Ableism is the discrimination of and social prejudice against people with disabilities based on the belief that typical abilities are superior.
Mentalism or sanism describes discrimination and oppression against a mental trait or condition a person has or is judged to have.
When I started to take my life back, I was 28 years old. Can I really call it taking your life back if I never felt in control of it in the first place? Mayans believe to take a picture of someone steals a part of your soul, and this I know to be true. One of the easiest ways to read a person is through the eyes of the pictures we take. These capture parts of your soul in the time-period you are in. You can feel this to be true when you look at old pictures of yourself and you instantly feel the emotion that you felt on that day. A part of your most authentic self is captured in that moment and no matter what you are trying to mask, hard emotional truths are shown in the eyes at that moment in time. When I look back at pictures of myself as a child there are two main versions I see captured. One: I am a happy child. I liked to climb things, have fun, be adventurous, and explore new things, an authentic optimist down to my core (yes, manic depressives can be optimists). Two: I am anxious, controlled, and very careful who I reveal my emotions too, and I am always worried about who is mad at me, and how I can be of service. I try very hard to be the “good” child and be the best big sister/friend I can be. For as long as I can remember I have felt like my brain was eating itself. I never understood how other children seemed to exist in simple fun. I remember playing with my brother and sister and needing to stop to make sure my mom was okay, didn’t need me for anything or wasn’t mad at me. My siblings would laugh and ask why I was like this – the truth is I was born this way. I was persistently stressed out that someone was mad at me, needed me, or didn’t like me. I remember my brain never settling down. At night I would hear whispers or groups of people talking, sometimes random songs play when the whole house was sleeping. I know now these were spirits trying to talk to me but back then I would hum with a pillow over my head just trying to block it out. In between hearing spirits my own mind would constantly just run circles all day every day about every little thing. Berating myself nonstop for all the ways in which I was failing at life, and why no one liked me. When I was 15, I started self-medicating and if you read my last blog, you know exactly how that went. The Cliff’s notes version is after a sexual assault, and finally being diagnosed as a manic depressive with anxiety disorder and as an addict I had accumulated a lifetime of trauma. I can genuinely say I don’t remember a time when anxiety/ depression wasn’t running my life, even as a 2-year-old. As much as I love the sentiment that you can heal everything you go through, I just don’t find that to be true. In a lot of ways, I find the spiritual community the most toxic place for someone suffering with a hereditary lifelong mental illness that I am medicated for. There are so many spiritual accounts regurgitating ableist jargon that really lacks the awareness or life experience to deal with a severe mental illness like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or severe depressive episodes – all things I have personally have first-hand experience with or have had close relationships with someone who suffers with these ailments. I get tired of people trying to act like there is a one size fits all approach to everything in life, and the worst example of these kinds of ideologies seem to exist mainly in the spiritual world. How could a place that helped me to find my identity also be so ignorant and foolish to turn their back on healing as a whole. What I mean by “healing as a whole” is that if our end goal as healing facilitators is to provide relief and healing to those in need, how or why would you disregard modern medicine and medications outside of herbs to help someone. Doesn’t it at that point become more about “your way” or you being right and your own ego than it does about actually helping someone. I tried what is called herbal antidepressants for a whole year, which did nothing. I also went to therapy regularly, bought a juicer, went gluten free/vegan, tried meat with no sugar or bread, went to the gym 5 days a week, tried running, and guess what? I still tried to take my own life because at the end of the day none of that matters if you have a chemical imbalance in your brain that was passed down to you that has been in your genetic DNA from the beginning of time. I have watched family members be enveloped and disintegrated by their mental illness and stand strong against medication because admitting they needed help was just not okay. If you are someone who contributes to this messaging and uses “I have a right to my own opinion” as an out when confronted with the harm in which you help to spread I ask you this: If you have never watched a close family member cause harm to others or themselves because of a hereditary illness like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder can you really know how to aid in our suffering? Furthermore, where is the accountability for the results of your ignorance? Let’s just say I had a different life, and as much as the spiritual community has helped me to find my power as a reader, it has committed ableism against me repeatedly. When I then try to educate and hold someone accountable for their harm I am met with fragility and an arrogant tone of dismissal because clearly, I am just not doing my shadow work. If you have hereditary bloodline mental illness or live with a physical disability this is one of the most toxic places you can exist in. I once had a healer in my early days tell me my mediumship abilities would be more affective off my medication. My mediumship abilities are hereditary and let’s just say off medication it is not more effective, it is life threatening, not just to yourself but to those you read – I know from personal experience. If I had listened to her that could have been the end of my life as my lows are not manageable without medication, and if I had that happen to me, how many other people have been the victims of anti-medication new age “healers?”
A friend of mine actually posted a meme that reads “Idk who needs to hear this, but you’re not overwhelmed. You are lazy and unorganized.” This sounds more like a recipe for apathy and sociopathy than any kind of motivational meme. It is also a perfect example of ableism and sanism at is best. This is someone I call my friend, and yes, I know it wasn’t a personal attack on me, but it might as well have been. I am type A, if you know me you know I am the most organized person ever, I have gotten employee of the year at every job I have ever worked at including being flown on an all inclusive celebratory trip for my stellar performance; I saw a cognitive behavioural psychologist, psychotherapist, and psychiatrist, and joined support groups; I ate perfectly, exercised regularly, journaled, and did/do online and in person courses to better myself and at the end of the day I still tried to take my own life. Mental illness is an invisible disability and unlike what some people in toxic spirituality tell you, you are not to blame for the bad things that happen to you. It is tempting to want to believe you can control everything and honestly most of the people who post ableist shit are very careful to control their own emotions and never cut themselves a break. I can empathize with them until they start waging war and labelling those who have the courage to share their stories as “lazy” and “unorganized”. Don’t fuck with us in that way, we are stronger to go into our deepest emotions and own up to them then to sit back and act like we know the solutions to fix everyone. Now don’t get it twisted, having a mental illness is not a permission-slip to abuse everyone and take up all the air in the room over the emotions of others, but don’t you dare rag on those who have the courage to get help, get medicated and show the spiritual world that mental illness does not mean you’re doing anything wrong. I see so many stupid quotes or books like the secret which literally say everything you think is why you experience bad or good in your life and I get the sentiment. Trust me when I say the power of gratitude and acknowledging what you have in your life can really be effective, however shoving positive thinking in place of anxiety is not empowering, it’s called bypassing your emotions and it’s a first-class ticket to becoming a cult leader. Ask yourself if you share one of these quotes, have you ever watched someone you loved have a schizophrenic break so far from reality that you wished, prayed, and hoped they would just take their medication so they could live a normal life? If the answer is no than consider your privilege before sharing quotes that spread harm and imply you can choose your mentality. Maybe you can bypass your own feelings and live in Lala land forever, but some of us deal regularly with mental illness so severe we are just happy for modern medicine and science and that these medicines have kept us here and living a perfectly imperfect life. Ask yourself why you are so terrified to absorb the truth that maybe not everything happens for a reason. We can all do better, you don’t need to suffer to understand that you maybe have it better than some. This was a huge realization I had in doing and continuing to do anti-racist work. I make mistakes every day. I own them, I apologize, and I do better. Do yourself a favour and learn and understand ableism in its complete sense.
