Thread by @DrJessTaylor

#MentalHealthAwarenessWeek

THREAD

1. I recently started #victimstigma after professionals I’ve never met in my field of psychology & CSE found out that I was raped 11yrs ago & used it to send hundreds of pages of disgusting emails claiming that I am mentally ill & unstable.

2. And they tried for MONTHS to protect their identities and silence me - hoping that I would never go public about what they had done because they have used mental health stigma to try to discredit years of my work. They work in mental health, yet did this to me.

3. Mental health issues affect every single one of us. These so-called professionals in my field must have never experienced a single trauma or experience in their whole lives, which makes them immune from mental health issues and able to take shots at others

4. It’s such a massive fucking low blow. Fair nuff, you don’t like my work or my activism. But accusing someone you don’t even know of having mental health issues because you read on the internet they were raped and sending it to their employer is sick as fuck

5. Let’s not pretend that it’s safe and supportive in our field of academia, psychology and abuse to actually even step up and say you are struggling or have your own traumas - you’re positioned as weak or vulnerable - less than

6. See, mental health is still being used to bully and harass people in the workplace. People are viewed through a deficit model - that if they have a trauma history they may as well quit their jobs because they are damaged goods. Well FUCK THAT.

7. I am the worst possible person to ever attempt to bully. I am the tenacious little dickhead who spent 4 months using the data protection act to get their identities and their emails from their own inboxes. I will never be silenced about this.

8. Mental health is still being used as a slur. It’s being used to discredit people. Professionals are distance-diagnosing people they don’t like (politicians, celebs, professionals) and it stinks of elitism and bullying. ‘Oh they are a cluster B!’ ‘Oh they’re clearly psychotic!’

9. I filmed #victimstigma to remind professionals that we are not this elite body of people with no flaws and no vulnerabilities. If you are a psychology professional who believes you’re above mental health and trauma, resign now.

10. What have I learned from this shitshow? That professional people can hold contradictory views of mental health in which they can work in the field with clients whilst actively using mental health as a slur against others when they want to

11. Trying to bully people cos of our trauma history only works if we hide from it and allow them to shame us and put us down. I’m not ashamed of who I am. I fucking love who I am. If it wasn’t for my mental strength I wouldn’t even be here. I am a role model to others now.

12. I’ll never be scared to speak out. I lived thru shit Shane Meadows couldn’t dream up. I will stand up & fight against #victimstigma and #victimblaming and #mentalhealthstigma til my last breath so if you don’t like it, tough. I’m 27 & I got SO MUCH MORE to do and say yet!

13. ... 13 is my lucky number so I’m stopping here.

I love all of my intersecting identities equally. I am the victim-survivor-author-mother-academic-chav-stokie-manc-teenmum-speaker-revolutionary-activist-feminist your elitist professors warned you about.

Peace ✌🏼

And for anyone wondering ‘why the hell would anyone do something like this to her?’ - well according to the emails its because I started #nomoreCSEfilms , because I swear too much for a laydeee and because I shouldn’t be in activism as an academic. Well. Tough.