While many people find healing and validation through the psychiatric system, many more are harmed, revictimised and retraumatised. 

That harm may not always be immediate. The act of diagnosing survivors with labels that locate the roots of their struggles primarily within themselves can set survivors up for revictimisation and make it less likely that they'll be able to recognise themselves as survivors. 

The system discourages education on abuse and most psych workers are uneducated about the dynamics of abuse, while the vast majority of what they treat are the impacts of abuse. This is so harmful. 

People are also frequently coerced into giving up their survival strategies, from self-harm to eating 'disorders' to dissociation, all of which are usually pathologised as wrong. 

Punishment, control, coercion and disempowerment define this system. Survivors need spaces outside of this where we can depathologise what we've been taught to see as "symptoms" and "disorders," where we can make sense of our experiences on our own terms, and where we can better understand the dynamics of abuse. I believe that we are powerful when we unite outside of the Mental Health Industrial Complex and that Mad / mentally ill / neurodivergent people have a lot of wisdom to share with one another.