April 2016

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What Madness has taught me - Kristen Bellows

I fought tooth and nail to not be the depressed person I was told I was. A youth psychiatrist, in 2005, told me that I would never recover and would need medication for the rest of my life. I didn’t know any other way, except what the psychiatrist told me, and I fighting_tooth_and_nail_5_x_7_invitation_card-rf9cb544c3f324bc1bc0dea7e373e8d7f_zk9c4_324hated that way. I used to think I was sick, I was told I was sick and people seemed to dislike me because I was sick. Even the quest to make me “not sick” made me feel worse and affected how people saw me, and not for the better. For me, a diagnosis of a mental illness was a damned if you do and damned if you don’t situation.

madNEWprideshirtSmThe day I learned about Madness was the day I stopped being sick. It was the day I began to heal from my past wounds caused by psychiatry, society and myself. It was the day I found myself. It was the day I found my value and strength. Madness opened me up to a rich history of people who have felt, thought and experienced things differently and were celebrated not labeled as sick. Madness taught me about neurodiversity, that all of our brains have different structuring and levels of functioning and are supposed to be that way. And Madness taught me about sanism and how what I was condemned to be, a sick, depressed person, was the result of discrimination and not a flaw on my part.

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Banners and bright colour signs from the mad pride parade in Salvador, Brazil

We are moving beyond stigma. We have history. We can be awesome.

Share me and get involved in this years Parade. torontomadpride@gmail.com subject line: “Bed Push Parade”

Banners and bright colour signs from the mad pride parade in Salvador, Brazil
Mad Pride parade in Salvador, Brazil, in 2009

By Alfredo Mascarenhas – originally posted to Flickr as II Parada do Orgulho Louco, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7102426

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Mad Pride Toronto invites you and your organization to create signs and banners to show off your pride at this years Bed-Push.

Picture of Mad Pride 2015 - Bed Push
Mad Pride 2015 – Bed Push

Marches are more fun and powerful when banners show solidarity and a great sense of humour. Especially when they include Mad-Puns: “Madvocates move me”, “I am Mad about equality”, “Truly Madly Deeply”, “MadInfo makes you Madawesome”. Here is some inspiration from France ( lamadpride@gmail.com).

MAD PRIDE 2015 – 13 juin à Paris

Do you have questions about making signs and banners? We will have a sign party closer to the March, but stay in touch and talk to your organization now.

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