Beyond Awareness: Toward Mad Pride and Anti-Sanism
"Beyond Awareness: Toward Mad Pride and Anti-Sanism" was curated by the Center for Mad Culture (plus some of Firestorm's own additions)!
May is widely recognized as Mental Health Awareness Month – a time often dedicated to reducing stigma and encouraging open conversations about mental health.
While awareness matters, it is not enough on its own. Mainstream approaches to mental health advocacy tend to focus on the individual–encouraging awareness, reducing stigma, and promoting help-seeking. But this framing can overlook the broader systems that shape how mental health is understood and addressed, and can erase the experiences of people who have been harmed by the mental health system.
This [list] invites a different lens. It centers the voices of people with lived experience – those who may identify as mad, mentally ill, neurodivergent, disabled, survivors, or otherwise outside dominant norms. These perspectives are part of long-standing movements for rights, autonomy, and self-determination.
