Before "therapist", I am a queer Black person who has lived through involuntary hospitalization.

One's perception of institutionalized power dynamics is forever changed by it. Regardless of "patients' rights", authorities and gatekeepers to your freedom strip away your agency.

While I'm not totally anti-psychiatry, I support the "psychiatric survivor's movement" that arose out of the Civil Rights Movement––"ex-patients talking back to the power of psychiatry".

For the majority of psychiatry's history, the field has not been affirming or inclusive toward minoritized groups––from formalizing "female hysteria", and diagnosing Civil Rights activists with "protest psychosis", to pathologizing "homosexuality" until 1973.

And the psychiatry field still isn't as affirming as it could be.

Overall, the field is depoliticized, predominated by socially privileged groups, and too research-heavy to acknowledge the validity of non-Western, non-clinical, community-centered approaches (e.g. peer support).

Generational, historical, and racial trauma still aren't in the DSM, despite the research backing these phenomena.

And when politicians still shut down conversations on reparations in 2020, insurance companies won't be reimbursing for racial trauma diagnoses anytime soon.

My scrutiny also extends to crisis counselors, social workers, and therapists. I'm in the field primarily because of disempowering experiences with these exact professionals.

Too much is at stake, for me to ever be a pro-establishment, poster-child for mental health.