Tw: “self-harm”, suicide: self-harm & self-destruction are inaccurate & moralizing terms re mental illness

This is archiving a Twitter thread I wrote [suicide, “self-harm”]Possibly hot take: I really don’t like words like self-harm & self-destruction when talking abt mental illness. Ppl are learning to say dying by suicide instead of committing suicide [as if it was a sin/crime] to highlight it as due to a medical issue. 1/ [“self-harm”]Saying […]

Religious rituals & taking things literally

One thing I’ve noticed as a diff in approach to religion b/w me & my family is while I tend to take lots of everyday things literally & perhaps for that reason & bc of my history of religious rituals being hijacked by my OCD [see my post on Religious OCD & me: https://shesmacksherforehead.com/2019/09/22/religious-ocd-and-me/%5D, I […]

“Biospsychosocial” model & #MedicalGaslighting

This post is to archive a Twitter thread [https://twitter.com/hellozeik/status/1602017019993260032?s=46&t=jIQSmBcZHUcffcA8RmZhxw]: What pisses me off extra abt the “biopsychosocial” stuff is it had potential to actually do so much good…instead it’s just morphed into latest iteration of hysteria worldview in medicine but w a veneer of systems thinking / social justice language. Healthcare providers have convinced themselves […]

Pacing – an ND poem abt chronic illness

I need to pace Instead I pace The pacing destroying the pacing The pacing to recover from the pacing I need to pace – a Neurodivergent poem abt chronic illness

Margining philosophies & human health & safety

Idk if this is a STEM workplace thing but lack of “human performance” margins in everyday work is so pervasive It’s esp silly in space science bc we spend so much attention/effort on project margins – technical/schedule/cost But culturally that doesn’t translate to accessible workplace cultures It’s like humans are expected to not need margins […]

Insight & Control: 2 extremely important mental illness concepts

This post is to describe some concepts I’ll be referencing in other posts & which I think are extremely important for the general public to understand. They’re common knowledge in psychiatry/psychology but rarely show up in mental health discussions among the wider public. This includes many progressive & leftist spaces that promote discussions on mental […]

What’s the opposite of conflicting access needs? Tw: suicidal ideation

You know how there’s the concept of conflicting access needs in the disability community? Including with yourself? Like, for example, I need background music to focus on certain tasks but I can’t put it on because of hyperacusis. I don’t know if there’s a term for the opposite of that? Where symptoms of one illness […]

#MyDisabledIslam & how abled theology makes no sense to me [Tw: suicidal ideation]

To start with, the hashtag for this post is inspired by the #MyDisabledRamadan series by Masjid Al Rabia I don’t have a lot of spoons today but I do have a lot of anger & sadness & “I’ve had enough” feelings today so this is gonna be a sort of an expanded listicle rather than […]

My finding psychiatric care saga or how hard it is to “get help” even with immense social privilege

This is traumatic to write about because it’s tied up emotionally with what happened next, which is me getting hospitalized in a psych ward, which I don’t wish on my worst enemies. I can’t write about that, not yet. So this saga will end in a bit abruptly till I can get out the rest […]

Mental illness as a mobility issue

It was a typical New England January day in 2013 & I was feeling nervous as I was being given a new patient orientation for the partial hospital program at the OCD Institute at McLean Hospital. As the counselor finished giving me a tour of the building I’d spend the next several weeks getting treated […]