(Mis-)treated

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Table of Contents //

3 … Sarah Cavar, Acknowledgements 4 … Sarah Cavar, Editor’s Note 6 … Shana Seligman, Social School 10 … Beata Garrett, if you see something, say nothing 12 … Anonymous, afterwards 14 … Chloe Jensen, misplaced attention 20 … G, The Day I Got Help 21 … Leah Keeffe, Innovative Minds 23 … M, listen.txt 24 … Sarah Cavar, just wondering about your potential friday night plans, no pressure

*A note on content warnings // Content warnings precede each entry and are noted in parentheses. This zine contains content including but not limited to: institutional & individual ableism, institutionalization, suicidal ideation, disordered eating, and medication. Please take care of yourself and proceed with caution.

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Sarah Cavar ’20, they/them // Acknowledgements A huge thank-you to Mount Holyoke’s Critical Social Thought department and its head, Iyko Day, for sponsoring this event and helping me reserve this space. Thanks as well to Jina Kim, whose course “The Body Toxic: Narratives of Race, Disability, and Illness” inspired me to begin “What’s Your Story” at this time last year to great success.

I also need to extend my appreciation to those who submitted to this zine, and to everyone who showed up/submitted to past iterations of “What’s Your Story?” These things only work because there is demand for them, and you all are the ones who create demand….so, we wouldn’t be here without you!

Lastly, I want to personally thank Claire Houston, Chloe Jensen, Francesca (Robin) Ferri, and everyone else at MHC who faithfully listens to my disability ramblings at all hours of the day and night.

So much love, warmth, and support for all of us as brain/bodyweird, crazy, sick, disabled, and neurodivergent people both in and out of attendance today, and especially to those who are currently hospitalized, institutionalized, incarcerated, and in other ways interacting with medico-psychiatric power structures that are forever entwined with ableism, capitalism, white supremacy, misogyny, and cis-heteronormativity.

Love, Sarah

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Sarah Cavar ’20, they/them pronouns // Editor’s Note I don’t remember the exact circumstances under which the name “(Mis-)Treated” came into my brain, but when it did, I remember appreciating my critical social thought major for allowing me to use parentheses within words so liberally. After two showcases and a zine, it seemed appropriate to frame a “What's Your Story” zine/event around experiences with psychiatry and medicine; these institutions not only literally create disability as we know it (with the power to create and apply diagnoses) but also enforce ableism at an institutional level. It is easy for all of us to rely on diagnoses or therapies or instutionalizations as shorthands for describing our experiences, and that is precisely the thing that compelled me to make (Mis-)treated a reality. I am of the opinion that it is far better to acknowledge the power structures that produced the labels we use than to act like these labels are immutable and unquestionable.

Maybe you agree, maybe you disagree, maybe you picked up this zine because you thought it seemed interesting and don’t care one way or the other. Either way, I hope you’re as happy with the zine and its contents as I am for having made it.

At first I feared that in picking the treatment theme I had made a huge mistake.

Perhaps, I thought, making the anniversary edition of “What's Your Story?” about something as sensitive and intimate as, well, (mis-)treatment, was a bad idea. My nagging fears remained by my side until the submissions began coming in, and finally abated entirely after a recent conversation I had with a friend before Thanksgiving break. I had inquired to whether she would be interested in submitting to the zine, knowing that she is neurodivergent and has interacted with the med/psych system

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before. Her initial response to me was (paraphrasing) “I don’t think I really have anything, I’ve been lucky enough to have good experiences with the professionals I’ve worked with.” After Thanksgiving break had ended, she approached me again, saying that, after some thought, she realized that she had had a negative experience with therapy after all; it wasn’t something her mind had first jumped to, but it happened all the same.

These interactions reminded me of just how essential it is to share our experiences (and “build community” as the tagline for “What's Your Story?” says). This zine forms a counter-narrative to the prevailing notion that anything received from medicine or psychiatry will necessarily constitute “help.” It pushes back against the rosy, false idea that med/psych institutional powers always have our best interests at heart.

Most importantly, it brings to the surface memories, feelings, fears, and dreams that we have not felt able to express before; a nod of understanding from across a crowded room. I encourage us all to use this zine as an entry point into the conversation we’ve been meaning to have about (mis-)treatment and our lives.

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Shana Seligman ’21, she/her pronouns // Social School

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transcript // “You have to stop making funny faces.”

Making different faces helps me understand what I’m feeling.

The faces help me make sense of the world by allowing me to sort my feelings into everchanging categories that I understand.

Fun activity is announced >>> happy I don’t understand the instructions >>> stress

“They are offensive to others.”

“What’s something you can think about every time you’re tempted to make a face?”

“I don’t know, ice cream? I like thinking about ice cream.”

“This is serious Shana. You need to stop making the others around you uncomfortable.”

See, when you do something expected you put a blue stamp in people’s brains like this …and when you do something unexpected you put a big red stamp right here.

“You want their brains to be full of blue, and to do that you have to stop making faces at them.”

*I don’t make faces at other people.*

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transcript // *In fact, I’d rather they didn’t notice.* *I don’t like the way they make fun of me for it, every day, on the playground.* *I wish I had the mental capacity to wait and make them in private, but I don’t.*

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t change the color of a person’s brain.”

“Wait actually, do doctors have the technology for that? Can I make my brain bright purple?”

“Shana, do I have to send you out of the room to reflect?” “... Well I wouldn’t mind that.”

“Look at me.”

“Hey. Look in my eyes.”

“In my eyes. Not the wall behind me.”

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Beata Garrett ’20, she/her // (mention of blood; drugs) if you see something, say nothing

if you could see his bedside table, you would know why did he do that, (not what it looks like) what’s wrong, stupid goddamn fucking asshole, in public, (too many mouths moving) leave the kid alone, is she going to stop him, why don’t they just— Control betrayed by one tremor that strums its first chords so softly, again and again coat over hands, headphones over ears leaning against, pressing into window, recognize only each other is this okay? do you mind? how much longer are you going to do this? (fine, yes, we’re not “doing” anything, too many eyes) his whole body is cracking, little pieces from his eyes dusting his jeans pull the hood over his head kids and their drugs amiright (not like that, too many people) skin falling, new snow against dirty floor, baby pink appendages pushing blood,

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cells doing what they need to do bodily functions have always disgusted people hold his hand, rubbing the knuckles get home: take off sneakers, clothes...shower note: lunch tomorrow, get up a bit earlier 1:20 remind me baby pink sky pushing the sun us doing what we need to do relief talking about everything and anything

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Anonymous // (mention of suicide attempt, inferred self harm) afterwards i. the nurse will give you a physical/ put your hands where you can’t hurt yourself/ take your panties off/ the child psychiatrist comes after 3 hours and she tells you that nothing is wrong with you/ you are not sure what she means/ but you go to a therapist once a week who asks you what happened

ii. when you are a minor, the psychiatrist brings in your mother after you so your medication does not change it’s not working nothing’s working what are you telling him you’re talking about me why don’t you trust me to know myself

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iii. therapist 1: have you ever wanted to hurt yourself me: yes, that’s why i’m here therapist 1: have you ever wanted to kill yourself me: no, this is what happened therapist 2: have you ever wanted to hurt yourself me: no, this is what happened therapist 3: have you ever wanted to hurt yourself me: yes, but i was 16 therapist 3: what happened me: i don’t want to talk about it, it was so long ago therapist 3: have you ever wanted to kill yourself me: i don’t know, this is what happened counselor at mount holyoke: have you ever wantedme: yes counselor at mount holyoke: have you everme: no, it was passive counselor at mount holyoke: what doesme: i was 16, it’s not important to why i need help now therapist 4: have youme: yes, this is what happened

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Chloe Jensen ’20, she/her // (ableist misogyny, therapy, panic attacks) misplaced attention I am eleven years old the first time I see a medical professional about my attention issues. After a parent-teacher-student conference with my English teacher, my mom decided to have me evaluated for ADHD. My English teacher was a sweet old woman who stood on chairs to yell over our middle school voices. She was the type of woman who seemed to notice every detail, including my then-obsession with the Titanic tragedy and my quirkiness when it came to writing, or my friends’ lack of effort. She described me to my mother as an intelligent, bright student who sometimes seemed to get off track.

“Sometimes, I call on her when she raises her hand, and I can tell she’ll have so much running through her head, but I’ll I can get is a blank stare” she told my mother. “I see her staring at the courtyard or the posters in the room when we’re doing class activities, and I wonder if I have lost her.”

So, per her recommendation, my mom and I made an appointment with the same psychiatrist my brother had been seeing for his autism. I walk into the psychiatrists’ room, and after briefly staring at my paperwork and medical chart, he says “well, you have straight As, which is very uncommon for someone with ADHD, and you’re sitting still, and you’re a girl, so the chance you even have ADHD is already incredibly low.”

The psychiatrist was named Joe. He had slicked hair and wore loose polo shirts and the kind of slacks you buy a size too big at Target but you’re too lazy to return, so you just keep them anyway. My mom continues on with the appointment, making

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several comments about my lack of attention when I watch movies but how I’m incredibly self motivated.

“So, Chloe, how does a normal day at school feel like to you? Are you overwhelmed with your work?” he asks.

The walls in Joe’s office are maroon with mini carvings of diamonds. Each diamond is composed of nine smaller diamonds. The pipe on the wall comes in at the halfway point between the two diamonds — I wonder if the designers planned that. The ceiling tiles at Roosevelt Middle School definitely were not planned; they never align with the windows or even the shape of the room, but that’s because the school was built on short notice after the population of Eugene, Oregon began surging in the — “She seems to be doing fine, well, actually.” My mother starts. I quickly snap into place, leaving the diamond covered walls to the back of my eyes.

“My classes are hard sometimes,” I say. “Math especially. But I seem to always get my work done on time, and I can usually figure out how to do my assignments. I know that if I don’t, my grades will drop, and I know how important it is to get good grades for high school and for college too.”

“That’s great!” Joe says. “You’re thinking about school much more than someone your age, and especially someone with ADHD.” My mom chimes in. She goes on and on about how self motivated I am, about how I stress myself out about my own deadlines, and about how unlike my brother, she knows I will get help when I need it. In class today, my friend Maddy told me that she thinks she likes girls, and maybe I do too. I haven’t really decided, or I mean, figured it

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out yet. I know Adam was looking at my earlier and it made me feel icky. He never does his math homework. He doesn’t know what PEMDAS stands for. I wonder if he ever thinks about what his favorite part of PEMDAS is. My mom and Joe are still talking, this time about my math progress.

“How do you think you’re doing in that class?” he asks.

“Not that great. I don’t know what’s going on most times.” I say.

I wonder where Joe got the bobblehead on his desk. I can tell it’s from Star Wars, but I don’t know what it means. I think Giselle and Ivan were watching that movie earlier but I don’t remember what happened. Maybe Maddy and Adam like the movie Star Wars too.

“Chloe! You have an A.” my mom says. And after an hour of this back and forth, Joe concludes that I don’t have ADHD, and that “I might just be a little weird.” My mom and I leave with a smile.

Throughout high school, I continued receiving As in my classes, and sometimes, my mind wandered to the current political climate or my crushes on my female classmates or the tiles in the classroom floor. And every once in awhile, I let it: when I was falling asleep at night or when we were watching a movie or when a stupid boy interrupted one of my friends in history. But most of the time, in school or while I was doing my homework, I knew my brain had to stay on track to the Spanish verb conjugations or the themes in the play Othello. And for the most part, while my work was simple, I could juggle the distracting thoughts, the endless whirl of knowledge and nonsense, and still seem focused in class. Although my teachers picked up on my eccentricness and my quirky “witty but very scattered comments,” they were never

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concerned; I was performing very high and understood the material; and with a overcrowded class full of kids with many needs, I’m sure my strangeness was at the bottom of their worry radar.

At the same time, I also developed anxiety. The pressure I placed upon myself to constantly focus — in class, on my work, with my mom, with my friends — was something I always felt. I knew that sometimes I would stop focusing after 10 pages of my readings, and I knew that I couldn’t sit through classroom movies, and I knew that I easily lost interest when our classes went off track. But instead of recognizing this as ADHD, I saw it as a character flaw — something that made me an imposter and pseudo-intellectual. And everyday, I worried everyone would discover I was not the truly bright and quirky kid they talked about, but a distracted, stupid, day-dreaming girl. This made my anxiety and my overwhelming desire to succeed a fundamental part of who I was in high school.

I began seeing Joe for my anxiety. My panic attacks and spirally thoughts seemed to only be a symptom of my anxiety and not my executive dysfunction. The fact that I had straight As and was bound to an elite college was not at all in line with the kid who couldn’t sit still and needed an IEP and thought about legos.

In high school, my lack of focus manifested further with my anxiety, and I felt as though it was just one of my many faults. I continued to development coping mechanisms — some of which were healthy like making lists and starting on assignments even when I felt I couldn't do them — but of them involved self loathing, and only made my self esteem lower throughout the years.

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I describe my brain most of the time as a simple person sitting in the middle of a circle, attempting to perform a simple, minute task like a math assignment, filling out a job application, or even talking to a friend, and surrounding her are 10 people. Each of the 10 people are screaming something, about the windy weather, the conversation you had with your mom about college politics, the Spanish Civil War, and maybe, one or two other thoughts about the task in front of you. Like when I was in middle school, each of these people are not only screaming at you, but the thoughts bounce off of each other.

“Oh! Thank you, person-sitting-across-the-table, your comment about the Great Depression and how it relates to your Holocaust history reading reminds me of a conversation you had with your mom three weeks ago about human responses to economic catastrophe! Hahahah!”

The voices depend on my mood and anxiety levels. Sometimes, all 10 voices are screaming, and sometimes, only 3 of them are talking, 2 are whispering, and the others are quiet. I know they’re all there, and I can access them when I need to, but I have gotten pretty good at getting them to stop screaming when I need to do an important task.

Sometimes, though, these 10 voices work in unison when I hyperfocus. The metaphor I like to use for this is that my brain is like a water wheel when I am hyperfocusing: the pipe spewing out water is the essay or source I am reading or the paper I am writing, and each of the spokes on the wheel are the thoughts in my brain.

When I hyperfocus, each of the thoughts work congruently with one another and flow beautifully into a stream of water. For example, if I am reading about the Arab Spring in Egypt, each of the spokes will be a different thought — an essay I read about this same

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topic last year, socialist theory I have read before, lecture points from my class, terminology I recognize from my Arabic classes, and even a tweet I saw about the revolution — and all of them will work together to form a very specific sequence of ideas. Although this thinking process is not typical, it shapes the person I am.

Eight years later, I am sitting on another therapist’s couch. This time, I am sure of my ADHD, and this time, unlike Joe, this woman seems certain I have ADHD. After a series of questions about my focus, my habits, and my anxiety, the therapist asks me what I would like to change going forward.

“I would like to develop more coping mechanisms and start therapy, and maybe start taking medication when I really need it.” I say. “But ultimately, I would not want to change my ADHD.”

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G, they/them // The Day I Got Help

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Leah Keeffe ’19, she/her // (ableism) Innovative Minds Music playing in the background: Music by Leah Keeffe and Matthew Kalt.

Leah sitting in a desk: Trying to focus.

Professor up at the board: writing things down Music is being created in Leah’s mind. Leah is trying to pay attention. Her mind is wandering though.

Leah spaces out for a moment. Then refocuses. Agitated look- that conveys ‘why can’t I focus?’

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Music changes: To more music by Matthew and Leah, or just music by Leah.

Leah thanks the neuropsychologist/clinical psychologist.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 3rd scene Leah sits in the classroom again with a smart pen taking notes.

Leah looks more focused, jotting down notes.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 4th scene: Studying: Leah is using Kurzweil and or her smart pen to study.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Isn’t neurodivergence a kind of diversity? How is judging people by the way they learn not as bad as judging someone by the color of their skin, their race, their sexual orientation, or their gender?

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M., they/he // disordered eating, food, medication, body talk, suicide listen.txt

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Sarah Cavar, they/them // (institutionalization) just wondering about your potential friday night plans, no pressure

NOV 10 Vanished: the Hospital on the Hill Public · Hosted by Historic Northampton” hard to choose between going to see family or going to see an entertaining

past.

the food will be better with a family. the turkey is nice and warm and buttered potatoes crushed into greenbeans yams bread and something to drink real plates for serving our real ridged knives to cut in two glasses of [dark thick juice] or [water] if you want.

when we talk about hospital food when will you remember the sound of the cart come late will you remember the dreadingwaiting unreality or a socked traipsed pathway “No one wad [sick] tortured when I worked there. It should of [sicksick] never closed [sicksicksick] I know about the unmarked graves.”

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what are you looking at what do you want to watch? are you the one who moves with a flash lighting my face up? are you mad when i look back at you are you scared to catch my eye though? who is fearful of who is afraid?

what does it mean when i stand naked revealing you, nothing, what happens when you listen with 8 or 12oz. of [water] what happens when i can’t see myself in a clear neon cup or taste myself without a burning throat “Should be fun!” you say interested because this subject matter is always so much fun to see only eleven days since halloween "hell yeah, count me in..."" please note that there is limited seating 3 hours on a friday night you don’t have to commit

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Thanks for reading //

With inquiries about future editions of “What's Your Story?�, comments about

this zine, and other questions on (de)institutionalization and disability justice, questions about safe professionals in the MHC area, validation, etc. please email cavar22s@mtholyoke.edu .

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