WEBVTT 00:00:11.750 --> 00:00:16.570 Anarchists, anti-authoritarians and radicals of all stripes spend a disproportionate amount 00:00:16.570 --> 00:00:20.800 of time and energy confronting the so-called ‘big picture’ challenges of the world. 00:00:21.600 --> 00:00:26.439 In this all-consuming competition to change society, too often we overlook the personal 00:00:26.439 --> 00:00:30.990 struggles that many of us face, including some of the most basic questions of how we 00:00:30.990 --> 00:00:34.219 relate to ourselves, each other, and the world around us. 00:00:34.219 --> 00:00:38.280 For some, the mundane tasks of day-to-day living can feel so meaningless, 00:00:38.280 --> 00:00:39.750 or so hyper-important, 00:00:39.750 --> 00:00:43.340 that even the simplest decisions become impossible to manage. 00:00:43.340 --> 00:00:49.060 For others, ongoing or past experiences of physical danger, trauma, and instability, 00:00:49.060 --> 00:00:54.030 can severely compound the difficulties that we already face surviving in a white supremacist, 00:00:54.030 --> 00:00:56.959 hetero-patriarchal and capitalist society. 00:00:57.449 --> 00:01:00.410 Yet despite the large number of us who face these struggles daily, 00:01:00.410 --> 00:01:03.340 within our movements, mental health is often tokenized 00:01:03.340 --> 00:01:07.410 or treated as an afterthought, and mental illness is often invisibilized. 00:01:07.410 --> 00:01:10.960 Mainstream society polarises crazy people. 00:01:10.960 --> 00:01:14.961 On the one hand it lifts a few of us up to celebrate our creative brilliance in the fields 00:01:14.961 --> 00:01:17.160 of art, film, books and music. 00:01:17.160 --> 00:01:19.630 When you hear about slavery for 400 years 00:01:19.630 --> 00:01:22.110 For 400 years? That sounds like a choice! 00:01:22.380 --> 00:01:27.210 On the other, it stigmatizes and fears us, controlling and locking us up. 00:01:27.640 --> 00:01:32.290 Far from being a fast-track to creative stardom, mental illness leaves millions of people to 00:01:32.290 --> 00:01:34.620 fall through the cracks of our neuro-typical society. 00:01:34.620 --> 00:01:37.300 Most insanity does not get celebrated. 00:01:37.300 --> 00:01:41.510 For many, it means losing your job or home because you can't get out of bed. 00:01:41.510 --> 00:01:46.269 Not being able to socialize or organize due to anxiety, paranoia, or the inability to 00:01:46.269 --> 00:01:48.089 maintain relationships. 00:01:48.089 --> 00:01:52.799 Using risky coping mechanisms to try and manage your own symptoms, or relying on the toxic 00:01:52.799 --> 00:01:55.130 mental health system for your very survival. 00:01:55.130 --> 00:01:59.740 To the extent that they can be separated, the psychiatric and pharmaceutical industries 00:01:59.740 --> 00:02:05.030 both extract incredible profits in their supposed pursuit of our ‘mental wellness’. 00:02:05.030 --> 00:02:09.449 Yet for those who would seek to break free from the State and capital’s system of pathological 00:02:09.449 --> 00:02:14.280 diagnoses and lucrative prescriptions... what exactly does that leave us with? 00:02:14.280 --> 00:02:18.290 Over the next thirty minutes, we will speak with a range of individuals as they share 00:02:18.290 --> 00:02:22.640 their insights on the causes and potential solutions to mental illness, and share their 00:02:22.640 --> 00:02:27.170 experiences of fighting stigma, dealing with trauma and getting into the proper headspace 00:02:27.170 --> 00:02:29.040 to make a whole lot of trouble. 00:03:04.230 --> 00:03:09.040 Mental health means our own interior kind of wellness. 00:03:09.040 --> 00:03:15.730 Our own personal equilibrium of how we respond to the ails of the world. 00:03:17.680 --> 00:03:24.600 Mental health is your own way of feeling balanced and feeling that you're well. 00:03:24.600 --> 00:03:28.239 And we need to take it in a very broad sense. 00:03:28.239 --> 00:03:33.610 In different cultures around the world, well-being in itself is so different. 00:03:33.610 --> 00:03:41.940 So I would see mental health as a very open way of: are you feeling balanced and able 00:03:41.940 --> 00:03:46.420 to face life in the complexity that it is? 00:03:47.650 --> 00:03:51.980 As indigenous people we've lived through an enormous amount of trauma, and trying 00:03:51.980 --> 00:03:58.009 to find that balance living in the environment that you do is challenging. 00:03:59.759 --> 00:04:06.890 Mental health is the term that I use to talk about sort of being unable to cope with reality, 00:04:06.890 --> 00:04:13.390 and different forms of things that my brain does... and ways that I change the way that 00:04:13.390 --> 00:04:17.340 I perceive the world that are usually pretty harmful to my life. 00:04:17.670 --> 00:04:22.750 In the society that we live in, oftentimes mental health ends up actually eclipsing 00:04:22.750 --> 00:04:24.230 the larger context. 00:04:24.230 --> 00:04:28.580 That language that we use to talk about mental health is the the language 00:04:28.580 --> 00:04:30.440 of the biomedical model. 00:04:30.440 --> 00:04:33.380 But meanwhile it leaves out the social context. 00:04:33.380 --> 00:04:38.030 And we're not talking at all about the living situation that you're in, 00:04:38.030 --> 00:04:40.130 or the color of your skin, 00:04:40.130 --> 00:04:43.630 or the kind of access you've had to housing, 00:04:43.630 --> 00:04:46.260 or the access you've had to education, 00:04:46.260 --> 00:04:49.470 and what you have to deal with on a daily basis. 00:04:49.480 --> 00:04:54.380 So if you live on reserve you have all kinds of challenges there. 00:04:54.380 --> 00:04:57.079 If you live off reserve if you have a whole new set of challenges. 00:04:57.079 --> 00:04:59.070 And how do you work through them all? 00:04:59.070 --> 00:05:01.500 How do you make it better for the next generation? 00:05:04.680 --> 00:05:08.409 Since mental health is primarily influenced by social factors, 00:05:08.409 --> 00:05:11.130 there's no real way to solve it without changing the social condition 00:05:11.130 --> 00:05:12.130 that we're in. 00:05:12.130 --> 00:05:19.009 What we see it as is being able to use your psychological abilities to help fight against 00:05:19.009 --> 00:05:20.500 the repression that comes towards you. 00:05:20.500 --> 00:05:24.150 We need to figure out ways to increase our ability to fight against the forces that are 00:05:24.150 --> 00:05:27.080 helping make us mentally ill, as it were. 00:05:30.370 --> 00:05:35.870 So I see mental health not just as something that belongs to a person, or lives in a person. 00:05:35.870 --> 00:05:39.860 But rather sort of a response to the condition that is around us that 00:05:39.860 --> 00:05:42.480 causes us to hurt in this world. 00:05:50.270 --> 00:05:54.300 Mental unwellness in broader society is an epidemic. 00:05:59.300 --> 00:06:05.830 Whether it's just plain old capitalism that's, like, really selling the idea of 00:06:05.830 --> 00:06:10.840 anything solvable through some exchange of money. 00:06:10.840 --> 00:06:17.120 The terms of success - of a successful life - that have been passed down by the state, 00:06:17.120 --> 00:06:21.490 by mass media, they're really unattainable for almost everyone. 00:06:21.490 --> 00:06:26.760 And then even when people do achieve material success in these terms, 00:06:26.760 --> 00:06:28.949 they struggle with finding meaning. 00:06:28.949 --> 00:06:32.520 The conditions around us have other psychologically damaging effects. 00:06:32.520 --> 00:06:37.040 The way that we relate to each other socially and the tendency towards seeking of, like, 00:06:37.040 --> 00:06:41.039 social capital than seeking actual, like, close relationships with people. 00:06:41.039 --> 00:06:46.350 When I think about mental health in my "immediate community", I see a community that is making 00:06:46.350 --> 00:06:49.820 space for particular people who are living with mental health issues. 00:06:49.820 --> 00:06:55.560 What I'm reminded of, is the ability for a Black man in my building to live mad while 00:06:55.560 --> 00:07:01.330 Black, and walk around in this building in that way would probably not happen. 00:07:01.330 --> 00:07:04.039 Because what I know is happening, not just in the city, 00:07:04.039 --> 00:07:06.479 but in this province and in this country, 00:07:06.479 --> 00:07:11.320 is police responses to Black people living with mental health issues, 00:07:11.320 --> 00:07:17.640 or mad-identified, often, but not always, result in fatal shootings. 00:07:18.210 --> 00:07:22.679 I would say generally in my community, a lot of people have struggles. 00:07:22.679 --> 00:07:25.069 A lot of people see therapists. 00:07:25.069 --> 00:07:26.889 Some people have diagnoses. 00:07:26.889 --> 00:07:28.689 Some people are medicated. 00:07:28.689 --> 00:07:33.450 So I would say, like, in the anarchist community a lot of people are struggling, 00:07:33.450 --> 00:07:36.600 but there's, like, a lot more conversations about that. 00:07:36.600 --> 00:07:42.730 A lot more informal peer support than in other communities that friends and family who are 00:07:42.730 --> 00:07:45.120 not anarchists are a part of. 00:07:45.120 --> 00:07:49.949 What I see happening in the mental health system is that there are an incredible number 00:07:49.949 --> 00:07:53.749 of people who struggle with issues of trauma. 00:07:53.749 --> 00:07:58.340 And what happens is when they come into the system and end up getting diagnosed with a 00:07:58.340 --> 00:08:03.800 mental illness, what's happened to them in the past gets eclipsed by this culture, 00:08:03.800 --> 00:08:07.240 which is very wrapped up in this whole model where there's a drug for 00:08:07.240 --> 00:08:09.849 everything that you could possibly need. 00:08:09.849 --> 00:08:14.730 A huge piece of what we can do is think outside the medical box 00:08:14.730 --> 00:08:18.490 and use more transformative ways of thinking. 00:08:25.630 --> 00:08:30.060 Human beings are social creatures, meaning that we simultaneously engage with 00:08:30.060 --> 00:08:32.179 and are shaped by our surroundings. 00:08:32.179 --> 00:08:35.620 This fact is often overlooked by those who see madness as nothing more 00:08:35.620 --> 00:08:37.750 than a neurochemical imbalance. 00:08:37.750 --> 00:08:42.229 In reality, social factors such as how broke you are, the color of your skin, 00:08:42.229 --> 00:08:45.150 your gender and sexual orientation, and how well you pass 00:08:45.150 --> 00:08:47.470 as a productive member of capitalist society, 00:08:47.470 --> 00:08:51.150 all play huge roles in determining how you are treated, what health care 00:08:51.150 --> 00:08:54.920 and social supports you have access to, and therefore greatly shape your 00:08:54.920 --> 00:08:57.010 emotional and mental well being. 00:08:57.010 --> 00:09:02.080 The hyper-individualization promoted by our current social media paradigm swaps human 00:09:02.080 --> 00:09:07.350 contact for superficial interactions based on curated personas of likes and follows. 00:09:07.350 --> 00:09:08.920 Did you lose your subscribers?! 00:09:11.610 --> 00:09:16.310 The realm of spirituality has been so co opted and tainted by religious institutions that 00:09:16.310 --> 00:09:21.420 many of us have no access to rituals and traditions that could help us feel a meaningful connection 00:09:21.420 --> 00:09:23.280 to the world around us. 00:09:23.280 --> 00:09:27.800 Profiting off this mess is the pharmaceutical industry, comprised of some of the world's 00:09:27.800 --> 00:09:32.810 biggest corporate powerhouses, who spend billions each year lobbying doctors to push their newest 00:09:32.810 --> 00:09:36.970 and most lucrative designer drugs, all with the goal of getting as many people medicated 00:09:36.970 --> 00:09:38.120 as they can. 00:09:52.430 --> 00:10:04.530 ♫♫ Crazy I'm crazy for feeling so lonely 00:10:04.530 --> 00:10:14.720 I'm crazy Crazy for feeling so blue ♫♫ 00:10:16.920 --> 00:10:21.820 When one in four people suffer from mental illness, 00:10:21.820 --> 00:10:24.949 I have to sort of question what that means. 00:10:27.699 --> 00:10:32.289 Whatever the status of mental health is, it’s rapidly declining. 00:10:32.289 --> 00:10:35.450 And I think that’s happening in an intentional manner. 00:10:38.270 --> 00:10:45.689 It just seems to me that anything and everything is being described as a mental health problem 00:10:45.689 --> 00:10:51.160 – in such a way that creates this, like, false idea that there is a mental health 00:10:51.160 --> 00:10:52.380 solution for that. 00:10:52.380 --> 00:10:55.940 Possibly in the name of a pill, but often in the name of 00:10:55.940 --> 00:10:59.600 some other additional kind of control. 00:10:59.600 --> 00:11:04.769 A lot of the factors that lead to what we tend to call mental illness are entirely out 00:11:04.769 --> 00:11:06.899 of the control of the people who are experiencing them, 00:11:06.899 --> 00:11:10.339 and aren’t really from a biological or chemical root. 00:11:10.339 --> 00:11:12.829 They’re from the social condition that the people are in. 00:11:12.829 --> 00:11:16.190 How can we live in the world that we’re in and be “well”? 00:11:16.660 --> 00:11:20.880 We need to recognize that the society that we live in is actually very unhealthy. 00:11:20.880 --> 00:11:25.740 If we’re starting from this place that what we’re trying to do is get people to be healthy 00:11:25.740 --> 00:11:27.680 so that they can fit into society... 00:11:27.680 --> 00:11:29.009 that to me is really scary. 00:11:29.009 --> 00:11:31.800 Because I’m often sad, and I’m often hurt. 00:11:31.800 --> 00:11:36.019 And I’m often anxious and paranoid ... and those are for very real reasons. 00:11:36.019 --> 00:11:41.520 My spirit can’t be stable if the material world around me is absolutely scary. 00:11:42.420 --> 00:11:53.709 The real visceral and true fear of deportation, bankruptcy, homelessness, incarceration... 00:11:53.709 --> 00:11:58.920 these are things that contribute to someone’s individual experience of despair. 00:11:58.920 --> 00:12:05.749 And rather than offering a solution, it’s always just some pill, or injection. 00:12:05.749 --> 00:12:08.790 Or just... removal. 00:12:09.690 --> 00:12:11.540 I work with refugee claimants. 00:12:11.540 --> 00:12:18.500 The very first weeks they arrive here in Canada, they live a whole different range of challenges. 00:12:18.500 --> 00:12:19.930 A lot comes from what they carry. 00:12:19.930 --> 00:12:26.820 What they lived in their countries: war, rape, being jailed, being tortured. 00:12:26.820 --> 00:12:30.930 But also a lot of things they lived trying to get to Canada. 00:12:30.930 --> 00:12:36.310 So some of them might have travelled a whole year, crossing ten different countries without 00:12:36.310 --> 00:12:39.570 documents, without papers, before they arrive here. 00:12:39.570 --> 00:12:43.700 So it’s a very heavy weight they carry with them. 00:12:43.700 --> 00:12:49.690 And also a lot of challenges they face is actually arriving here with nothing and having 00:12:49.690 --> 00:12:53.730 to face what it is to be a refugee claimant in Canada. 00:12:56.150 --> 00:12:59.919 One of the hardest things is being in a state where you don’t know what’s going to happen 00:12:59.919 --> 00:13:01.229 to you, right? 00:13:01.229 --> 00:13:07.540 So you might wait a year, two years, to know if you’re going to be able to stay here. 00:13:07.540 --> 00:13:13.640 So this period of just... not knowing what you can build for yourself and your kids 00:13:13.640 --> 00:13:15.880 as a life is very hard. 00:13:15.880 --> 00:13:17.310 Very stressful. 00:13:25.580 --> 00:13:29.460 I think it’s really important, if we’re gonna talk about mental health 00:13:29.460 --> 00:13:32.340 and mental wellness, that we think about ourselves 00:13:32.340 --> 00:13:34.930 related to a larger social context. 00:13:34.930 --> 00:13:38.990 I think one of the things that really impacts our mental health is that we live in such 00:13:38.990 --> 00:13:43.440 an individualistic society, where we think the things that are happening to us 00:13:43.440 --> 00:13:45.330 are happening because of our brain chemistry. 00:13:45.330 --> 00:13:47.429 Or they’re happening to us because of some fault of ours, 00:13:47.429 --> 00:13:49.500 because we’re not strong enough to survive. 00:13:49.500 --> 00:13:53.370 When really they’re these larger social issues that are impacting everyone. 00:13:54.020 --> 00:13:59.600 On a personal level, I get into trouble when I get disconnected from things 00:13:59.600 --> 00:14:02.330 that are meaningful to me in the world. 00:14:02.330 --> 00:14:06.370 One of the things that I wanna do with my life is engage with all of the imbalances 00:14:06.370 --> 00:14:10.980 of power with communities that are trying to counter those imbalances. 00:14:11.770 --> 00:14:17.010 A lot of the factors are just like the standard foundations of society, which is anti-Blackness, 00:14:17.010 --> 00:14:18.240 racism and capitalism. 00:14:18.240 --> 00:14:22.350 And until those are destroyed, there’s no actual solution. 00:14:22.960 --> 00:14:27.309 When I think about the conditions that contribute to unwellness for Black people, 00:14:27.309 --> 00:14:30.929 the number one is generally the experience of 00:14:30.929 --> 00:14:32.989 the transatlantic slave trade, first and foremost. 00:14:32.989 --> 00:14:34.440 The experience of colonialism. 00:14:34.440 --> 00:14:36.339 The ongoing experiences of colonialism. 00:14:36.339 --> 00:14:39.279 The ongoing occupations of Black spaces. 00:14:39.279 --> 00:14:42.650 I see the hyper-surveillance of those communities as a particular kind of occupations. 00:14:42.650 --> 00:14:47.049 And I’m using that word sort of in soft quotes, while keeping in mind the context 00:14:47.049 --> 00:14:48.990 of what the word ‘occupation’ means here. 00:14:50.740 --> 00:14:55.329 500 years of colonialism has really taken its toll on Indigenous people. 00:14:55.329 --> 00:14:59.160 And it’s taken it in so many different ways. 00:15:01.010 --> 00:15:03.889 There’s been a lot of hurt. 00:15:03.889 --> 00:15:05.209 There’s been a lot of pain. 00:15:05.209 --> 00:15:09.610 There’s been a lot of trauma that’s been passed on from generation to generation. 00:15:09.610 --> 00:15:14.739 It’s a real struggle to get better when you’re left to fend for yourself. 00:15:14.739 --> 00:15:21.110 But it seems like in a lot of the communities, they purposefully take everything away 00:15:21.110 --> 00:15:24.800 and then are—it feels like they’re just waiting to see everybody die. 00:15:24.800 --> 00:15:29.510 I think that with the high rates of suicide in every single community—I know the Inuit 00:15:29.510 --> 00:15:33.730 community is probably the highest, but you know, even in my community, y’know, 00:15:33.730 --> 00:15:36.500 the suicide rate is pretty high. 00:15:36.500 --> 00:15:40.830 I think that when you’re always surrounded by death, because people give up, 00:15:40.830 --> 00:15:46.880 that having these ceremonies to turn to, where you can honor their memory 00:15:46.880 --> 00:15:50.510 and be surrounded by healers is a good way. 00:15:50.510 --> 00:15:55.270 And because the Indian Act forced us to give up all those ceremonies, 00:15:55.270 --> 00:15:58.290 now is the time where we have to re-learn them. 00:16:08.960 --> 00:16:14.099 Of all the modern sciences aimed at reproducing subservience and reinforcing State power... 00:16:14.099 --> 00:16:17.020 psychiatry is particularly nasty. 00:16:17.020 --> 00:16:21.680 Its history is fraught with the warehousing and torture of countless individuals in sanitariums 00:16:21.680 --> 00:16:23.189 and asylums. 00:16:23.189 --> 00:16:27.880 In their eternal quest to understand and destroy that which is different, states have performed 00:16:27.880 --> 00:16:32.680 every conceivable type of experiment on human test subjects, from mass sterilizations 00:16:32.680 --> 00:16:36.429 and LSD-induced comas to decades of routine lobotomies. 00:16:38.439 --> 00:16:43.410 Psychiatrists’ enthusiastic embrace of eugenics during the early 20th century was a major 00:16:43.410 --> 00:16:48.730 inspiration for Nazi scientists, providing them a convenient pseudo-scientific justification 00:16:48.730 --> 00:16:50.329 for the Holocaust. 00:16:50.329 --> 00:16:55.329 And while the term became taboo after WWII the inherent link between psychiatry 00:16:55.329 --> 00:17:00.889 and eugenics continued long after, and some would argue, still exists today. 00:17:00.889 --> 00:17:05.430 Although psychiatry poses amidst the hard science-based branches of medicine, 00:17:05.430 --> 00:17:08.520 nowhere else is the creation of medical conditions and disorders 00:17:08.520 --> 00:17:11.640 so socially manufactured as in psychiatry's bible, 00:17:11.640 --> 00:17:14.980 the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual or DSM. 00:17:14.980 --> 00:17:19.150 While the process of deciding how to categorize the mentally unwell can involve aspects of 00:17:19.150 --> 00:17:24.150 the scientific method, it is oftentimes no more than a room full of old white men promoting 00:17:24.150 --> 00:17:27.449 their collected social biases and individual agendas. 00:17:27.449 --> 00:17:31.849 Ralph was sick. A sickness that was not visible like smallpox, 00:17:31.849 --> 00:17:36.869 but no less dangerous and contagious. A sickness of the mind. 00:17:36.869 --> 00:17:39.119 You see... Ralph was a homosexual. 00:17:39.119 --> 00:17:46.222 Within the sacred pages of the DSM, homosexuality was considered a mental disorder until 1987, 00:17:46.222 --> 00:17:50.880 and to this day, many transgender people need to be diagnosed with a mental illness in order 00:17:50.880 --> 00:17:52.850 to receive the treatments they need. 00:17:52.850 --> 00:17:56.490 Women who may have once been labeled as nymphomaniacs or hysterics, 00:17:56.490 --> 00:17:58.820 are today branded instead with BPD, 00:17:58.820 --> 00:18:03.290 or borderline personality disorder, a catch-all diagnosis primarily inscribed 00:18:03.290 --> 00:18:07.149 on women whose histories of trauma are not seen as real or legitimate. 00:18:07.149 --> 00:18:12.350 Although there have been attempts to distance psychiatry from this legacy, its ongoing history 00:18:12.350 --> 00:18:18.450 is one of padded cells, forced injections, electroshock, and indefinite institutionalization. 00:18:18.450 --> 00:18:22.460 If you find yourself on the wrong side of the modern mental healthcare system, 00:18:22.460 --> 00:18:26.380 you can easily fall into a vicious feedback loop of mental health crises, 00:18:26.380 --> 00:18:30.770 often caused by trauma, leading to further violence and re-traumatization. 00:18:30.770 --> 00:18:34.600 This may take the form of forced hospitalization, incarceration, 00:18:34.600 --> 00:18:36.520 hurting yourself or people that you love, 00:18:36.520 --> 00:18:39.300 or ultimately ... being murdered by the police. 00:18:46.600 --> 00:18:53.000 The state engages with mental unwellness by being the identifier of those of us that are 00:18:53.000 --> 00:18:54.630 well and those of us that are unwell. 00:18:56.080 --> 00:19:02.770 So the state and psychiatry define being well in terms of how well you conform to a normal 00:19:02.770 --> 00:19:07.580 and in this society that normal encompasses all of the problematic 00:19:07.580 --> 00:19:09.840 natures of mainstream society. 00:19:09.840 --> 00:19:14.450 If you went back and asked your guidance counselor what their version of success would be for 00:19:14.450 --> 00:19:17.950 you moving forward, well, it’s like how well you conform. 00:19:17.950 --> 00:19:22.210 They started the residential schools to assimilate the children. 00:19:22.210 --> 00:19:26.760 It was the law that if you didn’t give up your children you were sent to jail. 00:19:26.760 --> 00:19:31.500 They call the foster care system the next residential school. 00:19:31.500 --> 00:19:33.900 The kids that are in care aren’t brought up in a good way 00:19:33.900 --> 00:19:36.020 and they fall through the cracks. 00:19:36.310 --> 00:19:38.490 The state usually criminalizes mental unwellness. 00:19:38.490 --> 00:19:41.180 Generally if you look at the ways that psych wards operate, 00:19:41.180 --> 00:19:43.670 it’s not significantly different than prison. 00:19:43.670 --> 00:19:47.380 And if you look at the way prisons operate they’re usually used as psych wards. 00:19:47.380 --> 00:19:51.270 There’s no real distinction between the carcerality of american society in general 00:19:51.270 --> 00:19:53.140 and the way that we treat the mentally ill. 00:19:53.140 --> 00:19:55.674 Including the way that police shoot mentally ill people. 00:19:55.674 --> 00:19:58.640 News 1: A police officer shoots and kills a teenager with schizophrenia. 00:19:58.640 --> 00:20:03.710 News 2: A mentally ill man being shot four times by a police officer despite the fact 00:20:03.710 --> 00:20:05.820 that the victim showed no threat of force. 00:20:05.820 --> 00:20:08.579 News 3: And a mentally ill man shot dead by two Dallas officers. 00:20:09.089 --> 00:20:15.870 I’ve spent four and a half months in state jails, about a month and a half in psych wards, 00:20:15.870 --> 00:20:18.690 and there are some, like, really noticeable similarities. 00:20:18.690 --> 00:20:22.710 There’s coercive violence, isolation - but the difference is that 00:20:22.710 --> 00:20:25.780 like, when I’m in jail, I’m well and I’m myself, 00:20:25.780 --> 00:20:28.310 I’m in a battle against the state and they're my enemy 00:20:28.310 --> 00:20:29.600 and they’ve locked me in a cage. 00:20:29.600 --> 00:20:32.809 And when I’m in a psych ward, it’s like a whole different world. 00:20:32.809 --> 00:20:36.550 I don’t understand what’s going on. I have no connection to myself. 00:20:36.550 --> 00:20:39.450 If I refuse medication, I’ll be tackled to the ground 00:20:39.450 --> 00:20:41.280 and have it injected into me. 00:20:41.420 --> 00:20:46.980 The trauma that I feel in my life from having been in jail is so much less profound than 00:20:46.980 --> 00:20:49.250 the trauma that comes from a psych ward. 00:20:49.250 --> 00:20:53.120 Generally mental illness is treated as something to push under the rug and hide 00:20:53.120 --> 00:20:56.210 and either like fix with, you know, dumbing you down enough that you can 00:20:56.210 --> 00:20:58.890 actually deal with whatever bullshit society is giving you. 00:20:58.890 --> 00:21:02.030 Or, with putting you away if you’re unable to actually get back 00:21:02.030 --> 00:21:04.700 into the capitalist flow of things. 00:21:05.730 --> 00:21:11.390 Generally, the state engages with unwellness on a complete individual basis. 00:21:11.390 --> 00:21:15.900 The problem is individualized and the solution is also individualized. 00:21:15.900 --> 00:21:19.740 Self-care is usually a stand-in for a lot of neoliberal approaches 00:21:19.740 --> 00:21:21.500 to dealing with mental health problems. 00:21:21.500 --> 00:21:26.340 I worry that sometimes this expectation that people practice self-care 00:21:26.340 --> 00:21:29.330 kind of misses the target in many ways. 00:21:29.330 --> 00:21:35.309 Generally it focuses on a very individualized approach of like, taking care of your personal 00:21:35.309 --> 00:21:39.779 needs as far as like attention or how people interact with you or things like that. 00:21:39.779 --> 00:21:44.749 My wellness is maintained by taking pharmaceutical drugs 00:21:44.749 --> 00:21:48.139 that are made by some of the worst corporations in the world. 00:21:48.139 --> 00:21:52.229 People that are capitalizing off of hyper medication, 00:21:52.229 --> 00:21:55.880 they’re advertising to doctors to try and get, you know, 00:21:55.880 --> 00:21:59.500 as big of a quarterly fucking profit as they can. 00:21:59.500 --> 00:22:06.350 You have to simultaneously be able to hold the understanding that the pharmaceutical 00:22:06.350 --> 00:22:10.350 industry, like, really what they’re interested in is profit and they’re gonna try to get 00:22:10.350 --> 00:22:14.170 as many people as they possibly can addicted to their drugs 00:22:14.170 --> 00:22:18.480 … with the reality that like, there’s actually a lot of people for whom 00:22:18.480 --> 00:22:20.770 the drugs are really helpful, you know? 00:22:20.770 --> 00:22:23.100 Not nearly as many people as who are on them... 00:22:23.100 --> 00:22:27.810 but I think it’s really important to be able to have that analysis 00:22:27.810 --> 00:22:31.930 where you don’t just get shut down and think in a black and white framework. 00:22:31.930 --> 00:22:36.370 And I think that just because a system exists doesn’t mean that we can’t critique it 00:22:36.370 --> 00:22:39.519 while understanding that there are some people that might benefit from that. 00:22:39.519 --> 00:22:42.680 And that there’s no shame in being able to be a person that decides 00:22:42.680 --> 00:22:45.889 what your care might look like. That doesn’t make you less critical, 00:22:45.889 --> 00:22:49.040 that doesn’t make you less of a mental health advocate. 00:22:49.350 --> 00:22:54.989 As a psychiatrist, I basically have to work with a lot of people who have, 00:22:54.989 --> 00:23:01.500 at least historically if not currently, found psych drugs and hospitalizations 00:23:01.500 --> 00:23:04.849 helpful at least to some extent. And I think that’s fine. 00:23:04.849 --> 00:23:12.429 What I do like to focus on with people is maybe a return to true informed consent. 00:23:12.429 --> 00:23:19.750 I like to focus, when possible, on supporting people who maybe can’t find somebody who 00:23:19.750 --> 00:23:25.700 is able and willing to help them taper or withdraw from the medications that they’ve 00:23:25.700 --> 00:23:32.049 been taking or live in a less coercive environment during a crisis. 00:23:32.529 --> 00:23:41.049 You have to walk in the white man’s world to get the accreditation that they find believable 00:23:41.049 --> 00:23:44.070 in order for you to help your own people. 00:23:44.070 --> 00:23:49.080 For instance, I can get a psychologist from Health Canada. They’ll pay for that. 00:23:49.080 --> 00:23:54.000 But I can’t get funding from Health Canada to pay for my spiritual elder 00:23:54.000 --> 00:23:56.470 cause he doesn’t have a degree in spirituality. 00:24:10.030 --> 00:24:14.320 Rather than unquestioningly accepting the State's authority on the causes and nature 00:24:14.320 --> 00:24:18.120 of mental unwellness and official dictates on what our interventions can and should 00:24:18.120 --> 00:24:23.010 look like, today many crazy people are asserting our power to choose the right mix 00:24:23.010 --> 00:24:26.480 of institutional and informal supports for the problems we face. 00:24:26.480 --> 00:24:30.779 This growing movement seeks to counter stigmatizing conceptions of mental illness 00:24:30.779 --> 00:24:34.300 that paint it as an isolated and individualized phenomenon, 00:24:34.300 --> 00:24:37.650 positing instead the need for dynamic peer-based solutions 00:24:37.650 --> 00:24:40.840 rooted in interconnectedness and community support. 00:24:42.380 --> 00:24:45.630 Social media, with all its flaws, can play an important role in building 00:24:45.630 --> 00:24:49.370 peer to peer networks, by offering us the ability to connect with others 00:24:49.370 --> 00:24:54.080 who have faced similar experiences. This can be particularly helpful for individuals 00:24:54.080 --> 00:24:58.260 that face geographic or emotional barriers to community and mental health support. 00:24:58.910 --> 00:25:02.380 Because at the end of the day… the best person to take care of someone in 00:25:02.380 --> 00:25:06.540 mental health crisis is often someone who’s already been through it themselves. 00:25:24.570 --> 00:25:30.179 When we try to support or be allied with people that face this type of mental health issue 00:25:30.179 --> 00:25:33.290 or trauma, we should be, in a way, curious. 00:25:33.290 --> 00:25:35.630 Not be afraid to ask questions. 00:25:35.630 --> 00:25:36.840 To learn. 00:25:36.840 --> 00:25:39.990 And to try to connect with those people we try to help. 00:25:39.990 --> 00:25:46.680 And really try to understand on a human and deeper level what these people faced 00:25:46.680 --> 00:25:49.239 in the past, and what they are feeling right now. 00:25:49.929 --> 00:25:55.020 The government did everything that they could to destroy us... and yet we’re still here. 00:25:55.020 --> 00:25:57.700 We all carry a different kind of trauma. 00:25:57.700 --> 00:26:03.740 And sometimes those traumas eat away at us until there’s nothing left. 00:26:03.740 --> 00:26:11.140 And sometimes those traumas, we’re able to work through them and they become our 00:26:11.140 --> 00:26:12.900 —almost energy source. 00:26:12.900 --> 00:26:18.560 To keep moving forward so that we can help the next generation. 00:26:18.860 --> 00:26:23.450 I have hope that, y’know, this generation is addressing these issues in a good way. 00:26:23.450 --> 00:26:26.370 So that we don’t continue the trauma. 00:26:26.370 --> 00:26:29.310 And try to reverse it if possible. 00:26:29.310 --> 00:26:32.610 Situations and humans are so complex. 00:26:32.610 --> 00:26:35.760 And we need to really be open to that complexity. 00:26:35.760 --> 00:26:39.670 Never try to simplify or put labels on people. 00:26:39.670 --> 00:26:43.810 This person is ‘traumatized’, or this person is ‘gonna be okay’. 00:26:43.810 --> 00:26:46.330 She’s ‘strong’, she’s ‘resilient’, right? 00:26:46.330 --> 00:26:49.870 We simplify situations that are very complex. 00:26:51.340 --> 00:26:54.540 People tend to have a lot of personal and community ways of dealing with 00:26:54.540 --> 00:26:58.509 mental health problems, but societally we tend to fail entirely. 00:26:58.509 --> 00:27:01.000 Generally what I’ve noticed in communities is a desire to help 00:27:01.000 --> 00:27:02.550 and a lack of ability to. 00:27:02.550 --> 00:27:06.970 The actual, like, social conditions that cause these kinds of problems are 00:27:06.970 --> 00:27:08.220 more what needs to be addressed. 00:27:08.220 --> 00:27:10.410 And no one really seems to do that very well. 00:27:15.340 --> 00:27:18.440 The best community support that I’m a part of is very informal. 00:27:18.440 --> 00:27:22.989 It’s just talking with friends about how we’re doing, and what we’re thinking about. 00:27:22.989 --> 00:27:25.690 A lot of it is about building those relationships beforehand. 00:27:25.690 --> 00:27:29.980 Because whatever you do when a crisis occurs is going to be affected by and influenced 00:27:29.980 --> 00:27:33.070 by the actual relationships you have with people. 00:27:33.070 --> 00:27:37.179 Y’know, just making sure that our interactions with people are consensual. 00:27:37.179 --> 00:27:41.120 Understanding what it may feel like for someone to feel really scared 00:27:41.120 --> 00:27:43.230 and be sharing something with you. 00:27:43.230 --> 00:27:45.820 Not only what do they need, but what can I offer? 00:27:45.820 --> 00:27:48.800 And I think for me, actually that’s one of the first questions. 00:27:49.300 --> 00:27:53.440 There’s this opportunity in the crisis, and in the breakdown, 00:27:53.440 --> 00:27:55.310 for it to be a breakthrough. 00:27:55.310 --> 00:27:58.370 If you stick around, y’know, if you go through the hard times 00:27:58.370 --> 00:28:00.900 and get through the other side there’s a damn good chance 00:28:00.900 --> 00:28:03.809 you’re gonna come out with some wisdom that you never would have had. 00:28:03.809 --> 00:28:08.660 As a community of people who like, actually, care about making change in the world, 00:28:08.660 --> 00:28:14.250 we need to lay the foundations for a more understanding relationship to crisis. 00:28:14.920 --> 00:28:18.190 The best community support doesn’t have to look like an intervention. 00:28:18.190 --> 00:28:23.150 And ideally, when our communities are in a good place, and when individuals have 00:28:23.150 --> 00:28:26.990 really good, caring relationships and support networks set up, 00:28:26.990 --> 00:28:31.310 then the crisis doesn’t happen. Or it can be alleviated. 00:28:31.310 --> 00:28:36.770 I think that what we really have to begin to take seriously is that emotions surface 00:28:36.770 --> 00:28:38.830 at a different range for different people. 00:28:38.830 --> 00:28:42.431 And I think that some times there’s a way that we think listening is enough. 00:28:42.431 --> 00:28:46.210 And it may be sometimes people might require something of us. 00:28:46.210 --> 00:28:56.679 The authority that a psychiatrist is granted can be subverted to lift the voice of the 00:28:56.679 --> 00:29:00.270 participant in the therapeutic relationship. 00:29:00.730 --> 00:29:07.550 The role of the therapist, psychiatrist, social worker, mental health worker 00:29:07.550 --> 00:29:13.910 ... should be to step the fuck back and model a non-hierarchical, 00:29:13.910 --> 00:29:18.100 non-secretive way of being with one another. 00:29:18.100 --> 00:29:23.569 I hope that all of the work that our communities are doing around healing from trauma, 00:29:23.569 --> 00:29:27.090 around transformative justice and community accountability 00:29:27.090 --> 00:29:30.100 – that these can coalesce into some peer support models 00:29:30.100 --> 00:29:32.860 and some models for, like, intervening in crisis. 00:29:32.860 --> 00:29:38.260 And as much as I hope, and am excited about this work, I’m also skeptical 00:29:38.260 --> 00:29:42.480 because of the magnitude of mental health crises. 00:29:42.480 --> 00:29:47.489 There are so many different issues that face us that sometimes it can be overwhelming. 00:29:47.489 --> 00:29:52.779 But if you keep moving forward, and you keep addressing these issues and keep trying to 00:29:52.779 --> 00:29:57.360 find those solutions ... it brings hope to others. 00:30:04.850 --> 00:30:08.700 From the epidemics of suicides and overdoses, to the shock and rage 00:30:08.700 --> 00:30:11.290 sparked by the never-ending wave of police killings, 00:30:11.290 --> 00:30:13.530 it’s painful to think about all those who’ve died as a 00:30:13.530 --> 00:30:17.240 result of complications with mental health and their inability to receive 00:30:17.240 --> 00:30:18.900 the support that they needed. 00:30:18.900 --> 00:30:21.959 But their stories and lives aren’t forgotten. 00:30:21.959 --> 00:30:24.900 Even as we continue to struggle within and against a world 00:30:24.900 --> 00:30:27.370 that is growing increasingly scary, 00:30:27.370 --> 00:30:31.470 we must take steps to collectively prepare ourselves for the battles to come. 00:30:32.460 --> 00:30:37.250 Finding new ways to manage mental unwellness, with all the beauty and conflict that entails, 00:30:37.250 --> 00:30:41.640 is a fundamental component of building stronger, healthier communities of resistance. 00:30:42.220 --> 00:30:46.950 If we are able to do this, our movements will not only become more sustained and resilient, 00:30:46.950 --> 00:30:52.610 but will gain new layers of possibility as we travel into the uncertain future together. 00:30:53.320 --> 00:30:56.770 So at this point, we’d like to remind you that Trouble is intended to be watched 00:30:56.770 --> 00:31:00.300 in groups, and to be used as a resource to promote discussion 00:31:00.300 --> 00:31:01.350 and collective organizing. 00:31:01.980 --> 00:31:05.929 Are you interested in starting a local peer support group, or just wanna better integrate 00:31:05.929 --> 00:31:09.200 mental health awareness into your existing organizing projects? 00:31:09.200 --> 00:31:12.810 Consider getting together with some comrades, organizing a screening of this film, 00:31:12.810 --> 00:31:14.740 and discussing where to get started. 00:31:14.740 --> 00:31:18.610 Interested in running regular screenings of Trouble at your campus, infoshop, 00:31:18.610 --> 00:31:20.930 community center, or even just at home with friends? 00:31:20.930 --> 00:31:22.759 Become a Trouble-Maker! 00:31:22.759 --> 00:31:26.460 For 10 bucks a month, we’ll hook you up with an advanced copy of the show, 00:31:26.460 --> 00:31:30.369 and a screening kit featuring additional resources and some questions you can use 00:31:30.369 --> 00:31:31.869 to get a discussion going. 00:31:31.869 --> 00:31:34.980 If you can’t afford to support us financially, no worries! 00:31:34.980 --> 00:31:40.960 You can stream and/or download all our content for free off our website: sub.media/trouble. 00:31:41.650 --> 00:31:46.860 If you’ve got any suggestions for show topics, or just want to get in touch, drop us a line 00:31:46.860 --> 00:31:49.249 at trouble@sub.media. 00:31:49.249 --> 00:31:54.340 A reminder that our online store is fully stocked with fresh swag for any subMedia fans 00:31:54.340 --> 00:31:55.949 on your holiday shopping list. 00:31:55.949 --> 00:32:00.120 We’re a broke collective funded entirely by donations, and all proceeds from these 00:32:00.120 --> 00:32:05.110 sales go towards making it possible for us to make more films like this one. 00:32:05.110 --> 00:32:09.480 We’ll be doing our last shipment of the year on December 16th, so be sure and get 00:32:09.480 --> 00:32:13.249 your orders in before then at sub.media/gear. 00:32:13.249 --> 00:32:17.570 This episode would not have been possible without the generous support of John Hamilton. 00:32:17.570 --> 00:32:21.590 This is the last episode of the year… and after this we’ll be taking a month off. 00:32:21.590 --> 00:32:26.410 But stay tuned early next year for Trouble #18, as we take a closer look at policing, 00:32:26.410 --> 00:32:29.460 and community resistance to state violence. 00:32:29.460 --> 00:32:32.540 So we see, in the context of the War on Terror, 00:32:32.540 --> 00:32:35.760 within the last, y'know 10, 12, 15 years, 00:32:35.760 --> 00:32:40.725 an attempt to fuse policing resources to better respond to what are perceived 00:32:40.725 --> 00:32:42.305 as domestic threats. 00:32:42.675 --> 00:32:44.607 FUCK. THE. POLICE! 00:32:44.607 --> 00:32:47.450 Now get out there…. and make some trouble!