Anti-Psychiatry (critical psychology) and de-colonizing ADHD care

Rather than assume everyone's good intent, where the PC thing to say is "Now I'm not saying ADHD doesn't exist, and I'm not saying that medication isn't absolutely necessary for those that need it but..."

(which is the ableist, neurotypical version of "I'm not a racist but...")

But I've been getting the runaround so to speak on whether or not the existence of ADHD is a good thing or not. In my experience, I was prescribed Adderall in 2008 without being told it was for ADHD, and then put on an anti-depressant (Wellbutrin) in 2016, and finally an anti-psychotic (Seroquel) to be used off-label to deal with the insomnia which is the only thing I still take maybe once every 2 weeks if I need it.

Previously I was told by my 3rd to most recent therapist that... he's not saying that ADHD doesn't exist, it's just that it's a version of anxiety and depression, unfortunately, as much as he was able to stop my panic attacks, we weren't able to get any further into my learned helplessness because there was this part of me that just couldn't trust how he put my ADHD aside so easily. But he was also backed up by my Kaiser psychiatrist at the time (who was terrible btw that's another story for another day) who said that Sensitive Rejection Dysphoria didn't exist, all I needed was more psychotherapy (and he boosted the amount of meds I was taking to boot.) So I was left to my own devices, learning about the dangers of Seroquel from "The Body Keeps the Score" and put a bunch of ADHD books on my To-Do List.


So that was all of the last 2 - 3 years, where am I now?

Well, I just wanted to show how continuously confusing it is to try to take care into your own hands, it's like disavowing mainstream media and realizing that you need to be able to figure out how to be a journalist because information simply isn't neutral and you have to know how to ask the right questions.

Not to say there's anything wrong with any of the following sources, but just imagine this trifecta of information that's been sitting together in my head, and now I'm starting to see why I'm so muddled even though everyone is kindof rooting for the same team:

So I've got these 3 vantage points (and put in 2 links each so you can get an idea of what exactly I've been catching up on):

1. Jessica McCabe's How To ADHD YouTube Channel: Why Stimulant Medication Helps ADHD -- and How Stigma Can Hurt + How ADHD Treatment is not ADHD Friendly

An informed FUBU movement of ADHD'rs OR is it a cult of well-intentioned mis-informed C.H.A.D.D. members? One thing is for sure, it's incredibly understanding, a resource for many that not only cites its sources but intrinsically places personal experience on an equal footing with the science.

2. Queer Vengeance and their Research Rabbit Holes + ADHD is More Than Deficits.

A guide to how to BURN IT ALL TO THE GROUND and re-plant society OR is it one big experimental science fiction novel where we abolish prisons like we did to mental facilities and collectively hold people in power to a level of accountability... only to realize that Instagram was a Trojan horse for their own means of getting and destroying your precious attention? Is anyone else alarmed that the best content is only 1 instagram connection or 1 post away from being THE craziest most ungrounded conspiracy theory... one that gives all the insane but true conspiracy theories a bad name! (i.e. that the Iraq War after 9-11 was a sham, that the government is spying on everyone)

3. Mad in America: Insane Medicine, Chapter 3: The Manufacture of ADHD (Part 2) + Non-Drug Therapies for Adults with Depression (Where I noticed that nothing was listed for ADHD?)

Is this the sources we've always wanted so that we could ground our conspiracy theories in a more robust way or is this just the more academic looking version of it?

So the joke is if you were to get to the bottom of all of the different views on ADHD, you're ripe for a PHD. But that flies in the face of accessibility! Just the other day I wrote in big block letters:
WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?

and just to give an example here are 3 real world questions where the rubber hits the road just to contrast 'the research' with the kind of things I think about:

How do I figure out what is actually helping me when I feel like I've been gas lit for years by psychiatrists and parents? For the last six years I've been trying to figure out my 'treatment plan' which includes medications for ADHD, how does one become anti-psychiatry exactly and get help?

What if one therapist says NEVER take hallucinogens you may find out you're the 1/100 that unlocks latent skitzophrenia, another friend says that's BS we'll do acid together, and from personal experience, the only time I did take mushrooms I was pretty emotional but it was an overall meaningful time with friends, so... is it safe?

Lastly, when we talk about being patient with ourselves... how long are things actually supposed to take, like say... writing a blog post? How long are we supposed to wait for people to figure out what people mean by Socialism, Defund the Police, Black Lives Matter?



I've tried tackling this before from the view of self-compassion & the known unknowns this is what I published in my Draft of an ADHD Guide for/by artists:



And then today I was able to sit with all of the confusion and tried to map out all of the various sources of information that were whirling around my head, in part because I'm sure there's stuff I'm traumatically procrastinating on, but also it did give me a great sense of comfort and accomplishment, so there's that.

So that's all I was able to get done today, (really all this just shows is how I lose about 6 hours of my life if I realize that I have a slight disagreement with someone/something...)

BUT, I do at least feel slightly less confused about why everything seems so confusing. Now I get to confuse everyone else with my diagram where if you can't tell the ball can go into the square hole and the round hole, but not the triangle hole, and the pyramid can go into the square hole and the triangular hole but can't go into the circular hole, and the cube can only go into the square hole, but technically if you only took like 75% of each shape, you could probably jam it down through the hole anyways...

Guess what I didn't get to? Talking about de-colonizing care, but if you want a good start, I already mentioned the link, but here it is again because it's just an insightful way into what non-researcher researcher looks like: @QueerVengeance RadPsych (A collection of prev. Instagram stories)

Who also produced these great plain text documents:
(Note to self, make plain text versions of my own graphics above...)

- ADHD is more than Deficits
- Things I Learned About ADHD From The Internet (But Never Doctors)

and they also made this meme (that to be honest I haven't done enough HW to understand in its entirety):

What a wonderful time it has been for so many people to be unemployed, it is truly creating the kind of reflection, introspection & protest that everyone WARNED about!