Mercy Ministries, a postscriptum

[dreamer_easy]

I seem to be all militant about mental illness at the moment. Good-oh.

The SMH asked readers for their comments on the Mercy Ministries scandal, specifically on whether scripture had a role to play in psychiatry. Amongst more sensible remarks - many from Christians appalled by the abuse - one note kept repeating itself: religion is mental illness. No, it's not, and fuck you for playing.

Apparently, LJ recently suppressed a bunch of interests which appeared on the "popular interests" list, including depression. Now, I am generally less pissed off with LJ's random shenanigans than most users, probably because the protesting LJers often act like people you would never want to be in the same room with. This, however, pisses me off. At least there's some recognisable reason to hide interests like "sex", "porn", or "bondage", but "depression" wtf? Are they worried shareholders will think the place is gloomy? Or is it just that they'd really rather keep it in the closet? Just you try, fuckers. *brandishes mop* (ETA: more info.)

ETA: Oh joy. Abuse of women rife in psychiatric wards.

Comments

Psst

[miriammoules.livejournal.com]

10th October, World Mental Health Day

We're starting to plan a blog-a-thon for that week. Interested?

Re: Psst

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Y

Keep me posted!

Re: Psst

[miriammoules.livejournal.com]

Can you get the word out?

[arjuna-lj.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that link - I'd seen many posts protesting about the "popular interests" list but as nobody else actually *linked* to it, didn't know where to go to find it. (Didn't know there was one, tbh :)

probably because the protesting LJers often act like people you would never want to be in the same room with

word :)

[miriammoules.livejournal.com]

The depression one might be about teenagers getting more angsty than they need to..

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Plugging in "depression" into the Interests search does get you proanorexia, a comm which I'm sure the world could get along just fine without, but also a bunch of genuine support comms. Perhaps LJ worries that if teenagers get information about contraception depression, they'll go out and have sex kill themselves or something. I know I did.

[miriammoules.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to see it from Big Corporate PoV - not wanting to be seen to be encouraging mental ill-health by getting a large group congregation on LJ and bringing the collective mood down.

Not that these things work, but they like to think it does...

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Yah, I think you've probably pegged it.

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

So only shiny happy people are allowed on LJ?

That's me buggered for a start.