Disrupting Disableism

The following is a qualitative re-search study and narrative inquiry into service user experiences of mainstream psychiatric ‘support’ and diagnoses as a child or adolescent. Informed from the theoretical lenses of mad studies, critical disability studies, and anti-colonialism, it critically investigates treatment, response, sanism, agency and support. Through semi-structured interviews with three individuals, this MRP examines how western approaches to mental health (ex: diagnoses, medication, labeling) affect young adults long after being psychiatrized. The findings of this MRP indicate that western mental health experiences are extremely medicalized and limited/limiting and how they perpetuate adultism, sanism and psycho-colonialism. What is revealed from these narratives shows a complex reality, iatrogenesis and damage as well as a battle for acceptance, better care and ultimately understanding.