Your Rights

Self Expression

As psych survivors, we want people to respect the way we talk about our pain, instead of being shamed by psychiatrists, professionals, and even our peers. In this archive, you have the right to authentically share your experiences without judgment. You are in control of everything you share, and can talk about what feels most important to you. You do not have to censor yourself or make your words “palatable” or “respectable.” You can write as much as you want about the harms you’ve experienced from the psychiatric system, without being labeled as “anti-recovery.”

This archive is a space where topics such as institutionalization, medical abuse, forced treatment, self harm, disorderly eating, suicide, drug use, sex work, trauma, and more can be discussed freely. You are not required to share identifying information, prove yourself, or share intimate details that you want to keep private. At any point, you can take a break, decide not to participate, and access our resources. You can keep in mind your own boundaries and check in with yourself throughout the process.

You can submit stories through writing, images, AAC, or other forms of communication.

Community Content Guidelines

In order to make this space accessible for our community, specific details of suicide methods (such as amounts of medications) will not be published. Other types of content about suicide is completely acceptable for the archive. Content notes will be added to stories so that everyone can make informed decisions about how they want to engage with this project. Discriminatory content, including racism, ableism, sanism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia, antisemitism, Islamophobia, and all other types of oppression are not welcome on this website.

Privacy & Consent

Your personal information such as your name and location is not collected, and your email will not be published on this website. You always have the right to share as much or as little as you are comfortable with. At any time, you can email me at psychsurvivorzine@gmail.com to have your story removed from the website.

Who can submit stories?

At the archive, we use psych survivor to mean anyone who survived psychiatric interventions, including institutionalization, incarceration, psych wards, residential treatment facilities, the troubled teen industry, rehab, partial hospitalization, outpatient services, therapy, special education, ABA, and any other coercive services. Psych survivors might also identify as ex-patients, consumers, peers, Mad, neurodivergent, disabled, and more! You do not need to have specific diagnoses in order to identify as a psych survivor. If you consider yourself a psych survivor, you are welcome here.

Prompts

These are some guiding questions to consider while writing your story. You do not have to answer any of them. Some people want to talk about specific memories (like a time they vandalized a psych ward), while other people want to share many ways they’ve been harmed by the psych system throughout their life. Other people might just want to share a review of a hospital they were in, or a few sentences about what they wish people knew about being a psych survivor! Anything that you want to share is welcome.

1. What do you want people to know about being a psych survivor? What parts of your experience feel most important to share?

(Example: I want people to know that institutionalization was painful on a level I don’t even have words for, and left me feeling fragmented and lost. It’s important for me to share about resistance within psychiatric wards, because I think a lot of people don’t even believe that it’s possible.)

2. What parts of the psych system have you experienced? How has the psych system harmed you?  How do you feel about your interactions with the psych system? 

(Examples. I was hospitalized against my will, and I am filled with so much rage about it, especially the non consensual drugging I survived. 

I went through special ed as a kid, and I feel really conflicted, because I needed accommodations but also faced so much ableism from my teachers, and I wish there were more options.)

3. How do you fight back against the psych system, or how would you want to fight back? 

(Example: Every day that I survive and live as a crazy person feels like I am fighting back. I dream of the day we could dismantle psych wards and unlock all the doors.)

4. What do you wish you had known when you first entered into the psych system? What advice would you give to other psych survivors? Are there ways you find healing/share your rage/honor your grief as a psych survivor?

(Example:  I wish I had known that I didn’t deserve the coercion and abuse that psychiatrists tried to make me think was “treatment.” I would tell other psych survivors that they are the experts on their own bodymind, and that their anger is worth celebrating. )

Submit your story here!