Destigmatizing madness By Rachel Serebrenik

This photo campaign aims to bring awareness to an emerging field called Mad Studies. Mad Studies takes an interdisciplinary approach to disability studies by challenging the negative stigmas associated with mental illness and other disabilities and rejecting the notion that medicine and psychiatry are the only treatments. Mad Studies is part of a greater movement called Mad Pride that seeks to reclaim the term "madness."

The following interviewees have all been asked the same three questions: 1. What comes to mind when you hear the word ‘madness’? 2. Think of yourself or someone in your life living with a mental illness or other neurodiversity, how does it affect you/them? 3. Do you/they fit into your definition of madness? All captions on the photos are excerpts from the interviews.

My buddy for Best Buddies is very, very smart, he just talks on and on and on and I don't even notice a difference between us and he's just like a normal person. I hate using the word normal versus 'un- normal.' (Does he fit into your definition of madness?) I would say that madness could apply to everyone, like everyone has a little bit of something different in their brain, no one is exactly alike...whether you're autistic or have ADHD or a person who says they don't have any disabilities, like you're all a little bit mad in your own way. (image: front of girl’s shoulder)

(What comes to mind when you hear the word ’madness’?) Abnormal, I guess like something that just simply doesn't fit in. You know like, madness is not synonymous with normal or typical and insurgently not accepted in the same way that those two words are. (image: hands clasped in lap)

I had a really close friend in high school with Asperger's and besides being kind of socially awkward at times he's so smart and such a hard worker, so I guess he didn't really let it affect him. (Would he fit into your definition of madness?) He wouldn't, like not at all. (image: back of shirt, says “I hate everyone”)

I think of madness as more of like a state as opposed to describing a person, so you can say like that person’s friendly, funny, pretty and that’s more of like a stable characteristic, but madness is more of like an induced state, just from my experience and my interaction with this person. (image: hands clasped tightly)

I feel like I don’t really fit into my definition of madness, because like I said, it’s kind of whimsical and exaggerated and I feel like when I think of madness I think of being like very overt and obvious and I guess mostly externalizing disorders, things like multiple personality disorder. I guess I would put those more into my thought of madness, whereas I wouldn’t necessarily think of like my depression, anxiety, or ADHD as madness. Although, I guess the ADHD could be like kind of in madness because I get so flustered sometimes and so distracted and kind of feel like I’m going crazy… (image: feet crossed wearing white sneakers)

My mind often goes to like books that I’ve read, like Jekyll and Hyde and that kind of stuff, I don’t hear that word used much in like modern day society I guess. (Would your friend fit into your definition of madness?) I definitely would have to change what I normally associate the word madness with if I were to like put it onto her, I guess just someone who’s different. (image: hand on hip)

My best friend from high school was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in October of our senior year of high school and she, it’s very, when I think of madness I think of her when she’s manic, like she’s very up and down and like there’s no, like what she’s thinking or what she’s feeling doesn’t always make sense and it’s kind of like, she’ll explain it and to her, whatever she’s doing or how she’s rationalizing what she’s doing makes sense, but like as an outsider it’s just insane, like it’s crazy the things that she says and things that she feels. (image: sitting in chair, leg)

So my cousin Jessie does have some learning disability, but I honestly don’t know what it is and I think that’s kind of important because it doesn’t really matter, because she functions like the rest of us. (Would she fit into your definition of madness?) I don’t think she fits into it at all. I just think madness is very extreme and when you do know people with learning disabilities you can communicate with them. I just would never put that word next to her name. (image: shoulder/back, braid falling on back)

I was just diagnosed, basically last year, with anxiety and mild depression and people are always like ‘but you’re the happiest person ever, you’re always so positive’ so usually I tell—my parents have no idea I was diagnosed with this—so I told my mom a couple days ago, because we were talking about something along the same line, and I was like ‘mom, sometimes the happiest people on planet earth are the most depressed people’ and it’s kind of like this ironic situation. (image: girl sitting, knees and white sneakers, hands in lap)