Reply #52: Most psych survivor groups are pro-choice on drugs

[Banazir]

My position is being pro-choice on medication. As in people can put what they want into their bodies after being informed of the real risks and benefits. That "informed of the real risks and benefits" part is important, as is that the choice must not be forced/coerced/threatened. I don't care what other people put into their bodies, and I'll put what I want into mine, but I spent years under forced and coerced drugging (with basically every major class of psychiatric drug in existence) and would never ever suggest that as a good thing.

This is also the position of most major psychiatric survivor groups, although many are rightly calling into question some of the shaky biological claims made about the medications, and the downplaying of the risks. Which is a good thing: Truth is important, and I have plenty of neuroleptic-induced brain damage as a precise consequence of the lies.

My life as it actually is would be said to be impossible by mainstream psychiatry, and that is important and not in any way an attack on people who actually choose to put drugs in their bodies. The fact is that so many of us are "impossible" bears investigation though, given how many of us have been told we would never survive without a given drug, and survived (and more!) in spite of the drugs rather than because of them. Psychiatry ignores this, and that is why you get a lot of the backlash: We want our lives represented too; the idea of taking drugs is already well-represented within psychiatry (the reasons the drugs work when they do, however, is not well-represented at all).