Merlin Star's Website

I am now blocking people who use the word delusion who are not actually referring to delusions.

Getting real sick of the lateral ableism and using those who have delusions as a punching bag. Same thing for psychosis.

If you are wondering why this agitates me so much, please look at the lengthy (and still ongoing!) history of those with delusions and / or psychosis being held against their will, having all of their rights taken, being treated as openly inferior and never believed, etc.

This is still ongoing. Some (in the United States, not sure about other countries) are in jails despite committing no crimes because the mental hospitals are full and they just send them to a jail instead.

It’s incredibly inhumane.

You want to give the connotation of someone who thinks they are invincible? Then say that.

You want to point out that someone thinks they are immune to something when they aren’t? Then say that.

Just say the thing that agitates you about their behavior. Those who aren’t masking aren’t delusional, they are willfully ignorant + ableist + doing poor risk assessment.

This ableism in particular bothers me because those with schizophrenia, psychosis, delusions, or in a similar domain ALWAYS get used as fucking punching bags in disability spaces and it’s fucking disgusting.

STOP. Punching down on them will in no way stop the ableism. You’re just enabling further ableism and relegating their disability to a category of “Being allowed to treat them like shit.”

This is one reason why I think these folks should be centered in a lot of disability advocacy. Within disability groups, they are the last to be believed, the first to have their concerns dismissed or denied, the first to have ableist experiments conducted on, and even have folks make exceptions for their specific disability that they would do to no one else. Things like seeing other disabled folks celebrate that some psychosis medications will now track when you take them. This would be seen as egregious if we did this for pain medication for example.

Oh by the way, if you think I’m exaggerating on this, I’m talking about Abilify and other such drugs that allow for this. See the company stating this here: https://www.abilifymycite.com/about

Now you might go: But this could be used for so many good things. Like those who forget medications, those who need to track their activity level and such.

To which I say: Don’t let the positives of how something can be used deter you from the fact that this will be used without consent in mental hospitals, that some folks will use this as a power grab against their spouses, and that most live in a society where the person taking this type of medication is the least likely to be believed and the first to have their rights violated. Also, this type of product is heavily tied to surveillance capitalism and worse, do we really want companies to have even more access to our health and data?

Also, apparently Abilify was sued for causing pathological gambling in some folks. Yikes. See here: https://www.drugwatch.com/abilify/lawsuits/

Anyways, avoid this ableism. It doesn’t benefit you or disabled folks, it creates an unjust hierarchy, and it’s just bad.