a history of recklessly using
them, directly to the caller’s location. The sole exception is <a href="https://www.translifeline.org/">Trans Lifeline</a>, which is of course exclusively for trans people, only a fraction of everyone who might want to call a crisis hotline.<br />
<br />
Rather than fixing these serious safety hazards, <i>reforms</i> to
crisis hotlines include expanding hours of operation, adding text
options, and starting new hotlines for identity groups like teens or
LGBT. All that gets accomplished here is increasing the number of people
who get tricked into putting themselves in danger, while thinking
they’re getting an emotional support or referral service.<br />
<br />
Crisis hotlines are undoubtedly part of the mental health system as
long as they behave this way. So in order to overthrow the system, the
hotlines would need to be more regulated. Specifically, the regulations
would give hotline callers the same confidentiality rights they have
with a doctor or therapist, which under this new paradigm would of
course include the right not to be locked up for hearing voices or being
a danger to <i>yourself</i>.<br />
<br />
<h3>
5. Compliance with Olmstead “community living” would mean Housing First with no strings attached.</h3>
The supreme court decision of Olmstead vs L.C. declares the right of
disabled people, including those disabled by psychiatry, to live “in the
community” instead of in institutions.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, the implementation has been a lot more fuzzy than the
decision itself. Prisoners of institutions wishing to leave must first
establish a place to go ahead of time, which means they must have either
the money to leave on their own or a solid support network. Obviously
people who have been disabled and stigmatized are not always going to
have those things.<br />
<br />
A few public supports exist, such as transitional housing for
homeless people, but these all come with a heaping spoon of coercion.
They may require residents to regularly see a psychiatrist, comply with
drug prescriptions, eliminate their use of non-prescribed drugs, get
chummy with their neighbors or <a href="http://shareselfhelp.org/programs/share-collaborative-housing/">attend a minimum number of religious cult meetings each week</a>.<br />
<br />
Some cities have implemented <a href="http://endhomelessness.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/housing-first-fact-sheet.pdf">Housing First programs</a>,
meaning that homeless people are taken off the street and given free
permanent homes, in some cases with no strings attached. These programs
have been a huge success, even by dogmatic standards like increases in
employment and decreased use of non-prescription illegal drugs (because
they’re not so stressed by being homeless).<br />
<br />
If you truly want to free people from institutions and homelessness, <b>just give them homes</b>.<br />
<br />
<h3>
6. Service providers would be trained to consider doing nothing as a valid option.</h3>
<i>An emotional crisis or spiritual emergency doesn’t always require an intervention of any kind.</i>
Sometimes the interventions we’re told are “best practice” only make
the situation worse. Sometimes the person experiencing the situation
already knows their best coping strategies, and will do a much better
job at implementing them than someone they have to be explained to.
Sometimes their friends are already familiar with the best ways to
support them. An emergency psychiatrist necessarily isn’t, and neither
is a so-called peer counselor.<br />
<br />
In a post-psychiatry world, both would be regularly, sternly reminded
of their humility. Moreover, they would be taught when not to
intervene, and they would not need to have basic respect packaged as
just another proprietary methodology, with a sexy name like “Open
Dialogue,” “Intentional Peer Support,” “Emotional CPR,” or even
“Alternatives to Suicide.”<br />
<br />
Suicide attempts aren’t always a “heat of the moment” thing. <b>We all die. Some of us would like to decide how, and some of us would also like to decide <i>when</i>.</b>
Sometimes a deeply introspective, thoroughly logical contemplation
reveals that suicide is the mode of death most consistent with one’s
beliefs and values. An immense degree of arrogance is needed to say that
this person should be required to live against their will, in a
facility where all their freedoms are taken away, <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/07/140715214211.htm">which could only make a </a><a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/07/140715214211.htm">reasonable person </a><a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/07/140715214211.htm">more certain</a><a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/07/140715214211.htm"> that they would rather die</a>. An even greater arrogance is needed to say that stripping a person of everything they have, emotionally and literally, would <i>improve their health</i>.<br />
<br />
Whether you place the highest importance on health or liberty, using
force and coercion makes no sense because doing so improves neither. It
makes much more sense to think of counseling a suicidal person as
end-of-life care: the professional listens, acknowledges feelings,
reflects on them, and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/NO911Campaign">doesn’t send someone with a gun to make sure their client dies faster or goes to prison.</a>
It’s not assisted suicide; it’s just respecting another person’s
beliefs and values, even if you disagree with them. You may even find
that when people have the freedom to talk about their feelings without
having violence committed against them, they might be more inclined to
keep on living.<br />
<br />
Knowing when <b>not</b> to intervene is just as important as knowing a good methodology. In many situations <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DNFMH/">doing nothing</a>
is the best strategy available. To overthrow the mental health system,
we must train professionals, as well as the general public, to regularly
and seriously consider the option of letting people make their own
decisions without trying to threaten them out of it.<br />
<br />
<h3>
7. Short-term and long-term housing would be unlocked 24/7.</h3>
<i>Peer respites, emotional wellness centers, urban safety retreats</i> — whatever
we wind up calling the former “mental health” facilities — they are all
unlocked both ways, allowing the people who stay there to come and go
as they please. Common areas like kitchens and TV rooms would remain
open and powered as well. Strongly worded legislation would be passed to
shut down any facility that resembles an institution, such as ones that
don’t pass <a href="https://autisak.wordpress.com/glossary/">the burrito test</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>Confinement is always violence.</b> Involuntary
homelessness is always violence. Lock-ins, lock-outs and curfews cannot
ever be therapeutic because they violate a person’s safety and autonomy.<br />
<br />
Furthermore, consent is not possible any time the consenting party needs someone else’s permission to leave. Even when people <i>technically</i> have the legal right to refuse drugs, or not choose the “healthy” food, or abscond from group therapy, they can be <i>coerced</i>
into doing those things because it influences someone’s opinion of how
long they need to be held. Therefore, the overthrow of the mental health
system is incompatible with the continued operation of locked
facilities.<br />
<br />
<h3>
8. Every care unit would be funded in a way that decreases the length of stay and gives visitors the drugs they want.</h3>
It’s bad enough that anyone with a badge, a degree, or a child can
create a 72-hour imprisonment with no crime, no victim, no due process,
not even a <i>charge</i>. 72 hours can cost you your job, your home, or even your life. Yet for many, those 72 hours are only the beginning.<br />
<br />
Most psychiatric facilities try to keep people for even more absurd
lengths such as weeks or months. One reason they want people to stay
longer is because medical insurance companies are willing to pay for
psychiatric services. <i>The longer the stay, the more money the facility gets.</i>
Ironically, what is otherwise considered “good insurance” paints a
target on the heads of false commitment victims, whereas “bad insurance”
may end up saving a person’s life.<br />
<br />
In these environments, it’s very easy to get a forced injection of
tranquilizers by acting non-compliant, yet it’s challenging to
impossible to get the drugs you actually want and need, or even to
continue them based on existing prescriptions.<br />
<br />
Although we should have already banned outright cages at this point,
it’s difficult to completely eliminate all coercion. Doctors and
psychiatrists can be persuasive pressurers who espouse the importance of
their snake oil, or they can refuse to administer legitimate
life-saving services until after an arbitrary screening period.<br />
<br />
To fix all of these problems, the end of the mental health system
would have to include a revision of how care facilities are funded.
Rather than getting a flat rate for each day a visitor stays, they would
get a variable rate that diminishes according to the amount of time the
person stays in the facility, instead of moving back into community
living with proper supports.<br />
<br />
This way, care facilities have a financial incentive to give visitors
the services they asked for quickly, including drugs if desired, so
that those people are satisfied enough to leave earlier.<br />
<br />
<h3>
9. All drugs would be legalized, including prescription drugs.</h3>
As said by Thomas Szasz, considered by many to be the father of anti-psychiatry, prescription drugs are <i>illegal</i>.
You cannot waltz into a drug store and buy a prescription drug without a
prescription. Prescribing to yourself is a crime. Prescribing to your
friends or family is a crime. It is a crime to give someone else a drug
that was prescribed to you, and it is a crime for you to take a drug
that was prescribed to someone else. No other form of property is
treated this way, <i>except for illegal drugs</i>.<br />
<br />
Criminalization and prescription are two sides of the same coercive
coin. Together, they mean that people who need or want a drug either
can’t get it at all, or can only get it if they are wealthy enough,
normative enough, and socially savvy enough to convince an arbitrary
authority to grant permission. Restricting your choices is not on the
same level as forcing a substance into your body, but it is one of the
many ways the mental health system oppresses us.<br />
<br />
Without the mental health system, there would be no such thing as a
psychiatric prescription because all drugs would be legal. Supporters of
the status quo often ask “<i>how would you get the medication you need without a doctor prescribing it?</i>” The answer is right there in the question: <i>without a doctor prescribing it</i>. In other words, the same way you get any other product: <i>you go to a store and buy it</i>.<br />
<br />
To overthrow the mental health system, we must abolish the
prescription system, and replace it with a system of informed consent.
Psychiatrists would no longer be the gatekeepers who decide whether you
will be allowed to take the drugs you actually want. Instead, the role
of a psychiatrist would be to give recommendations and safety warnings.
The paper you leave with would simply be a reminder note of what name
and dosage to grab off the shelf.<br />
<br />
Also, it would be nice if we released, pardoned, and compensated
everyone who is currently in jail (including the jails that are called
hospitals) on a non-violent drug charge.<br />
<br />
<h3>
10. Adverse drug effects would be independently studied, listed on the box, and discussed without taboo.</h3>
<b>Informed consent is the only true consent.</b> The
reason is simple: if a person was not made aware of the risks and
downsides, then that person did not consent to them. Abolishing
prescriptions would be a major victory, but that alone would not
guarantee a system of informed consent. Although banning untested drugs
altogether is yet another act of paternalism, <i>to protect you from yourself</i>, it is nevertheless the obligation of a responsible society to protect individuals from predatory companies.<br />
<br />
There are two parts to this change: Studying and labeling.<br />
<br />
Trials for new drugs would be conducted by independent parties.
“Independent” must mean sufficiently divorced from the manufacturer such
that the people collecting data do not know the name of the drug or the
company that made it. <i>Double-blind, placebo-controlled</i> is a
good foundation for a standard, but we must also add the full human
spectrum to the subject pool, including people of diverse ages, people
of size, disabled people, and people who have a uterus (currently
biomedical research often excludes anyone with a uterus because it would
be inconvenient if they got pregnant).<br />
<br />
As a precaution against residual paternalism from the mental health
system, the results of these studies would have to be made freely
accessible and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8fHgx9mE5U">open source</a>.
Once a drug goes mass market, the people who take it would be able to
submit anonymous complaints (petition for redress of grievances) to an
open-source government site, and a certain number of people submitting
the same complaint would automatically prompt a re-investigation.<br />
<br />
Once the drug effects are known to the elite few who understand, care
about, and have time to comb through data, that knowledge must be
disseminated. The most effective method is to require warning labels
directly on the product. PSAs on TV, in newspapers or online all have a
selection bias, word of mouth clearly hasn’t overpowered marketing money
yet, and warnings in doctor’s offices would be a moot point after
abolishing the prescription system. A mandatory warning on the package
in the store ensures that everyone who receives the product receives the
warning. Voila, informed consent.<br />
<br />
The warning label method does have one weakness though: Many people
don’t bother reading them, not because they don’t care, but because it’s
<i>so unheard of</i> that these drugs might not be perfect. For this
reason and many others, the overthrow of the mental health system would
have to be not only a series of legislative victories, but a cultural
shift too. Feeling like there must be something wrong with the
individual, rather than the drug, is one of the insidious ways the
mental health system prevents survivors from coming out, which prevents
conversations about adverse effects from being normalized. More
psychiatric survivors must open up about their experiences, and it must
be safe for us to do so.<br />
<br />
<h3>
11. Every program that recommends drugs would also offer support for quitting drugs.</h3>
Even after the prescription system is replaced by a system of
informed consent, psychiatric drug withdrawal is very real. Those who
were informed and consented to the drugs may still decide to stop taking
them later. Any withdrawal is a difficult process and requires support.<br />
<br />
The lack of support for people who want to stop taking their drugs
makes it difficult to have free choice over the use of mind-altering
substances. Expecting people to suffer alone while they taper off the
drugs or go cold turkey is essentially pressuring them to stay on the
drugs. It’s a form of coercion, and thus part of the mental health
system.<br />
<br />
In a world free from the mental health system, everyone who is
trained to recommend drugs would also be trained in how to help people
taper off, and drug dealer facilities would also have a withdrawal unit,
both for safe tapering and for maintaining a relative amount of safety
while quitting all at once.<br />
<br />
<h3>
12. All psychiatric diagnoses would be recognized as bunk and removed from medical records.</h3>
Despite all the “biological brain disease” rhetoric justifying the
pseudoscience of psychiatry, no so-called “diagnosis” in DSM 5 has ever
been demonstrated by a biological test. In the few cases where we have
discovered a biological cause, such as trisomy 21 for Down syndrome,
that classification has ceased to be the domain of psychiatry.<br />
<br />
Because these “diagnoses” are little more than pseudoscience, made up
by psychiatrists to oppress people and gain money, the end of the
mental health system would mean the end of the DSM. Every DSM
classification would cease to be a disorder in public or professional
consciousness, and they would become obsolete from medical records,
because they are not medical information.<br />
<br />
<i>What about legitimate identities that happen to be falsely pathologized? How would they get services?</i><br />
<br />
Firstly, there is no logical dependency between a group existing and
that same group being classified as a mental disorder. You can have one
without the other. Legitimate categories such as <a href="http://healthymultiplicity.com/">multiplicity</a>, <a href="http://www.hearing-voices.org/">hearing voices</a>, or <a href="http://autisticcommunity.org/">Autistic</a>
would be recognized as cultural identities, similar to the way we now
recognize gay as an identity, now that psychiatry finally let go of <i><a href="http://actingnt.blogspot.com/2017/11/models-of-pride-2017-psychiatrization.html">homosexual disorder</a> </i>to free its hands to grab <a href="http://transstudent.org/">transgender</a> and <a href="https://www.madinamerica.com/2018/01/prejudiced-roots-psychiatry/">asexual</a>.<br />
<br />
A pseudoscientific medical diagnosis is not necessary in order to get services such as <a href="http://www.autismacceptancemonth.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Fact%20Sheets/Parent/AAC%20toddler-prek.pdf">communication devices</a>, gender affirming surgery, and the anti-convulsants some people take <i>to hear</i> voices. The requirement of DSM classifications makes it <i>harder</i>
to get those services, not easier. Under a system of informed consent,
rather than the gatekeeping prescription model, cultural minorities
would<i> more </i>often get the services they want and need.<br />
<br />
<h3>
13. Consent laws and consent culture would obsolete compliance.</h3>
<i>Enough about information. What about the consent part?</i> Atop
the slain corpse of the mental health system, all procedures would
require consent from the recipient. Consent must be freely given and can
be revoked at any time for any reason. Patients checking into a medical
facility would be able to leave whenever they want, not weeks later
when the doctor finally signs the discharge papers because insurance ran
out.<br />
<br />
There could certainly still be conduct agreements, for example “<i>no yelling in the meditation room</i>,” but anyone who can’t or doesn’t want to abide by the rules can opt out of the entire situation.<br />
<br />
Mental health is one of a handful of industries, along with education
and government, where the person paying for the service, in effect <i>the employer</i>,
is expected to complete arbitrary rigors and assessments, or else face
inescapable consequences decided by their employee. Without the mental
health framework, expecting compliance with doctor’s orders would no
longer make sense, because the doctor-patient relationship can be
terminated at any time. Instead, <i>the professional</i> would be expected to comply with the wishes of the person requesting their service, or else be fired and replaced.<br />
<br />
<h3>
14. Social Security would be replaced with Universal Basic Income.</h3>
<i>Wait, what does welfare have to do with mental health?</i> Well,
the legal definition of a disability is still pretty stuck in the
medical model — the idea that people are disabled by medical conditions,
rather than by access barriers like stairs and strobe lights.
Therefore, one must get a “diagnosis” from a doctor to qualify for any
disability-based government program.<br />
<br />
Aside from the inherent dangers in handing over your recorded history
of madness to multiple corporations and the government, the current
bureaucracy creates a problem within the mental health system itself: <i>imbalance of power</i>.
Those who are unable to work due to systemic hiring discrimination rely
on welfare programs, which require you to convince a doctor to <i>say</i>
you’re unable to work. If you’re magical and manage to convince them
that you’re a victim of discrimination, that doesn’t count.<br />
<br />
If your <b>survival</b> within a capitalist system depends
on you qualifying as legally disabled, and a doctor wields the power to
decide whether you’re legally disabled, then the relationship you have
with that doctor is inherently coercive. <b>The doctor can <i>let you die</i></b> if they feel that your madness is too weird, or that you smell bad, or you didn’t say “please” enough.<br />
<br />
Keeping doctors the gatekeepers of disability benefits is no better
than keeping them the gatekeepers of drugs. You can’t revoke your
consent to the doctor-patient relationship because the doctor holds
something you need and can’t get without them. That is the definition of
coercion. In order for patients to have the power to revoke the
relationship with their doctor, they must not require a doctor’s
permission to get the services they need, including income. In order to
revoke the power of coercion from doctors, we would have to revoke the
power of their signature in disability benefits.<br />
<br />
<h3>
15. Any use of force in a psychiatric context would be illegal.</h3>
In case it wasn’t clear, freeing ourselves from psychiatric tyranny
requires the complete and total abolition of all interventions that lack
the consent of the person whose life is being intervened in. Not
reduction, not higher standards of proof, not “last resort” policies, <b>total abolition</b>.<br />
<br />
Anything less than total abolition is playing within the system, using <i>the master’s tools</i>
to ask for minor cosmetic changes and lip service. If nine hundred
people were force-drugged this year instead of last year’s thousand, we
still have a problem.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://neurocosmopolitanism.com/throw-away-the-masters-tools-liberating-ourselves-from-the-pathology-paradigm/">The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.</a>
Create a list of criteria so the cops can’t just lock up anyone for any
reason, and they’ll use those criteria to shop around for people who
meet them. Make force a “last resort” and the first resort will be to
halfheartedly skim through a checklist. Add a “peer specialist” to the
team and they’ll hire someone who’s up to their eyeballs in the medical
model and a paradigm of health first, liberty never.<br />
<div style="background-color: transparent;">
<br />
We are not free from the
mental health system as long as one person is under threat of legalized
force. All the other changes on this list are ways to keep laws enforced
or to reduce manipulation and coercion. But first and foremost, we need
far-reaching legislation, with broad definitions, that makes every use
of psychiatric force automatically a crime.</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2540667570453550683.post-50021304691578798262017-11-12T10:28:00.000-08:002017-11-12T10:28:00.898-08:00Models of Pride 2017: Psychiatrization Of Queer MindsOne of the two workshops I led at the 25th Models of Pride in Los Angeles, California.<br />
<br />
Captioned with manual transcription but automated timing. Parts of the video are blurred because not all attendees signed consent to photography.<br />
<br />
Summary in the MOP program:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Did you know that homosexuality was once a mental illness? That the American Psychiatric Association STILL describes being asexual or transgender the same way? Come to this workshop to learn about the historical role of psychiatry in defining queer identities, and how to be an ally to those who are still getting pathologized.</blockquote>
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Pgf_BWdLiV8" width="480"></iframe>
<br />
<br />The video from my second workshop, "Conversion Therapy: History and Reality" were unfortunately lost prior to backup due my phone being stolen. However, you can view the slides for the presentation at <a href="http://tinyurl.com/mop2017slides">TinyURL.com/mop2017slides</a><br /><br />Models of Pride is a queer youth conference held every year at the University of Southern California (USC). Visit <a href="http://modelsofpride.org/">ModelsOfPride.org</a> to learn more.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2540667570453550683.post-87100457444196501002017-10-15T09:58:00.003-07:002023-03-26T13:30:03.454-07:00Everything Wrong With The Good Doctor (Autism Sins)5 years after House, the head writer seems to have regressed. Now the autism is explicit, and made of DSM criteria instead of actual personality. Lots of ethics laws are broken, but with no acknowledgement that law-breaking is what's happening. All this and more in just the pilot episode!<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/g4s0zfI5URE" width="480"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
Autism Sins is a snarky, sometimes satirical series, where I review media portrayals of autism in a rip off- er, I mean, an homage to the format of CinemaSins.
<br />
<br />
To see more of my videos, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDzIdcGEqc4kINPet77PZng" target="_blank">visit my YouTube channel</a>.
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2540667570453550683.post-14721066470404195732017-09-27T22:39:00.002-07:002017-09-27T22:40:20.211-07:00NO 911, Suicide Awareness, and 13 Reasons WhyWhat does "suicide prevention" mean when the causes of suicide are oppression, trauma, and a world not worth living in?
<br />
<br />
Speech by yours truly at the Garden Church's "Suicide Prevention & Healing Ceremony" in San Pedro, California.
<br />
<br />
<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gKu2mebTzXg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br />
<br />
Please excuse and disregard the "danger to self or others" line. This was totally unscripted, I took a chance with a half-formed thought, and it turned out to be less than half-formed.
<br />
<br />
This video features closed captions in English. Other than that, there was no editing.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2540667570453550683.post-92131138772831018382017-09-26T18:00:00.000-07:002019-06-11T20:29:14.640-07:00Everything Wrong With Atypical, Episode Three (Autism Sins)This episode features a competition between two parents and a therapist, to see who can be the biggest abusive asshole. No need for a spoiler warning, because obviously the mom wins.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/C-ERMtc2nb0" width="480"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
To see more of our videos, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/c/ActingNT" target="_blank">visit our YouTube channel</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2540667570453550683.post-10715540440757874372017-09-07T11:55:00.000-07:002019-06-11T20:28:29.989-07:00Everything Wrong With Atypical, Episode Two (Autism Sins)The sinner is back for more of the train-wreck that is Atypical! Since the first 30-minute episode already taught us everything there is to know about autism, we can now move on to the important stuff: Parents whining over how hard it is to raise us.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xTBsO_vksQQ" width="480"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
To see more of our videos, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/c/ActingNT" target="_blank">visit our YouTube channel</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2540667570453550683.post-25458146669473085812017-08-31T08:27:00.001-07:002019-06-11T20:27:31.924-07:00Everything Wrong With Atypical, Episode One (Autism Sins)The new Netflix series "Atypical" kicks off with a script so cringey, it practically sins itself. Today's drinking game is a shot every time a character is likeable; I promise you'll stay completely sober.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Nu_RulOPgIg" width="480"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
To see more of our videos, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/c/ActingNT" target="_blank">visit our YouTube channel</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2540667570453550683.post-37908213568140681132017-05-01T17:51:00.000-07:002018-04-10T12:08:47.025-07:0013 Reasons "Mental Health" Advocates Need to Watch 13 Reasons WhyControversy erupted quickly around the release of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1837492/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">13 Reasons Why</a>, a Netflix series based on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteen_Reasons_Why">2007 novel of the same name</a>. This comes as no surprise, considering the story revolves around suicide. Not only that, the show (and the novel, but those don't get nearly as much attention in pop culture) disrupts the standard expected narrative in which suicide is typically portrayed.<br />
<br />
The premise of the story is that a high school student, Hannah Baker, killed herself, but first left a series of audio tapes for and about all the people who contributed to her suicidality. The idea of a dead person leaving messages behind isn't new, but what does stand out is that a person who attempted suicide, and succeeded, still gets to tell her story. This premise allowed the script to offer a perspective that isn't found in other suicide narratives, and is much closer to reality.<br />
<br />
The objections to the show seem to mostly fall into two categories: 1) People who have actually had suicidal thoughts or even attempted suicide, who understandably refuse to watch the show for fear of being triggered or re-traumatized. 2) People who advocate for "mental health awareness" and are very offended that suicidality is portrayed as a natural life experience and not a chemical imbalance. Where these two groups overlap, the label for that section of the Venn diagram is "internalized ableism". <a href="http://unaverage-confessions.tumblr.com/post/159585080720/13-reasons-why-i-dislike-the-show-13-reasons">Here's an example</a> (WARNING: auto-playing music) which seems to be the most popular "don't watch it!" post floating around multiple social media sites, and the inspiration for this rebuttal.<br />
<br />
Evidence on comforting the afflicted is inconclusive, but 13 Reasons Why definitely brings affliction to the comfortable. "Mental health" advocates need to see this show. No, it's not for "everyone" - it's highly triggering (for example the act of suicide is shown on screen, as well as multiple sexual assaults) and more than a little problematic. As said most elegantly by my colleague Leila Yoder, there are definitely aspects of the script to be critical of, but "it's not pathology paradigm enough" isn't one of them.<br />
<br />
13 Reasons Why is an important cultural commentary that more people should see. Here are 13 reasons why: <br />
<br />
<a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/13reasonswhy?source=feed_text&story_id=782586605251338"><span class="_5afx"><span class="_58cl _5afz"></span></span></a><br />
<h4>
1. Bad consultants were mostly ignored.</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
The creators of the show consulted with the <a href="https://afsp.org/">American Foundation for Suicide Prevention</a>, an organization which advocates in favor of force and coercion, including locking people up in psychiatric prisons and pacifying them with medication. Can you guess how the Foundation justifies this? All human rights violations are a necessary means to the exalted end of recovering people from their mental illnesses. What a unique and original thought. While it's impossible to know whether the final script was molded by ethics, marketing, or storytelling, it's clear to me is that the screenwriter had a chat with a very bad organization, then went directly
against most of their bad advice.<br />
<br />
<h4>
2. The dead girl tells us what didn't work.</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
In real life, we can't ask someone what went wrong after a successful suicide attempt. Therefore we don't know how realistic Hannah's perspective is. Nevertheless, it disrupts the standard narrative: Suicide attempt survivors, both real and fictional, get paraded as tokens by "mental health" advocates to talk about how great the "treatment", usually being locked up and medicated, worked for them. This narrative is not scientifically justified. In fact, it's propaganda.<br />
<br />
The most well-known example of this problem was recognized during World War 2, when the U.S. Navy studied returning planes and reinforced the most damaged parts in the next design. The mistake was that those were the parts which could get heavily damaged and still return. The parts that never return damaged are the ones that bring the plane crashing down, never to be studied. In psychology, this cognitive error is literally called survivor bias.<br />
<br />
In a society where <i>every</i> suicidal person is forced, coerced, or at least pressured into some kind of "treatment" program, you either never get identified as suicidal and never get hit with a psychiatric intervention, or you get identified and you get an intervention. There is no identified-but-not-intervened control group to verify that the "treatment" should actually get the credit. We <i>do</i> on the other hand have research suggesting that <a href="http://www.jad-journal.com/article/S0165-0327(08)00353-4/fulltext">locked facilities make people<i> more</i> suicidal, not less</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h4>
<span class="text_exposed_show">3. Hannah was killed by other people.</span></h4>
<h4>
<span class="text_exposed_show"><br /></span></h4>
<div class="text_exposed_show">
Another part of the standard narrative is that suicidality, without a verbal acknowledgement, is undetectable. Therefore it's no one's fault when someone dies. 13 Reasons Why straight-up says no to this narrative, instead placing the blame firmly on those who hurt Hannah and those who failed to reach out. The show demonstrates the simple causal link between suicide and
traumatic events such as bullying and sexual assault. The other main character, Clay, wasn't a direct assailant but has to come to terms with his complicity.<br />
<br />
<h4>
4. Hannah is neurotypical.</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
You can't deflect the blame to a "mental illness" or "chemical imbalance" either. Not for the character any more than for real people, unless being gay also causes a "chemical imbalance" the same way excessive melanin in the skin exerts a gravitational force on police bullets.<br />
<br />
Hannah is portrayed as a normal, mentally healthy person (at least until she racks up a few traumas), not as a list of diagnostic criteria or LOL RANDOM CRAZY. It was her experiences that caused her to become suicidal, not spontaneously manifested brain chemicals.<br />
<br />
This is a breath of fresh air for people who have been falsely labeled as mentally ill... which is <i>everyone</i> who's been labeled as mentally ill...<br />
<br />
<h4>
5. Hannah is able-bodied.</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
Though I'm rarely thankful for this, disability is not represented at all. Hannah does not have one. She does not kill herself because it's so tragic and burdensome to exist in the world as a disabled person. Another break from one of cinema's most offensive and harmful clichés.<br />
<br />
<h4>
6. It's not just a choice.</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
I usually go out for vanilla ice cream on the weekends, but this time I think I'll try rocky road to see if I like it. And I usually enjoy being alive but I think I'll try killing myself today. That's what has to be going through the heads of people who say suicide is just "a choice".<br />
<br />
Suicide is what people are driven to when they're pushed past their breaking point. This reality is reflected in the portrayal of Hannah Baker. She is bullied and abused and injured and broken, until eventually she can't think of any other option. If seeing the truth makes people uncomfortable, good.<br />
<br />
<h4>
7. Reaching out backfires.</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
When Hannah tries to reach out
to other characters - friends, parents, school counselor, they are at
best unhelpful and unsupportive, if not making the situation even worse.
This is realistic, if perhaps a bit relentless in its cynicism. "Don't
reach out" may be a dangerous message, but so is "reach out to anyone
and everyone." Some people will invalidate, re-traumatize, or even call
the cops. This warning creates the appropriate balance, supporting the
reasonable message to be selective.<br />
<br />
<h4>
8. Self-harm gets a spotlight too.</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
One of the characters (not Hannah) explains her self-harm by saying
"it's what you do instead of killing yourself." This isn't the true reason for everybody who self-harms, but it is for some. In a non-coercive way, this line offers an alternative to suicide. Because the rationale is so difficult to argue with, it also helps to
de-stigmatize self-harm, and yes, self-harm absolutely does need to be de-stigmatized. Not the "treatments" for it, but the act itself.<br />
<br />
Self-harm and suicidality are both natural parts of the human experience. Turning them into taboo subjects does no good for the people experiencing them. In fact, it often creates shame, which makes both of them more attractive. 13 Reasons Why has got people talking.<br />
<br />
<h4>
9. Hotlines are not the answer.</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
Another major complaint against the show is that it doesn't offer resources. For example, there is not a list of phone numbers for suicide hotlines in each episode's end credits.<br />
<br />
I don't believe that this was an oversight. I believe it was a deliberate choice, because promoting suicide hotlines would undermine the central message of the show.<br />
<br />
The real reason people get uncomfortable with the lack of resources is not moral outrage at irresponsible triggering, it's because they are yet again trying to find a way to make suicide the sole responsibility of the suicidal person and not anyone else. If calling a stranger on the phone is a magic pill to cure suicide, then every death is the fault of the dead person for not reaching out. By not inviting this supposed solution into the show, it was not invited into the conversation. The focus is kept instead on other people's responsibility in causation or prevention.<br />
<br />
<h4>
10. Medication is not the answer.</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
Medication actually does come up in the show, not for Hannah but for Clay. His incompetent mother can't think of any other way to relate to him, because she's internalized the idea that his grief over a dead friend is a mental health condition, and the way you deal with those is by taking drugs, not, you know, being human together.<br />
<br />
Hannah does not take any medication, because that would give
the audience freedom to rationalize however they see fit: Either
the medication caused the suicide so it's not other people's fault, or
it was the wrong medication for her mental illness so it's not other
people's fault. Clay explores medication but doesn't get any benefit from it, which is also the most common outcome in real life.<br />
<br />
<h4>
11. Prison is not the answer.</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
None of the characters, least of all Hannah herself, ever suggest that what she really needed was to be locked up in a psychiatric prison where she can be somehow healed by additional violence against her. Not only would such a statement have been <a href="http://www.jad-journal.com/article/S0165-0327(08)00353-4/fulltext">patently untrue</a>, it would have once again undermined the apparently controversial message that people are responsible for each other's well-being. If suicide prevention is the responsibility of some professional psychologist in some hidden facility, then it doesn't have to be yours. You have permission to ship people off and wash your hands of it. Out of sight, out of mind.<br />
<br />
<h4>
12. Permanence is powerful.</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
</div>
<div class="text_exposed_show">
If Hannah really wanted to send a message, why didn't she power through and tell her story while still alive? Isn't that more powerful? No. It isn't. Sticking around gives other people the chance to apologize, to offer help, to give lip service and feel good about themselves, without doing anything to actually improve the victim's quality of life.</div>
<div class="text_exposed_show">
</div>
<div class="text_exposed_show">
13 Reasons Why is not a warning to suicidal people not to kill themselves. That was never the intent. It's a warning to friends and family of suicidal people, that if you fuck up, if you're not present and caring and supportive, that's it. They're dead. You don't get a second chance. You don't get closure.</div>
<div class="text_exposed_show">
<br />
<h4>
13. Suicide awareness can kiss this show's ass.</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
I have a confession to make: I have never been suicidal. And I don't think I ever will.<br />
<br />
Yet suicide awareness campaigns still affect me personally, and my community. I won't soon forget the inherent dehumanization in habitually cutting the strings off my shorts, because I'm expected like all other interchangeable mental patients to somehow kill myself with them <a href="http://actingnt.blogspot.com/2017/03/take-flyer-off-wall-six-hours-in-hole.html">while pinned down on a four-point restraint bed</a>. I haven't forgotten that suicide was the big justification no one wanted to challenge, when we first decided that you could detain people in so-called "hospitals" instead of mainstream jails. Every time I see a therapist, I'm reminded that if I so much as express a thought about killing myself, that she not only has the option to legally commit violence against me, she's <i>expected to</i> and can get in trouble if she doesn't.<br />
<br />
As someone who has been subjected to traumatic
and abusive human rights violations in the name of misguided attempts at
suicide prevention, and who knows the stories of other people who can
say the same, I am thankful that an item of cultural influence promotes a
different message. Even if I believe for a second that the point of 13 Reasons Why is to "glorify suicide", I'll take that over awareness.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mSytJ57QJIM/WQe6q35_zdI/AAAAAAAAVxs/QLD8KcfKNPcNOZ-_QoOWZDpq61uxprdDgCLcB/s1600/13%2Breasons%2Bwhy.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mSytJ57QJIM/WQe6q35_zdI/AAAAAAAAVxs/QLD8KcfKNPcNOZ-_QoOWZDpq61uxprdDgCLcB/s640/13%2Breasons%2Bwhy.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><i>Image description: Promotional photo of the characters Clay and Hannah, with additional text around the title so that the image says "There are thirteen reasons why I killed myself and not a single one of them is a chemical imbalance."</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2540667570453550683.post-88708336051380766462017-01-18T17:00:00.000-08:002018-06-02T22:02:19.524-07:00Dear Meryl Streep: No Abled Savior NeededMeryl Streep has managed to make headlines by attacking the world's lowest-hanging fruit: Donald John Trump. Apparently it is viewed as an act of bravery to stand up to the most blatantly and visibly racist, ableist, misogynistic, xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic, and all around assholish public figure of modern times. It is especially brave to do so as a wealthy abled white cis woman, in the process of receiving a nationally televised award.<br />
<br />
At the Golden Globes ceremony on January 8th, 2017, Meryl Streep received the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and used part of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EV8tsnRFUZw">her acceptance speech</a> to dredge up a year-old news item: Donald Trump publicly mocking the mannerisms associated with arthrogryposis, the visible disability of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/serge-f-kovaleski">Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Serge F. Kovalevski</a>. I call him that, not because I particularly value awards or titles (I didn't even watch the Golden Globes when it originally aired, and I'm an actor), but because Kovalevski doesn't appear to name himself a member of any disability rights movement, nor focus his journalism on disability topics. Thus a description of him as a "Pulitzer prize-winning journalist" seems to contain far more relevant information than "disabled reporter" does.<br />
<br />
As I and many others pointed out over a year ago, referring to the mocking
of a disabled person as some unspeakable evil, or as "the
final straw" to sever support of Trump's campaign, is actually ableist. Mocking a disabled person qualifies as evil, certainly, but it is not more evil than creating a mandatory Muslim registry like the Nazis did with Jews. It is not more evil than grabbing women by the pussy without their consent. And it is clearly less evil than repealing the Affordable Care Act, effectively killing millions of mostly disabled people, not just making fun of us. Why weren't any of <i>those</i> things the final straw? Why is <i>mocking</i> disability met with greater outrage than actions that are objectively, measurably more harmful, to other minorities and specifically to disabled people? The answer to that question lies in the subtext, something all actors love, within Meryl Streep's rhetoric:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"It sank its hooks in my heart... It was that moment
when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country
imitated a disabled reporter. Someone he outranked in privilege, power
and the capacity to fight back. </i><i>It kind of broke my heart when I saw it."</i></span></blockquote>
The underlying tone, neatly bookended here, is <i>pity</i>. Just as disabled people merely living our lives is <i>inspiring</i> and<i> heartwarming</i>, on the flip-side directly interacting with a disabled person in a mean way is a low blow, kicking someone while they're down. Of course in reality, being disabled doesn't mean we're "low" or "down" in the first place (unless you're literally talking about wheelchairs or dwarfism, neither of which describe Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Serge F. Kovalevski).<br />
<br />
Making fun of disabled people is the unforgivable sin of the 21st century, not because ableism is bad - the speech didn't even contain the words <i>ableism</i>, <i>discrimination, </i>or<i> bigotry</i> - but because disabled people are already so <i>tragic</i> and <i>vulnerable</i>. Hiring people who aren't disabled to play us in movies is fine. Taking away our civil rights, that's fine. <i>Literally murdering us</i>, no problem. Just don't point and laugh. Meryl Streep says we lack "the capacity to fight back." While it's true that the president of the United States generally has
more power than a given New York Times editor, first of all, Donald
Trump hadn't yet been elected to any public office at the time, and
second, Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Serge F. Kovalevski <a href="https://twitter.com/sergenyt/status/670060156886085632">can and <i>has </i>responded to Trump</a> in the way that he himself saw fit. There is no abled savior needed to defend him.<br />
<br />
Potentially the most troublesome word choice in the speech is when Streep said that Trump "imitated a disabled reporter." Not mocked, imitated. What happened to the old adage "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"? I seriously doubt that Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Serge F. Kovalevski felt <i>flattered</i> by Trump's childish antics. Meryl Streep, did you mean to imply that acting in the manner of a disabled person is what damned this action, not the fact that it was done for the sake of mockery? When an abled actor plays a disabled character, what's shameful isn't the stolen opportunity, but that a disabled character is portrayed at all? Maybe that's why you didn't even mention Kovalevski by name. He's just "a disabled reporter" to you, stripped of his personhood and of all his accomplishments. You also managed to mention the recently passed, openly bipolar Carrie Fisher, but as "Princess Leia" - neither disabled nor a person! You disrespected them just as much as you deservedly disrespected Trump. As you said in the very same speech, disrespect invites disrespect, so maybe I should call you "shit head" or something instead of Meryl Streep.<br />
<br />
As I often say in presentations about autism, two people who are both ableist are always on the same page, even if they say <i>and genuinely believe</i> they're not. If you're a parent using Floortime to manipulate your child into acting neurotypical, you're not some radical revolutionary. You're not special for disagreeing with those in the ABA industry, 'cause actually, <a href="http://actingnt.blogspot.com/2015/09/limiting-conversation-gentle-methods.html">you agree with them</a>. You agree that disabled people should not be allowed to be visibly disabled in our mannerisms, and your actions reflect that. If you're a doctor who says that vaccines don't cause autism, but if they did, you'd have to be <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/01/11/donald-trump-and-robert-f-kennedy-jr-just-made-pediatricians-jobs-a-lot-harder/?utm_term=.e91662bedcd1">"monstrous"</a> to still administer them, then you don't disagree with anti-vaxxers. Not when they say being Autistic is worse than having polio. Hey Shit Head, do you think being disabled is inherently shameful? That being visible to the world, with uniquely disabled mannerisms, is shameful? If so, you and a guy who's basically famous for being an asshole <i>are in total agreement</i>.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9VLEckwAn7M/WHsII6f8vZI/AAAAAAAAJz0/HNA7XP5ckpwQPYCdYoFOUKg6chAdrIMKQCLcB/s1600/Streep%2Band%2BTrump.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9VLEckwAn7M/WHsII6f8vZI/AAAAAAAAJz0/HNA7XP5ckpwQPYCdYoFOUKg6chAdrIMKQCLcB/s640/Streep%2Band%2BTrump.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><i>Image description: Side-by-side photos of Donald Trump (left) and Meryl Streep (right). In comic book speech bubbles, Trump says "I hate disabled people!" and Streep replies "Me too!" </i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
It may seem like I'm over-analyzing a single 1-minute paragraph within a 6-minute speech. That's because that 1-minute paragraph is <i>all </i>Meryl Streep said about disability. The rest of the speech, well, it was a calculated action from beginning to end: After bullying, she segued into asking her audience to support the Committee To Protect Journalists, and indeed there was <a href="http://www.poynter.org/2017/committee-to-protect-journalists-saw-a-spike-in-donations-after-meryl-streeps-speech/444693/">a reported spike in donations</a> right after the Golden Globes. That's great for journalists and probably needed, but was the fact that Kovalevski is <i>a journalist</i>
really the centerpiece to this story? Where is the spike in donations
to ADAPT, or Not Dead Yet, or the National Council on Independent
Living? With regard to disability, all this Golden Globes speech
managed to inspire in its viewers was warm fuzzy feelings. It glossed over everything notable that disabled people did in the last year, and instead used one person as a nameless prop to add egos to the list of things being stroked in a rich abled white people's circle-jerk.<br />
<br />
What about the parts of the speech <i>before</i> Kovalevski and Trump?<br />
<br />
Before reading <a href="https://theestablishment.co/im-a-disabled-woman-who-s-not-celebrating-meryl-streep-s-golden-globes-speech-8d67173122e7">any other perspectives</a>, I watched Meryl Streep <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EV8tsnRFUZw">on YouTube</a> so I could start with my own opinions. She began with what sounded like a speech about diversity. I
may not be a comedian, but that should inspire laughter: <i>An abled white
woman, delivering a speech, to an audience that is <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2016/01/film-and-race">94% white</a> and 0% visibly disabled, praising that audience for being so diverse.</i> She gave shout-outs to specific actors, and to her credit named their countries of origin including Israel, Kenya, and Ethiopia. But that's only a third of the names she chose. I'm sorry, but four (4) U.S. states, Italy, and Canada does not qualify as "diversity". That's just six (6) white people. To imply that it does reflects denial and rationalization.<br />
<br />
Streep made no mention of disability when applauding the diversity of Hollywood. It was as though she did not see the connection within her own speech. No Affordable Care Act. No underemployment of disabled actors. No disability rights advocacy groups. No criticism of ableist movies like <i>Split, The Accountant, </i>and <i>Me Before You</i>, which undermine the work of disability rights groups and fail to employ disabled actors, many of whom are alive thanks to the Affordable Care Act. If there were any invisibly disabled actors in the audience, I don't think they were very impressed with the bravery of Meryl Streep to utterly fail at addressing any of the real issues. I, a disabled actor, am not impressed. I, a disabled actor of color, am not impressed.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2540667570453550683.post-9934362542848377802016-12-29T11:30:00.000-08:002019-01-13T15:30:39.995-08:00Everything Wrong With Vaxxed (Autism Sins)Andy Wakefield is at it again! Stop to get your popcorn ready and answer all your texts, 'cause this video will make sure you really know EVERYTHING wrong with this movie.
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tvIqrS65f5A" width="480"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
The same guy who committed fraud in 1998, by saying that the MMR vaccine causes autism, in an attempt to sell his individual measles vaccine for profit, has now made a movie to say that the MMR vaccine causes autism, in an attempt to sell his individual measles vaccine for profit, while accusing everybody else of doing the things he's doing. Actual diseases and anti-autism eugenics are back in full swing in this silly conspiracy movie!
<br />
<br />
Autism Sins is a snarky, sometimes satirical series, where I review media portrayals of autism in a rip off- er, I mean, an homage to the format of CinemaSins.
<br />
<br />
For T-shirts, coffee mugs, and other junk that leaves me a neat little artist margin, <a href="http://redbubble.com/people/ActingNT" target="_blank">visit my RedBubble store</a>.
<br />
<br />
To see more of my videos, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/c/ActingNT" target="_blank">visit my YouTube channel</a>.
<br />
<br />
For the original Sinners, visit <a href="http://youtube.com/user/CinemaSins" target="_blank">youtube.com/user/CinemaSins</a> or <a href="http://cinemasins.com/">cinemasins.com</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2540667570453550683.post-49846413324062536382016-09-15T17:44:00.001-07:002019-06-29T16:23:25.574-07:00Autism Sins: Adam from House<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IUJZUOKttC8" width="480"></iframe><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Everything Wrong With House M.D. season 3, episode 4 "Lines in the Sand" and its portrayal of Autistic patient Adam Kelvey.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
This is the first installment of Autism Sins, where I snarkily review media portrayals of autism in a rip off- er, I mean, an homage to the format of CinemaSins.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
To see more of my videos, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDzIdcGEqc4kINPet77PZng" target="_blank">visit my YouTube channel</a>.<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2540667570453550683.post-72281386077580663832016-04-22T05:30:00.000-07:002019-03-06T22:02:03.371-08:00Acceptance Must Not Become a BuzzwordThe discourse surrounding autism is full of meaningless buzzwords: <i>Awareness, cure, treatment, high-functioning, optimal outcome</i>, and many more; even the factual-sounding phrase "evidence-based" cannot be taken as an indication that there really is evidence. Many of these words did mean something once upon a time, but since then have been distorted by widespread overuse and misuse.<br />
<br />
Language has power, and replacing meaningless buzzwords with things that <i>are </i>meaningful is an important part of pro-Autistic activism: Rather than appealing to a vaguely defined "functioning" level, we describe what people's specific support needs are. Rather than trying to nonsensically "treat" or "cure" something that isn't a disease, we attempt to change the social and civil environments to ones that are more accommodating.<br />
<br />
You might expect that a campaign to promote "awareness" of autism would be educating people about what autism is, highlighting some Autistic role models, and explaining how to best support the Autistic people in your life. In practice, "autism awareness" campaigns don't seem to promote any message other than <i>autism is a thing that exists.</i> If that's all we're meant to be aware of, then frankly, I think we're at <i>peak awareness</i>. When I hear people talk about "raising" awareness further, I imagine <a href="https://www.redbubble.com/people/actingnt/works/25928567-raising-awareness-black">some Amish family in the mountains, living off a tofu farm, that hasn't heard the word <i>autism</i> yet.</a><br />
<br />
<b>Awareness</b>, at least <i>autism awareness,</i> is a meaningless buzzword. You can verify this by asking people at "autism awareness" events, "what does awareness mean?" and getting the word <i>awareness</i> thrown back at you in most of the answers. It's a signifier with nothing signified. Therefore, the only meaning it holds is by association with the people currently using it, and for the most part, those associations aren't pretty. When the main beneficiaries of "autism awareness" are also the people encouraging us to buy blue light bulbs and commit child abuse, "awareness" becomes a top priority to replace.<br />
<br />
The Autistic community's answer? <b>Acceptance.</b> That word is loaded with meaning, and every year we make concerted efforts to pack it with more: Acceptance is an action. Acceptance is more than just passive tolerance of Autistic people's existence. Acceptance is implementing accommodations before they're needed. Acceptance is presuming competence. Acceptance is solidarity. Autism acceptance is a fundamental shift in mindset that embraces the neurodiversity paradigm and the social model of disability.<br />
<br />
Thanks to the aggressive promotion of <i>acceptance</i> within the Autistic community, we're starting to see the idea of replacing <i>awareness</i> with <i>acceptance</i> take hold in things created by non-Autistic organizers. Some people chase the imaginary neutral position by including <i>both</i> words, while others see what the world is trending towards, and hop on board with <i>acceptance</i>.<br />
<br />
However, bringing a word out of the fringe and into the mainstream has an unfortunate side effect: The fringe no longer has control over the word's meaning. The word is subject to the large-scale social mechanisms behind language development. The word's meaning is now derived from <i>consensus</i> rather than logic or purpose.<br />
<br />
Just as <i>awareness</i> can shift from education and understanding to "beware the autism boogeyman", the meaning of <i>acceptance</i> can shift to harmful ideas like "accept the <i>tragedy</i> of autistic life" or "accept the <i>real</i> child hidden behind the autism." If that happens, then <i>acceptance</i> is no different from <i>awareness</i>. It's stolen from the activist toolbox and becomes one of the master's tools. Our years of work become a failed experiment and we're forced to start over.<br />
<br />
<i>Already</i> there are organizations co-opting the <i>acceptance</i> label to dupe their Autistic audiences into not making a fuss, when the content is still the same message that we protest. There are well-intentioned "acceptance" events where the people who show up use the word <i>acceptance</i> because it's there, but are really still stuck in the <i>awareness</i> mindset, undermining the events.<br />
<br />
It is not enough to correct these occurrences for misusing a word, for they may be ignorant of the intended meaning of one label, but their overall messages are quite intentional, as they have always been. It is necessary for us to <b>condemn</b> phony acceptance as fraud, and as hatred.<br />
<br />
We must not let acceptance become a buzzword. If it does, then we have made no progress towards actually autistic people being actually accepted.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2540667570453550683.post-88581743890701628842016-04-11T05:13:00.001-07:002019-03-06T22:01:27.029-08:00Not All Labels Are Created Equal<i>I wrote this article as part of the <a href="http://un-boxedbrain.com.au/2016/04/neurodiversity-introduction/">A-Z neurodiversity series</a>
created by <a href="http://un-boxedbrain.com.au/">Un-boxed Brain</a> for Autism Acceptance Month. It is listed in
that series as "<a href="http://un-boxedbrain.com.au/2016/04/labels/">L is for Labels</a>"</i><br />
<h4>
</h4>
<h3>
</h3>
<h3>
The following article contains 238 labels.</h3>
<br />
The
moment you tell me that you "don't like labels" is the moment I know
you're being dishonest. If you speak any oral, written, or signed
language, you use labels constantly: <i>Child, adult, doctor, musician, gamer, optimist,
pet owner, car enthusiast</i> – These are all labels.<br />
<br />
If
you honestly tried to remove every label from your own speaking
patterns, you would immediately run into the problem of infinite
regression, as most label words can only be defined with other label
words. Rather than "pet owner" you would try to say a person who lives
with an animal in the same house, but then realize that <i>person, animal,</i> and <i>house</i> are all labels, and arguably so is the phrase "lives with" as a synonym of <i>roommate</i>.<br />
<br />
We use labels for their utility, and out of practical necessity. Without labels, the only nouns in any language would be <i>this, that,</i>
and pronouns. We would have zero ability to discuss concepts. You
don't say "I don't like labels" when somebody calls you by your name, or
occupation, or hobbies. The real meat of the conversation is those
labels that are less mundane - more radical - not yet accepted as
mainstream.<br />
<br />
By "I don't like labels" you really mean "I
don't like the label you just used." After fixing the language, the
complaint is more relatable. We all have words we don't like; racist or
ableist slurs for example. We might not all be on the same page about
the details, but I think we can agree that some labels are neutral, like
names or ages, some are bad, like slurs, and some are good. Let's start
with the bad:<br />
<br />
<h3>
Ableist slurs hinder our ability to communicate.</h3>
<i><br /></i>
<i>Dumb, stupid, moronic, idiotic</i>, and- if those first 4 words didn't shock you then this shouldn't either- <i>retarded</i>, are used as slurs against disabled people to insult us directly, and that's obviously harmful. They are also used against non-disabled people, to insult them by comparison to disabled people, which is of course offensive to all disabled people. Yet neither of those applications are what make these words less-than-useless as labels.<br />
<br />
Ableist slurs based on "intelligence" end your thought process. If you don't like something, just call it "stupid" and swish your hands together like you're shaking off crumbs. Why don't you like that "stupid" thing? Well, because it’s stupid! The same can be done with "sanity" slurs and with the word <i>lame.</i><br />
<br />
In this scenario, we're not even talking about a person. We're talking about an object (or an emergent property of an object, like a story or a computer program) that has no brain and is thus incapable of having any brain-related characteristic. The word "stupid" thus has nothing to do with a brain; it's just an empty metaphor where you can file away everything in the broad category of "I don't like it." Since intelligence is a vaguely defined social construct invented to justify ableism, this is all equally true when we ARE talking about a person.<br />
<br />
The basic utility of a label is to shorten a longer phrase: Rather than carrying around "small battery-powered computers that transmit digitized sound waves across great distances and reinterpret them on the other side", we carry <i>cellphones</i>. Human communication would be incredibly slow and cumbersome without labels to signify larger phrases. The problem with a label like "stupid" is that it fails to represent any phrase other than "I don't like it." Lazy critics may think they are signifying something important by referencing intelligence, when really it signifies nothing. If you get too used to calling things stupid, you learn to rely on it, but take the word away, and you are forced to describe the details of your actual complaints. If you don't care about removing ableist slurs from your vocabulary because they're ableist, remove them because you will become a better communicator without them.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Functioning labels divide our community.</h3>
<i><br /></i>
<i>High-functioning, low-functioning, mild,</i><i> severe, </i>and the nonsensical non-clarification of "Asperger's, not autism" are similar to "intelligence" slurs in the sense that they don't really signify anything. There is no set of characteristics that constitutes any measurable "functioning" or "severity" level.<br />
<br />
Language has a tremendous influence on how we think, but that influence does not necessarily require using the language to communicate clearly. In some cases ambiguity may even be where the real power lies. Even if a label has no meaning behind it, the fact that people think it has meaning gives it power.<br />
<br />
Functioning labels create categories out of thin air, simply by naming them, without even defining them. The connotations of "high" and "low" create a hierarchy: One label paints a target for prejudice, the other grants a shot at being accepted into the real privilege of the neurotypical label, at the cost of not having any support in doing so.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Meaningless buzzwords unite us toward inaction.</h3>
<br />
Labels without meaning aren't a new concept. If you're familiar with advertising, then you've surely encountered words like <i>deluxe, gourmet, premium,</i> and <i>world-class. </i>In the realm of advertising, these labels are known as buzzwords. If you've had the unfortunate experience of "autism awareness" groups, then of course you know that "awareness" is a buzzword too.<br />
<br />
Awareness would ideally mean what it sounds like, a knowledge and understanding of the subject. In practice "awareness" campaigns, especially the ones about autism, have perverted the label such that it now signifies nothing more than seeing the word more frequently.<br />
<br />
The label of "awareness" is a blank slate. It can encompass a variety of endeavors, from messages resembling those of neurodiversity to abusive practices derived from misinformation. Anyone can latch on with their own idea of what they<i> feel</i> "awareness" <i>should</i> mean. The label doesn't inherently mean <i>anything</i>, and yet we see communities come together on the basis of the label, just because a label exists. "Awareness" has the power to unite people, in the joint mission of doing nothing in particular, but doing it together.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Privileged people reject their own labels.</h3>
<div>
<br />
Neurotypical people (along with several other categories including white, straight, and cis) often reject the label of neurotypical. As is true for my pronouncements about slurs and functioning labels, when someone tells you not to use the word neurotypical, that's because they don't want you recognizing neurotypical as a concept.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
When asked for an alternative, neurotypicals may offer the word "normal" or something similar, but that perfectly illustrates the problem with not having a label for neurotypical. <i>Normalcy</i> is a tool of oppression. Calling one set of people "normal" presents that set as the only good and healthy way to be, which in turn instantly paints everyone else as weird, alien, bad, and unhealthy.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The other alternative is to avoid labels altogether. Why do we need those words at all? Can't we all be human beings? Why can't we just call everybody people?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
We can't just call everybody people.</h3>
<br />
If you constantly avoid labels, instead referring to everyone as people, then any time you give in and take the easy route, you'll be contrasting a label against "person" thus implying that whoever you're talking about isn't a person.<br />
<br />
You can't just do away with human traits by not talking about them. Because there is no universal set of human experiences, desires, or needs, the differences between us matter. In a world where most people speak with their mouths and assume everyone else does too, I need the autism label to explain why typing is better. In a world of sensory assault, where "I don't want to" is not a sufficient excuse, I need the autism label to justify my self-protection.<br />
<br />
It would be great if labels like autism weren't necessary. It would be great if ableism didn't exist, but that's one hell of a hypothetical. Ableism is an extreme and far-reaching problem that can't be solved without labeling the specific disabilities of the people being harmed.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Identity labels create communities.</h3>
<br />
Those who think it wrong to label ourselves autistic are operating under false notion that there is something wrong with being autistic. The autism label may be used to create stigma against us, but it also gives us something to reclaim. Before the label, we only had terms like <i>weird</i>, or<i> abnormal</i>, or worse. With the label we have something to point to for positive identity and pride.<br />
<br />
Before the autism label existed, autistic people were disconnected, isolated individuals. We needed the label before we could begin to congregate on the basis of being literally like-minded. We need the label in order to search for resources from people with the same experiences. The autism label enables Autistic community. Uniting ourselves categorically unites us as people.<br />
<br />
Bringing autistic people together also led to the creation of other terms, like stimming and special interests, which capture the beauty of autism and Autistic culture. These terms were created out of necessity and out of appreciation for our shared community.<br />
<br />
...and it's all thanks to a label.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1