• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

PROSUMER NEWS PROSUMER — A PERSON WHO IS PROA C T I V E I N T H E I R O W N L I F E AND GIVES BACK TO THE COMMUNITY ! A Prosumer is not who you are, it is what you do! www.ProsumersInternational.org, Facebook—Prosumers, Twitter—ProsumersInt Phone 1-800-577-3795 We are the ones We have been Prosumers- A consumer led, consumer developed program having you focus on wellness and discovery. Waiting for!! August 2021 Janet Paleo—Editor Volume 20: Issue 8 Peeranity Mentalism, Micro-aggression and the Peer By Janet Paleo and Anna H. Gray Practitioner By Pat Deegan I know, peeranity does not seem like a real word but it is a word which I want to introduce. I was visiting with a group of peer practitioners who were working as According to the Urban Dictionary, “Anity is a way used advocates and mentors with people in a state psychiatric hospital. They were the to sort people into groups; by occupation, clan, place of first group of former consumer/survivors to work openly in that particular state origin patronage, parentage, adoption, even physical hospital. The group had asked me to come and meet with them because they felt characteristics (like red hair).” Humanity is the human race a growing tension themselves and "traditional staff" on the units. When they or human beings collectively. walked onto the psychiatric ward in the morning, the staff walked by them as if Humanity then is referring to the collection of human they were not even there. When there was a staff birthday or special event, the beings and all that it means to be human. The word human peer practitioners were not invited. Traditional staff did not socialize after work or can be an adjective or a noun. The Webster online during breaks with peer practitioners. Traditional staff frequently forgot to invite dictionary shows human as an adjective, meaning: peer practitioners to important meetings. What was going on? of, relating to, or characteristic of humans I wrote this short piece in order to begin to sketch out some ideas regarding consisting of or involving humans mentalism, micro­ having human form or attributes aggression and the peer practitioner who is working in traditional mental health representative of or susceptible to the sympathies and settings. Your frailties of human nature reflections on this topic are welcome! For example the last meaning includes: human kindness; Mentalism refers to the oppression of people who have been diagnosed with human weakness; and inconsistency are very human. psychiatric disorders. It As a noun human means bipedal, primate, mammal. has similarities with other "isms" such as racism (the oppression of racial So, humanity refers mainly to the adjective of human or the minorities), sexism (the characteristics of humans such as the list above. Our very oppression of women), heterosexism (the oppression of gay men and lesbians), inconsistency is part of what makes us human. Humans are class­based fallible and make mistakes. All people are human and have oppression (the oppression of people based on the socio­economic class they the full range of attributes of humanity. If we can remember were born into), and people’s humanity, then when humans are being human, able­ism (the oppression of people with disabilities). Like all forms of oppression, we are more tolerant of their humanity. mentalism occurs at In life, we get busy trying to make budgets work, cultural, systemic, interpersonal, and personal levels. thinking of vaccines, keeping up with household chores and At a cultural level mentalism in America is characterized by fear of a myriad of other life events which keep us from thinking emotionality and the primacy of rationality. An example of mentalism at the about humanity. When others make mistakes, we can jump cultural level is the creation and perpetuation of stereotypes through media and on them or be upset because we react and are blind to their films, about people diagnosed with psychiatric disorders as dangerous, humanity. Because we are human, mistakes will always unpredictable, criminal and predatory. happen. There is no getting around it. What happens when At the systemic level, mentalism refers to the ways that people with we or others lose sight of humanity’s humanity? We can psychiatric diagnoses are lose the compassion we have for ourselves and for others. discriminated against and are kept in a position of poverty, second class We don’t treat them with the respect due to every human. citizenship and are We are not tolerant of them being human. segregated from the community. Examples of mentalism at systemic levels So now I would like to talk about peeranity. What is include being forced to live below the poverty level on SSI; work disincentives that peeranity? To me, peeranity are the characteristics of prevent us from re­entering the workforce; marriage disincentives that lower our Continued on page 2 Continued on page 2 Our Mission: Our Vision: To empower all people to transcend adverse life experiences and to All people living their life fully, with all the respect due to inspire resiliency for all people to thrive while fulfilling their dreams. every human and all the passion to live the life they choose. Prosumer Meetings Currently Located in: * Denton * Houston * Plano * McKinney * San Antonio * Rio Grande Valley Editor in Chief—Janet Paleo Prosumers International P.O. Box 120394 San Antonio, TX 78212 Phone: 1-800-577-3795 Email: [email protected] www.ProsumersInternational.org Thanks to Hope Family Health Center for sponsoring Prosumers in Rio Grande Valley County. Page 1 The views expressed in this newsletter do not necessarily reflect the views of the editor or any of its sponsors. Mentalism, Micro­Aggression... continued from page 1 Peeranity Continued from page 1 SSI checks if we marry; being placed in segregated settings from which it is people who have the lived experience of mental health difficult to escape such as nursing homes, adult homes, board and care issues. Peers, therefore referring to characteristics of homes, and day treatment programs; inadequate healthcare (Medicaid, peers. Medicare) which lead to premature death for many; loss of custody of our When we then bring in mental health challenges children instead of supports to be effective parents; rules that say we can't use into the realm of humans, there are so many other the same bathrooms that staff use; the freedom the media feels in portraying things which must be dealt with. You have doctor us as murderers; etc. appointments, case worker appointments and a whole At an interpersonal level mentalism shows itself as prejudice and bigotry host of other things you need to take care of and our directed at those of us with psychiatric diagnoses. Examples include being humanity can get lost in the shuffle. We can get so denied a job if our psychiatric history is revealed; having a romantic partner busy with stuff and when the stuff doesn’t go right, we break off the relationship when they find out we have a psychiatric history; a disrespect ourselves. We can begin to get message neighborhood protesting the establishment of a group home in a town; a that we are broken, we should not risk living our supervisor at work leaving an advertisement for a new anti­depressant on your dreams, our brains cannot be trusted, and similar desk at work because you have been a bit down lately; being told that your messages. We might even call ourselves names. Do passionate objection to putting a client in restraints is simply you being the words, “stupid”, “idiot”, “dumbbell” or “crazy” sound unprofessional; etc. familiar? I know they do for me. These have been Finally, at the personal level, the oppression we experience can be names I identified with for a long time. internalized as a form of self­ hatred, internalized stigma, lowered self­esteem When we develop these blinders about and a tendency to talk about ourselves and our experience in the language of ourselves, we turn them on others as well. Some psychiatry. Examples of internalized oppression include the desire to people call this defensiveness, or even aggression. pass in public as normal; to hide, lie about or closet our psychiatric history; the They use our reactions as proof of our brokenness, desire to distance ourselves from other people with psychiatric diagnoses; which deepens the discouragement and “otherness”. referring to ourselves as diagnoses; distrusting our perceptions, emotions and We get in to this cycle and in the process we seem to experiences; and using clinical jargon to insult other people with psychiatric forget humanity and peeranity. It gets lost in the shuffle diagnoses i.e., "She is so low functioning. He is so borderliney." of life. We are not kind, compassionate, or ever Peer practitioners may encounter mentalism in all its forms when on the respectful to ourselves. Many times, we believe we lost job. In its most obvious form, mentalism is a macro­aggression. A macro­ our value when we got the diagnosis. So, what can we aggression is obvious and easily identified by all who witness it as unfair, do? biased and/or discriminatory. An example of a mentalist macro­aggression is The first thing we can do is remind ourselves of an emergency room automatically placing people with psychiatric diagnoses in being human and being a peer. We will not always get restraints while waiting to be seen by a physician or having only clients (not things right. However, in not getting things right we do staff) go through a metal detector at a local mental health center.

Load more

  8

Copy Link