Messing with AI.

I’ve been to quite a large number of psychiatric hospitals in my life. I had my first experience of psychiatric incarceration at just 15 years old, that was 20 years ago. At one point, my insurance disclosed to me that I had had over 70 hospitalizations in my record. That was 2 years ago, I believe I have 80 or so now. Reflecting a lot on all these experiences—not just being a frequent flyer, but being held captive in these supposed safe havens where I was supposed to get "care"—I do feel that psychiatric hospitals are a cell. It tells their patients, all these people who are diagnosed with mental illnesses, that they are wrong for having human experiences and the human emotions that go along with it, and that they need to be less emotional, less unique, less them because being who they are is disruptive and problematic and makes people uncomfortable. We are not robots. We are allowed to have complex feelings, grief, shame, anger, resentment, we are allowed to cry and numb our pain if that is what we need in the moment to survive the experience. Here is what that reality actually looks like: The Myth of Care: It is a medical facility, not a therapeutic one. It only does that one side of complex care, focusing purely on medication management rather than true therapeutic value. Punishment as Treatment: It uses medication as a punishment and a threat. If you are perceived as too sick, noncompliant, aggressive, or even just loud, they will chemically restrain you. That is deeply traumatic: having multiple people hold you down as they come at you with a needle, pull down your pants of all things, and inject you there, taking away your ability to be present and aware as they disregard your autonomy. Ignoring External Realities: None of our coping mechanisms are "good" or "bad"—they just are. We are surviving the best ways we know how. It’s not just a matter of willpower or being put into a locked ward for a week and being reprogrammed with toxic positivity while being talked down to. We need to look at the external sense of safety, not just the internal. Poverty, food insecurity, job insecurity, family stress, overwhelm with children, relationships, grief, peer pressure, and addiction are what cripple us.

As you move through your week, I’d love to invite you to notice one moment when things felt difficult—and something you did that helped you through it. Maybe you went for a walk instead of isolating. Maybe you reached out to a friend. Maybe you rested without guilt. Maybe you made yourself a cup of tea, listened to music, cried, journaled, took a shower, cuddled your pet, practiced self-compassion, or simply made it through the day. It doesn’t have to be a huge victory. Sometimes the smallest acts of caring for ourselves are the most meaningful. When we gather to our weekly meetings moving forward, I’d love for everyone to share: 🌿 A moment you struggled. 🌿 What you did to support yourself. 🌿 How it felt afterward—or what you learned from it. One of the beautiful things about peer support is discovering that we all carry different tools, perspectives, and ways of getting through hard moments. By sharing them, we help expand each other’s toolbox and remind one another that healing doesn’t have to happen alone. I’m looking forward to hearing your stories and celebrating the ways you’ve cared for yourselves next week. ❤️ P.S. This wonderful idea came from one of our community members, @Morgan Taliaferro. Thank you, Morgan, for inspiring our new weekly reflection!

Hey everyone, just wanted to remind you that there's a meeting today at 3pm Pacific. Hope to see some of you there if you can make it. It's on Skool this week. 🙂 Let's Unlock the Psych Ward Doors!

I’m so excited for our Reading Circle today! I refreshed our list of potential books we’ll be choosing from over the coming months. I kept some favorites from our previous Reading Circle, added a bunch of new ones, and included several wonderful suggestions from members of our community. 💙 Today’s meeting will be a little different—we’ll spend our time reading brief summaries of these books together so we can narrow down which one we’d like to read next as a group. 📖 Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen – A literary memoir exploring psychiatric hospitalization, identity, and recovery through a feminist lens. 📖 Mad in America – A landmark examination of the history of psychiatric treatment and long-term medication outcomes. 📖 Living with Voices – Introduces the Hearing Voices approach, encouraging people to understand and relate to their voices rather than simply suppress them. 📖 Agnes’s Jacket – Explores stories of madness and recovery from psychiatric survivors around the world, highlighting diverse paths to healing outside conventional systems. 📖 The Book of Woe – An engaging behind-the-scenes look at how psychiatric diagnoses are created and the debates that shape the DSM. 📖 Outside Mental Health – Offers practical ideas and survivor perspectives for navigating emotional distress beyond the traditional mental health system. 📖 Beyond Survival – Explores disability justice, transformative justice, and community-based alternatives to policing, punishment, and institutional responses to crisis. 📖 Care Work – A collection of essays on disability justice, mutual aid, interdependence, and building communities where everyone belongs. 📖 Models of Madness – Presents evidence-based psychological, social, and trauma-informed alternatives to the biomedical model of mental illness. 📖 Emergent Strategy – Invites readers to imagine social change through relationships, adaptation, and collective care, with lessons that translate beautifully to peer support communities.