madacademic

[madacademic]

idk i think a lot of people sort of build up schizo-spec diagnoses in their head as this example of a "clearly biomedical disease that is the scariest possible example of mental illness that is always a crisis no matter what." and i'm not going to sit here and say that schizoaffective is always pleasant to live with, or pretend that it's something that I can manage perfectly-it does cause me distress a lot of the time, and makes some things very difficult. but for me, psychosis is by far not the most difficult symptom i have to deal with, compared to some of the other things that have brought me distress. And yet it's always the symptom that is reacted to with the most fear, confusion, and disgust by other people. I hate it when people generalize psychosis as always and inherently and forever a crisis, and ignore the fact that everyone who experiences psychosis is going to have their own experiences, perspectives on how it impacts them, and that treating psychosis as a super scary, inherently dangerous symptom is incredibly stigmatizing and prevents us from receiving support and care from our communities.

idk. i just really wish people would realize that for some people, psychosis can sometimes be a neutral or even positive experience (i've had some incredibly lovely psychosis experiences), and that by positioning psychosis as a "super scary disease that has no quality of life" and only offering carceral solutions, it perpetuates a pattern where we get continually pushed into harmful treatments. Instead of a situation where our autonomy is respected, where we're offered a wide variety of treatments from meds to therapies to peer support like Hearing Voices Network to material community based support and where we're allowed to define our own experience of psychosis based on how it actually affects us. like, i don't want to deny that psychosis is often distressing for many of us--but I do think we have the responsibility to evaluate where we've learned about psychosis, what societal messages we've internalized about psychosis, what kinds of knowledge about psychosis do we not have access to, and just actually think in depth about how our biases impact how we communicate about psychosis.

[madacademic]

Mad Academic: An Introduction

Hello, I’m Nicole (but you can call me Nic if you’d like), a queer, Mad, disabled, and chronically ill occasional part-time university student. And this, as you can probably tell, is my newsletter, Mad Academic. Though I’m not entirely sure where this Substack will end up, my current goal is to focus on assumptions in the areas of psychology and disability, as well as those assumptions’ impact on society as a whole. (Yes, that is purposefully vague. I don’t want to limit what I write here—at least not yet.) However, this project is just getting started, and I know there will be mistakes along the way. This will definitely be a learning experience for me, but stick around, and maybe you’ll learn something, too.

More About the Writer

I’ve never been the best at talking about myself, but here we go. Born pretty close to the East Coast in Northern Virginia, I grew up among the humidity and greenery, which heavily contrasts with the desert-like state I’m in now (New Mexico). I was also pretty close to Washington DC, a place I loved to visit.

I grew up unschooled for the most part. When I asked to try online school—and eventually in-person high school—my health problems, overwhelm, and lack of motivation got to me, making it so I never finished a semester, even if I just took one or two classes. I felt like a failure. Some might’ve called me lazy. Some might’ve called it the emergence of severe depression along with some other things. Some might’ve chosen a different lens and considered the ongoing trauma that began around that time as well as the fact that I never had much school experience. Maybe some would’ve gone even deeper and considered more societal implications. Me? I had no name or explanation for what was going on. I think I thought it was just part of me being weird.

Despite not doing well in anything school related, I took my first college course when I was seventeen. It was an introductory psychology course, and it actually went really well. However, I struggled with taking more than two or four classes for the most part. Back then, I would spend a lot of time on homework but almost always received grades of at least 100%. But, over the past few years, getting 100% on everything turned into either getting 100% on a project or not turning it in at all. The last time I took classes, it got to the point where I usually wouldn’t turn in assignments at all.

I started to identify what I’m going through as autistic burnout. As I’m close to starting my Master’s degree at this point, I really want to return at some point, but I’ve also heard of autistic burnout never really going away for some people. As much as I want to go back, my plan is to take things slow for now. I’m very lucky in that I can do that in the first place.

So what have I been doing during my break from school? I started doing some streaming and reading. (You can find my stream over here.) And from here on, I plan to do more reading and streaming, along with some writing, too, starting with this newsletter.

I consider myself disabled and have been diagnosed with multiple physical and mental disorders throughout my life. Though I used to care a lot about the DSM, ultimately memorizing the criteria for many disorders (it was a special interest, okay?), I’ve started to realize it’s limited and even harmful to people. (And now I often use my knowledge to bash it!) Today, I continue to learn about the effects of the psychiatric system on different individuals.

Why Bother Writing About This?

I’m writing about this because it feels important; impacts me; hopefully will inform others; and allows me to learn, evolve, and be corrected in this area of knowledge.

What to Expect

I’m not sure what exactly I’m going to post about other than my thought on issues that arise in psychology. Maybe there will also be some other societal topics—maybe some personal topics. But in the end, I’m hoping for it to keep the same theme while letting the newsletter evolve however it’s meant to evolve.

Overall, this is meant to be a place to post my finished (or almost finished) thoughts related to psychology, disability, and potentially all kinds of societal issues. I’m planning to do a lot more research in the future, which is why the future topics of this newsletter are partially to be determined. It all sounds like a mess. I know. I figured the fastest way to figure out what this newsletter should be about is to learn as I go. I guess we’ll see how that works out.

How often will I post? I’m hoping to start with one post on the first of each month. I’m also hoping to post at least one Instagram post a week, but that will be further figured out later. (For anyone who doesn’t know, my Instagram account is @madacademic.)

At the moment, this newsletter is entirely free, and it might stay that way. While there are paid options, those are just for giving further support to this project and do not affect which content you can access. If I ever change this, I’ll be sure to announce it.