MAD about pride - but how crazy is that?

The new MAD pride drive is gaining momentum - and publicity. But it's also drawing criticism and concerns from the mental health professionals who view it as nothing more than false hope.

At issue is a recent New York Times article that focuses on blogger and columnist Liz Spikol, who appeared in a You Tube video smiling and animated, "the light glinting off her large hoop earrings."

"Deadpan, she holds up a diaper," the article said. "It is not, she explains, a hygienic item for a giantess, but rather a prop to illustrate how much control people lose when they undergo electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, as she did 12 years ago."

According to the Times, Spikol is speaking candidly and publicly about her issues in a way that shows how her conditions do not preclude them from productive lives. Like many advocates, she's not afraid to call herself "mad," the Times said - to the point where people are using the term to promote their cause

The article then talks about "Mad Pride" events, organized by loosely connected groups in at least seven countries including Australia, South Africa and the United States, that draw thousands of participants. Recent activities include a Mad Pride Cabaret in Vancouver, British Columbia; a Mad Pride March in Accra, Ghana; and a Bonkersfest in London that drew 3,000 participants, the Time said.

But when author Paul Raeburn reads about the movement, he stumbles over the very first word, mostly because of it's attachment to stigma.

"Mad," he said, makes him "squirm."

"I understand the idea of co-opting pejorative words, but, geez. I just don't like it," he said. "Queer was co-opted a long time ago, as was the n-word, but those make me squirm, too."

Raeburn also asked if people should be proud of their illnesses.
"Would somebody be proud to be wasting away with breast cancer?" he said. "Proud to be wheezing with emphysema? Proud to be psychotic, or manic, or depressed?"

"To me, the idea of mad pride harks back to the old R.D. Laing notion that madness is some kind of gift of awareness, or it's the "mad" people who see the truth and the so-called "normal" people who are mad," he said.

"Or something - ick."