mad pride is for anyone that feels at home there and is not restricted to diagnostic labels. a lot of mad pride is about rejecting pathologization, the DSM, and the ways psychiatrists classify + control us. a lot of people who embrace mad pride reject a lot of terminology commonly used around mental experiences and don’t embrace diagnostic labels or even the concept of mental illness. mad pride is a political movement about psych survivors, consumers, mentally ill, mad, neurodivergent, disabled people fighting back.
so basically. anyone who feels like their experiences with mental health, altered states, engaging with the world, whatever your experience is— is welcome to claim mad pride and it’s up to you to decide if you want to! mad pride has room for many ways for people to describe their experiences, whether they use psychiatric terminology or not. You’re welcome to call yourself mad, engage with mad pride, whatever you want.
i very much relate to mad pride because my experience of mental illness, neurodivergence, and being a psych survivor has shaped the way I view my craziness + shaped the way the world interacts me. i am proud of being mad + insane in defiance of a psych system that tries to control + incarcerate me, and for me mad pride is about liberation, self determination, and embracing healing that leaves room for me to still be wonderfully + wholly crazy. mad pride is and always will be political, and is based on the foundation of psych critical thought + activism that treats crazy people as the ones who should be holding the power about our own minds and bodies, not psychs.
currently institutionalized so I don’t have a lot of time to link sources but would reccomend looking into the history of the mad pride movement, especially in the UK, to get some more info about what mad pride has meant in the past and how’s it’s used now.