PSINKTOBER_DAY20

Prompt: Uncharted

What I’m trying to say:

• “Western” psychiatry is not the only way of conceptualizing mental disorder, so it’s illogical to dismiss all disorder as “fake” (whether as a reaction to “the problems of life” or a “cry for attention”) just because our psychiatric framework is fake.

• Patients have thoroughly explored their disorders just by living with them, albeit without the intent of finding an etiology (cause), and doctors/therapists/everyone should stop treating them as passive burdens with no understanding of their conditions.

What I’m definitively not trying to say:

• “Indigenous people and pathologized people are basically the same”—while I am trying to draw a metaphor between how colonists view their targets as “uncharted” and how psychiatrists view mental illness as an “abyss,” the experience of colonization is vastly more horrific and extensive than any disordered patient experience.

• “Other cultures have figured out how to cure mental illness”—using meditation, acupuncture, or any “spiritual practice” as an alternative to therapy or medication is just a way dressing up therapy and medication in “exotic,” appropriated clothes that you don’t even understand.