ALWAYS-WRONG 1990

I am in a box.

It is too small for me.

It is labelled PATIENT.

There is no room for all of me in this box.

There is no room for dignity.

And how can I stop being a patient 

without dignity?

How can I get out of the box

without showing that I belong in it?

To live without dignity ...

To accept that there is no room for dignity ...

That is to be a permanent patient. 

And to fight for dignity 

is to prove that I am a patient.

Because the lack of room for dignity ...

That is just a paranoid fantasy ...

Isn't 

it?

I wrote this in 1990, before going to a medical appointment. A year later I discovered that I had been "a borderline psychotic" in the health services for many years, and that everything I said about how I functioned confirmed that I had lost touch with reality.

During the confusing years before I found out about the diagnosis, I thought that I had the same rights in the health care system as a lawbreaker has in the the judicial system:

• A right to know what I am suspected of. 
• A right to accusations that are so precise that they can be disproved.
• A right to self-defense.
• A right to take responsibility for my own actions. 

Yesterday I sent these four points out on Twitter as a wish list, it was good to read that Sunniva Ørstavik, our Equality and Anti-Discrimination Ombud, has the same wish: 

@ivaalsg @Sigrun_ Det ønsker jeg også. #crpd
— Sunniva Ørstavik (@SOrstavik) January 4, 2014

And I wonder: Will I see some changes in my lifetime?

Norsk versjon/Norwegian version :
http://ingridvaa.blogspot.no/2012/09/alltidfeil-1990.html