When the Front Door is the First Harm
One consumer’s account of what happens when the intake process becomes the first harm — and a direct illustration of why ‘respect as a clinical metric’ is not an abstract principle but an urgent, measurable standard.
Beyond Gatekeeping: Building Foundations for Lived Experience Recovery
Beyond Gatekeeping: Building Foundations for Lived Experience RecoveryAuthor : JH The following article is written by JH, a mental health consumer who has navigated the hospital and outpatient systems since 2021. At Making Rights Real, we invite every ally in partnership—whether you are a service provider, clinical staff member, or family member—to use the Blueprint […]
Marriage or Money: How the DSP Partner Rule Violates the Right to Safety (Article 23 and 28)
Marriage or Money: How the DSP Partner Rule Violates the Right to Safety (Article 23 and 28)Author: JH Article 23 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD) guarantees our right to respect for home and family, while Article 28 ensures our right to an adequate standard of living and […]
The 28-Day Constraint: How DSP Rules Undermine the Right to Global Movement (Article 18)
Why is financial security conditional on staying in one place? JH, our lived experience writers, highlights a significant systemic barrier: the 28-day DSP (Disability Support Pension) travel limit. This piece examines how such rigid constraints infringe upon the rights of mental health consumers, creating a system where essential financial security is traded for curtailed movement.
The Expert in the Room is Me
The following story illustrates what happens when we look “beneath the waterline” of a psychiatric diagnosis.
The Partnership Revolution
On moving from a cage of protection to a safety net of support.
The Velvet Rope of Pity
When we experience a difficult interaction – like being pitied or dismissed—we are only seeing the event (the tip of the iceberg above the water). But beneath that surface lie systemic structures (the rules, policies, and gatekeeping) and, at the very bottom, mental models (the deep-seated beliefs that drive everything else).
The following story by Nicola-Jane le Breton illustrates what happens when we look “beneath the waterline” of a single interaction with a General Medical Practitioner (GP).