Sara Haq

@thenitinsawhney Wishing you good and steady healing…. Stay well…

Continuing with my post heart attack recovery… Getting there… :)

So let me get this straight for a minute: Some professionals claim that there are hundreds of mental disorders in the brain. They claim there are thousands of symptoms and they all overlap. They claim they might be caused by genetics, but can’t find a gene. Might be caused by chemical imbalances, but can’t find any proof. Might be innate, but can’t prove it. Might be transmissible, but can’t prove that either. They can’t develop any tests and never have done. No brain scans or blood tests can differentiate anyone. They claim that toxic medication, imprisonment, and electrical currents directly to the brain will help people with these disorders. ON THE OTHER HAND: Another opposing group of professionals claim that this seems far-fetched, and it’s much more likely that humans go through hard times and traumas in their lives which change their thinking, behaviours and emotions. Extreme traumas cause extreme changes, trauma responses and coping mechanisms to kick in for survival. They don’t advocate for any medications or dangerous treatments. They don’t agree that people should be locked up for months or years. They don’t suggest that there are any definitive tests, because everyone is so unique. And yet it’s the SECOND group of professionals who are seen as radical, unscientific, dangerous, conspiracy theorists and unprofessional. Can you see how twisted this has become? The group claiming there are hundreds of unprovable mental illnesses that require cocktails of medications, imprisonment and ECT are framed as the ‘safe’ professionals, but the ones suggesting we should listen to humans and try to help them without further harming them are the ‘unsafe’ professionals. The ones giving their patients more and more drugs, increasing dosages, trial and error with human bodies and lives are the ‘trusted professionals’ - but the ones suggesting that maybe there is nothing biologically wrong with the patient, and they are traumatised or distressed and need compassion and support are ‘grifters’ and ‘dangerous’. This is how powerful the grooming is around this topic. The person being paid to diagnose people with unproven mental disorders and then prescribe harmful medications and treatments whilst ignoring their trauma is a ‘professional’ - but the person advocating for careful, humanistic approaches where we validate and listen to people’s distress is ‘unprofessional’. How did you all fall for this? 🙃🙃🙃

The venn diagram of new age spiritualists, wellness industrial complex, clean girl aesthetics, toxic positivity, neo-liberal selfcare, white feminism is a circle. Rooted in & perpetuating eugenics via white supremacy & ablism. And settler colonising geo-political global south 1/2

In systemic work, there’s no end in how much you can learn and your knowledge / practice deepen (actually that’s anything), but where I’ve seen the magical leadership emerge and actually be able to really start to do anything without reverting to business as usual, is because of the orchestrators, and often because orchestration is so hard and takes so much extra effort, others often protect themselves and see them as personality traits of certain people rather than keep capabilities critical for everyone to develop if they want to be leaderful in this work, rather than just smart. It’s beyond developing your own smarts, tasks and practice and it takes lots of extra effort. The work of translation, communication, connections, can be as simple as open communication, making connections, translating individuals pieces of work to see the new possibilities and interdependences, it’s full of deliberation, lots of communication, administration and it isn’t the work of one person to do all of that, the continual dance of orchestration across these domains more and more thoroughly, rigorously and thoughtfully is where anything special happens. The emotional energy of leadership beyond your own tasks, completing work in isolation that is good but doesn’t dance with the people, and adjacent possibilities around it, is vast. That’s why delegation isn’t about, could someone do that task for you, this capabilities required are far more sophisticated and if this isn’t the domain of leaderfullness you feel you can leap into, then I’ve seen really high high quality deeply skilled work in a very specific domain can complement the above energy in a really powerful way. This work isn’t highly resourced, or doesn’t have the time, or benefit from ten different people going from research, to copy, to practice, to design, to visuals in a long elongated cycle we often see if more formal corporate work and departments, so the deep multifaceted skills and the orchestration capacity dancing together sharing the deep emotional, organising load and labour is where the magic happens. It takes deep work with ourselves as to whether we want to do that, or whether we want a clearer more linear management paradigm in other types of work, we have to reckon with that, and really step in and up if we want to do this type of work.

@ImmyKaur Excellent thread- 🧵❤️wise and aligned… thank you for all you do. Love to weave together - wishing universal alignment and all good for you/ us all in 2024

It’s time for my monthly and annual thread that nobody will read or action, lots of people will say, but I’m going to do it anyway because who knows right. So, a lot of us agree at varying degrees of what’s next that the goals of the current economy, and how we attribute value, or what we value is not fit for purpose. Right, so we know we need to move beyond financial return as the main metric, we know we need to go beyond GDP, we know we want to return and retain as much wealth of all capitals at the scale of the community, street, neighbourhood. We have all the right language of knowing something very different is very urgently needed next. Now, the what and the how, well there is lots of what’s, and what comes next won’t look precisely like any of them, but a bit like a lot of them, and you won’t really be able to attribute it to one thinker or model. So even ‘the what’ has a fair deal of framing, models, detail now. There is A LOT more of ‘the how’ that needs to be discovered, right and that’s what the long, large, regenerative money needs to go into, lots and lots of the discovery of the how, in lots and lots of experimental, deep and rooted ways. Plenty and plenty of people who are primed for that, who are scrabbling around in a 20th century model of giving, not discovery of the next systems we will need to craft, shift, disrupt, build out of utter crisis. Land is a huge part of what so many of those people need, but many other types of assets too, to build out demonstrations, to discover the how of the next economy, next systems, what comes next basically — whatever you feel best calling it. Now, the really ridiculous thing is everyone doing that is being pushed back into the same business models, the same need to create business plans, and the same ideas that got us into this mess for any investment at all. Which is counter to how we discover those next pieces, but people are obsessed that this how they understand investment, risk, how to move money. This means that those trying to do any of that future work, are having to stop anything interesting to satisfy 20th century models, create business plans they know will not work in the cascading crises the next two decades will bring, to persuade people who will see it all as risky. So, it can’t be emphasised more, that those doing this work need to be deeply trusted, and expanded rapidly and encouraged to move out of the safe zone that investors and funders force them into, because they only working within the existing frame of risk, and what is possible. So, if you are worried about what’s happening, what’s coming and don’t want to wait until utter crisis, and you don’t want to make progressive work, stop, create old dependable plans, that are basically not fit for purpose for the future — and waste more time and energy, of people trying to force through and break out of the shackles of now. You know you need to invest differently, we don’t need 100 more reports, round tables, programmes, blogs. Here is a reminder of a number of high impact easy to do things in 2024, I know at this stage you’re all sick of me saying the same stuff but here we go: 1. 10 year funding, double average revenue of last three years, so they can build, discover, and have a bit of a buffer. 2. Discovery capital investment, so next models can be demonstrated, give at least 10 year payment break so that there is time and space to implement and build the models proposed out, that you often don’t believe are possible. 3. Buy up the land and assets, and get them out of the extractive development market, without endless business plans that follow old models and patterns, force people don’t pointless journeys, and in the mean time they lose the assets, to that market, and waste all their time and energy, fighting a fight they can’t win, telling a business plan story, that is nonsense for what is coming. These are very simple things. Do it in 20-30 places with people working on transition ..

Please listen and feel the words of my good friend Rev. @MuntherIsaac in #Bethlehem. We wish you a peaceful Christmas.

Some of this most critical and propositional work of our time is happening @CIVIC_SQUARE , I’d really encourage folks to apply and spread the word

I could never imagine that I would ever create a post comparing psychiatric hospitals in different countries but here it goes: I had the ‘opportunity’ to experience psychiatric ‘care’ in both England and The Netherlands and differences are astonishing. 1. Twenty years ago I would say it was the same. They hold you against your will if you experienced a ‘psychosis’, give you zyprexa (Olanzapine) as first choice of treatment and release you back into the community as a person with disability. It’s horrible. 2. Back in England there is this mental health act that deprives you of your freedom automatically if you have had a psychosis, even if you come and ask for help yourself. They just section you and you end up begging for the rest of your ordeal: ‘please, please, release me! I have a life outside this hospital! I have a family and a job!’ No, they hold you tight until you loose your job. It happened to me. I love England. I miss it so much, it hurts every day that I am not in Sheffield, with my friends for life, the hills, the Peak District, the pubs, British sense of humour, roast on Sunday, the language, the people. But mental health services are just horrible. They dehumanise you and stigma is unprecedented. 2. I can’t talk about the whole Netherlands but Friesland is a different story. The maximum stay in a hospital is about two weeks. Once you are out of ‘psychosis’, they let you go. They make sure that you continue to receive care after the hospital. They listen to you and take your side effects from antipsychotics into account. You don’t stand begging for attention, asking someone to take you for a walk. It’s automatically planned into your daily activities: a walk, sport, art therapy, etc. I was surprised how quiet hospitals are here until I realised that no one is screaming from despair. There is no stigma. I will tell more in other posts. What is your experience with psychiatric hospitals? #Psychiatry #psychosis #mentalhealth #bipolar

@ImmyKaur I’m So sorry you’ve been through this also. Not being listened to has been a regular feature of my own (pretty horrific) experiences of #NHS ‘care’ in the last 14 years too. Wishing you find an easeful path to healing as possible.

Over the last year I’ve had to scream and beg the NHS and my GP to listen, I got my own bloods after theirs showed ‘normal’, looked more deeply, got my own ultrasound and got it a second time and told them exactly where to look because I suspected the mass was on the back of my uterus easily missable, I told them over and over it was pressing on my nerve and that’s why my hip was losing all function and mobility and I was in constant back and leg pain, I got my own weekly pain management just so I can do my job and sit at a desk, I’ve got natural supplements to try balance my hormones, whilst weekly spiking my stress by literally screaming at the doctors to refer me and what to prescribe. I finally saw a consultant and refused to leave until he looked through my entire file I had bought with all the tests I got done that they wouldn’t do, or wouldn’t connect issues, and he finally referred me and then said oh god this is urgent, we will refer you on the 2 week pathway. What ever is growing is now pushing on my spine and nerves and bladder so much, trying to function throughout the day is near impossible, running is over, walking is limited, pain is constant and it took 12 months and every last penny I had to cope, and to get a picture that my GP wouldn’t refer, and to get them to do something that if they had just listened the first time this would never ever ever would have gotten this far. Listen to women, please for goodness sake. This isn’t a post for sympathy I know I have so many privileges that meant I could navigate this in ways many others can’t, but it’s been horrendous, I know also at so many stages it’s made people deem me chaotic or risky in the work too, because they can’t always see what everyone is holding, and questioning leadership is the first thing that happens. I’m just sharing this because I know so many other people are going through this, and if your a gynae who can just listen you may change peoples lives, a lot of Twitter fam have helped me navigate so much, so thanks. Let’s see what this week brings, I just hope it isn’t something that if we’d started treating a year ago would have helped dramatically.

TONIGHT: Rehumanising The Ends w/ @JoyWhite2 @acaaugustin Andre Anderson & Yusef Bakkali On tensions & possibilities of human/loving ends relationships & narratives. On tangible, nuanced, beautiful & interdependent expressions of working class communities rehearsingfreedoms.com/event/rehumani…

Great chat with @TheArtsCatalyst about the Soil Futures Gathering happening in Sheffield this Friday. Piece by @Nibbly_Pig. "A shared meal is usually when the most expansive and inspiring conversations happen." nowthenmagazine.com/articles/eatin…

This is not something that sits outside psychology but is intrinsic to its emergence: a psychological practice absent of an understanding of the violences of capitalism, colonialism and imperialism is a psychological practice incapable of truly understanding a true humanity

It was an honor to interview Joanna Moncrieff for Psychology Today, as I’ve been a fan of her work for some time. I came away with the impression of someone with almost supernatural equanimity and poise in the face of increasingly personal attacks @joannamoncrieff @PsychToday

2 DAYS TO REHEARSING FREEDOMS FESTIVAL ✨🔥🫀 Oct 11 - Nov 11 rehearsingfreedoms.com/programme @tweetskindeep @Kwajotweneboa @kelechnekoff @CopwatchNetwork @NExclusions @Gargi_at_home @SoSowemimo @PantheaLee @we_level_up @thebrownhijabi @NdefoNkem @LDNRentersUnion @johnpringdns @YomiSode

Tapping into the awareness of how racial capitalism disables us is painful work fr. Like being conscious of how it shapes us psychosomatically. Sociolinguistically. Constantly

[1/6] Great panel coming up for the #RehearsingFreedoms Festival! It will discuss the the relevance of our economic climate and austerity on Muslim health. See 🧵 for some ideas of the discussion. Join us and please share this around! rehearsingfreedoms.com/event/muslims-… @HJusticeLdn

The fantastic @IndigoDaya inspiring and powerful work @dropthedisorder #ad4efestival23 #slicesilence