While Obama's executive order came down, I waited on a bed in the psych unit

Just because it shows less to strangers doesn't mean it's not there. While Obama's executive order came down, I sat in a hospital emergency room waiting for a bed in the psych unit. I had just explained to about five different doctors the Bad Thoughts that led me to the hospital.

No, I don't have a representative payee. For all intents and purposes, I appear independent. Does this mean I should not care? For my friends who have representative payees, and for the continued stigma against having mental health needs, I do care.

My friend consoled me as I broke down on the phone before going to the hospital, and told me it was brave to get this kind of help with all the stigma that surrounds it. While my friend has not reached this level of mental health crisis before, they know all too well the dialogue surrounding mental health. Uncontrollable thoughts raced through my head as I waited on the chair, mixed with frustration at my brain being out of whack again. The thoughts that drove me there were far more intense than usual.

I missed most of the initial window in which to respond to Obama's executive order because I had no internet access. I relied on phone conversations with friends, individual therapy sessions, playing cards with fellow patients, mealtimes, naps, and books to pass the time.

***

The history of people with mental health needs is one of rights denied. Institutions for us are still a fairly recent history, and a failed project. Do we have the supports we need in the community yet? Absolutely not. About our rights: should we be able to own guns?

Obama's executive order affects not just those with mental health needs, but anyone receiving SSA with a representative payee who controls their money. Obama's executive order is trying a one size fits all policy instead of individually tailoring background checks to search for patterns in past behavior of wanting to hurt people (I cannot propose an adequate policy for those with suicidal ideation in their history, such as mine, even though I do not own a gun and do not want to because I do not need one. I grapple with this.) The answer to should we own guns? depends specifically on the person. People with mental health needs are people, after all.

***

I managed to convince one of the psychiatrists at the hospital that the Murphy Bill needed significant reform or outright rejection. I have talked about the Murphy Bill extensively in the past (here's an article on it.) I have always worried about it. I am a person who needs psychiatric care to thrive. I have accepted this about myself long ago. I want my treatment to be as private as I choose. Already some big companies are slipping up with HIPAA violations. If enough action is not taken, soon it will become a moot point.

When you have mental health needs, some people are determined that you should make a full recovery for the sake of society itself and then mock you for getting help. It is okay for recovery to not be your goal – maybe your goal, like mine, is just to learn coping skills – but regardless, quality treatment should be accessible to everyone at their own pace.

The Murphy Bill will it make it harder for people to willingly access treatment if they know their information is vulnerable. The Murphy Bill's solution is to simply force treatment and then strip us of our rights and protection against abuses.

Call or write your representative today. Tweet at your legislators. Find your rep at http://www.house.gov/representatives/ and then use the generic contact us form. Call to the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask for your representative and ask them to oppose the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act (HR 2646).

There is a federal relay service for d/Deaf people listed at the bottom here  http://www.house.gov/content/site_tools/accessibility.php)

***

Some people are calling for the return of “asylums.” It will be horrifying to see what legal loopholes they try to uncover in their quest. They are using people like me to further their ideas. They are saying people who end up hospitalized, especially those who experience repeat hospitalizations, are cause for a so-called safe place to keep us (but institutions are not safe; take a look at this history, no matter how altruistic the intentions, they limit freedom and are not safe). 

They would rather not fight for community change and community funds. They are talking about our cost, our safety, our inability to care for ourselves, our pitiful state, our drain on society.

They are talking asylums and echoing the language of eugenics.

***

The Murphy Bill and Obama's executive order generalizes people with mental health needs and uses us to create public fear. A return to asylums is unthinkable.

Imagine a world that is already hard enough to navigate because of mental health needs. Now imagine everyone blames you for mass shootings. Imagine that someone could reveal your secrets to people they see fit, even if it's not an emergency. “But not you personally! I don't think of you as mentally ill.” Yes, me personally. I am someone who has mental health needs. Just because it shows less to strangers doesn't mean it's not there.

The sections become shorter as I have less and less to say, recycling words and trying to convince you that an entire group of people's humanity is worth respecting.

***

Further reading links to come

the world is larger than my recycled words

How do I feel? The world is larger than the recycled words I can spit out to try to convince people of disabled people's value. On December 2, I started my second day of work; on December 2, gunmen shot up Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, CA. It was the second mass shooting of the day. Inland Regional Center served people with developmental disabilities. I followed a new routine, too tired in the evening to draft a blog post as my newsfeed exploded with the news.

Speaker Paul Ryan announced his intent to push for the Murphy Bill. The shooters shot up a center to serve people with developmental disabilities. The Murphy Bill intends to curtail the rights of people with psychiatric disabilities.

On December 2, I also received an action alert in my inbox from the Arc. The Senate was about to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act – parts that have helped people with disabilities. On December 3, my Facebook trending topics switched to Planned Parenthood as the Senate bill passed their version of the bill to federally defund Planned Parenthood. A sidenote was that the bill also repealed the Affordable Care Act, which has helped many people with disabilities. President Obama is expected to veto the bill.

People expressed shock and sorrow that someone would do this to a center that serves developmentally disabled people. People fawned over the woman who thanked an autistic person for decorating a cake. Representatives and Senators tweeted heartbreak about San Bernardino. They've done their good deed now, right?

* * *

Please explain to me how it is a good deed to be objectifying autistic people into inspiration porn for decorating a cake. There are far more extreme examples, like having to hold a Day of Mourning: Remembering Disabled People Murdered by Caregivers because so many people murder the people they are supposed to be providing care and/or support for. Then explain to me how people can express shock that someone shot up a center that serves developmentally disabled people.

Please explain to me how it is a good deed to tweet heartbreak about San Bernardino when Congress just decided to repeal key provisions of the ACA that would materially help disabled people. Help, rather than just fawn over someone decorating a cake and think they're helping, or assigning buddies in class to that poor disabled kid, or whatever.

Congress is moving the Murphy Bill rapidly through. H.R. 2646 is the, as Ari Ne'eman put it, “perversely named” the Helping Families In Mental Health Crisis Act.

The Murphy Bill would fundamentally strip people with psychiatric disabilities of their rights. It would

• strip HIPAA rights for anyone in treatment with a doctor or therapist for mental health needs,
• strip a great deal of funding for and place restrictions on the portion of protection and advocacy agencies (P&As) that serve people with mental illness (program is called PAIMI)
• H.R. 2646 will provide more federal funds for institutionalization. This will mean less focus on

       community-based services.

• This includes cutting the budget for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)'s community integration projects.

• H.R. 2646 will also encourage states to allow forced-medication programs. These would be through court systems. The best way to help people get mental health treatment is to reduce stigma, make it available, and provide support. The solution is not forced treatment.

It was introduced in the wake of Sandy Hook in 2013 to manipulate the public. Don't let them.

Call or write your representative today. Tweet at your legislators. Find your rep at http://www.house.gov/representatives/ and then use the generic contact us form. Call to the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask for your representative and ask them to oppose the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act (HR 2646).

There is a federal relay service for d/Deaf people listed at the bottom here  http://www.house.gov/content/site_tools/accessibility.php

* * *

Explain how the Murphy Bill helps anyone with disabilities. Explain how fawning over a cake helps people with disabilities.

Explain how the “good deeds” work then.

On Mass Shootings: Scapegoats and the Manipulation of the Public

On Mass Shootings: Scapegoats and the Manipulation of the Public

Part One: Fearing for Neurodivergence

I sit in a coffee shop. The headlines on the newspaper stand are all the UCC mass shooting. I am afraid to go near them. I am afraid to move like I usually do. I am afraid to twitch and jiggle my legs and duck my head like I usually do.

I worry about other people with disabilities and mental illnesses that will look too “weird” and “suspicious” in public today. I fear the police for them, especially if they are of color. Apart from the police, there are other looming threats against people who are visibly neurodivergent. We have a psychiatric system built on the recognition of “weird” and “suspicious” behaviors. Our behaviors are pathologized. Our behaviors scare people.

Really, what appears so dangerous to the public as the unexplained and sometimes disruptive?

Sit... listen... imagine what it would be like if people blamed people who shared a major characteristic with you for every mass shooting, en masse. Imagine.

Part Two: Excuses

So many of the mass shooters that make the media are white. Many openly publish manifestos on their blogs or whatever platform they choose. Then everyone blames mental illness/neurodivergence. It is easier to blame us for society's mishaps than to admit the problem is racism, misogyny, or what have you. It is easier to take a marginalized population, many of whom are vulnerable, and exploit us and try to get more of us locked away and stripped of rights than to address the virulent culture of racism and misogyny. (I'm looking at the media... and laypeople... and President Obama... and Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA).

Someone I know said they are “far less afraid of mental illness than violent, narcissistic entitlement.” The root of mass shootings is societal ills rather than mental illnesses. Mass shooters shoot out of a massive sense of entitlement which society creates. Then society blames us. There are differences between belief systems that enable someone to shoot ten people than mental illness.

Part Three: The Murphy Bill's False Solutions

The Murphy Bill took advantage of Sandy Hook. It took advantage of a fearful society and exploited them and us mentally ill folks.

I will post a transcription of the Autistic Self Advocacy's document on the Murphy Bill, along with an image of the document below, and I urge to you write/call to your Congresspeople against this, and spread the word. On October 7, 2015, there will be a social media push against the Murphy Bill.

"Why Your Member of Congress Should Oppose HR. 3717 

*Note: now HR 2646

After the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting. Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) introduced HR. 3717, legislation designed to take advantage of media associations inaccurately linking mental health and violent crime to rollback civil rights protections of people with psychiatric disabilities. It is intended to completely change the current state of mental health services to make it easier to forcibly treat people with psychiatric disabilities, expand institutionalization and reduce privacy rights and legal protections. Here are some talking points you can use when speaking with your congressional offices about why they should oppose HR. 3717:

Privacy
The bill would reduce privacy protections for both people with mental illnesses and people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The bill allows disclosure of confidential psychological and psychiatric information to family and caregivers in additional circumstances to those already defined in current privacy laws. Right now, doctors and therapists can give confidential health and mental health information to family and caregivers in emergency situations or if they have permission from the person getting treatment. The bill would allow doctors and therapists to give confidential health and mental health information to family and caregivers even without permission and without emergency circumstances.

The bill also allows for greater influence from family and caregivers, including forcing involuntary medication and institutionalization.

Institutionalization
The bill will provide federal government funding for more institutionalization. This will mean less money is available for other community-based services. The bill will also cut the budget for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s community integration projects to a little over a third of what it is now.

The bill would also require all states to create programs that allow judges to order people to take psychiatric medications that they do not want to take. The best way to help people get mental health treatment is to make it available and give people support, not to get the courts involved.

Legal Protections
The bill takes away many legal protections available to people with mental illnesses through the Protection and Advocacy program, which is the largest and most accessible program for legal services for people with disabilities. Over 80% of the funds for Protection and Advocacy for people with psychiatric disabilities would be taken away.

Economics
The bill establishes an unnecessary assistant secretary position to oversee the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration which would be financially supported by a portion of the budget allocated to supports for people with mental illnesses.”