What to do? Well, nothing, of course. It irks me that recently I found myself in a situation thinking ‘dammit, those rights shouldn’t apply here, we *should* be able to force him into treatment’. But it irks me much, much more that people like him are held up as an excuse for *all* psych patients to be treated as if they were at best incapable of making decisions and at worse violent criminals.
.-= Cinnamon Girl´s last blog ..All aboard the clue boat…* =-.

I’m pleased my transportation advocacy introduced me to members of People First!, a self-advocacy group run by people who used to be jailed in state-run congregate “colonies” because of learning impairments. Working with them helped me get in touch with the importance of community services: without them, these folks would still be stuck on a lifetime sentence. Now they’re living on their own or with one or two roommates, plus a staffer they hire. That work also gave me the chance to learn how to communicate in plain English, which is almost always a good thing to do. (Exceptions if you’re in graduate school :,))
.-= Jesse the K´s last blog ..Delightful New Resources =-.

Everyone else seems to know best. I always advocate it is up to the individual whether they take meds or not but it should be their decision not the shrinks nor the family/friends. And we always hear about the ‘carers’ involved and their needs. That’s my experience, and as a kid and as a teenager I was put on heavy dosages of chemical coshes that rendered me as a bloody zombie. Everyone told me what was best for me and that included taking the meds. Eventually I flushed the lot down the toilet. And there’s also the paternalistic ‘there, there… we are here to fight for your rights’ patronising organisations, which don’t have people who have (still are) experiencing the mental health system. My experiences have been in user-led organisations as opposed to orgs who think they have been given the right to speak on my behalf.

What I’ve seen in discussions like this (like Hexy writes about in “Neurotypical Privilege: Yes, it Fucking Well Exists”) is when people who actually have mental illnesses say, “No, actually, you’re wrong,” family members will say something like: “I’m not talking about *you.* My relative is REALLY sick.” And their judgment seems to be: “If you can disagree with me, I’m not talking about people like you.” I see something very similar in disagreements between parents of autistic children and autistic people, too.
.-= Tera´s last blog ..New blog of awesomeness =-.