Prompts: These are some guiding questions to consider while writing your story. You do not have to answer any of them. Some people want to talk about specific memories (like a time they vandalized a psych ward), while other people want to share many ways they’ve been harmed by the psych system. Other people might just want to share a review of a hospital they were in, or a few sentences about what they wish people knew about being a psych survivor! Anything that you want to share is welcome.
1. What do you want people to know about being a psych survivor? What parts of your experience feel most important to share?
(Example: I want people to know that institutionalization was painful on a level I don’t even have words for, and left me feeling fragmented and lost. It’s important for me to share about resistance within psychiatric wards, because I think a lot of people don’t even believe that it’s possible.)
2. What parts of the psych system have you experienced? How has the psych system harmed you? How do you feel about your interactions with the psych system?
(Examples. I was hospitalized against my will, and I am filled with so much rage about it, especially the non consensual drugging I survived.
I went through special ed as a kid, and I feel really conflicted, because I needed accommodations but also faced so much ableism from my teachers, and I wish there were more options.)
3. How do you fight back against the psych system, or how would you want to fight back?
(Example: Every day that I survive and live as a crazy person feels like I am fighting back. I dream of the day we could dismantle psych wards and unlock all the doors.)
4. What do you wish you had known when you first entered into the psych system? What advice would you give to other psych survivors? Are there ways you find healing/share your rage/honor your grief as a psych survivor?
(Example: I wish I had known that I didn’t deserve the coercion and abuse that psychiatrists tried to make me think was “treatment.” I would tell other psych survivors that they are the experts on their own bodymind, and that their anger is worth celebrating. )