psychiatric survivors

I am a survivor psychiatric abuse. During my time in psychiatric treatment I’ve seen and experienced restraints & seclusion used excessively and unnecessarily. I’ve been verbally abused by staff. I was told their abuse was my fault. But my story is not unique I want to help other people realize it wasn’t their fault either. That just because it was “treatment” doesn’t mean it was helpful and doesn’t mean it can’t be traumatic. I hope to find a community of other psychiatric survivors and people with similar experiences. I hope to speak up and make change because institutional abuse is constantly overlooked as the patient being “crazy”. Nobody deserves to be abused or traumatized, including mentally ill people. People with mental illnesses are not “crazy”. We deserve care just like everyone else. This server offers support for psychiatric survivors (and other trauma survivors) and has discussions about the system. It offers a space to share your experience and to work towards change including activism and working against institutional discrimination and abuse. There are also resources for people struggling with mental health.