For decades, being called “mad” was an insult, like being called crazy, psycho, or weird. This language became a tool to socially exclude and dismiss the millions of people who have mental health conditions. In the 1990s, the Mad Pride movement pushed back against the stigma by creating one of the most overlooked civil rights movements in the past century. Far from being about celebrating suffering, Mad Pride was a refusal to be ashamed by it.
The roots of Mad Pride stretch to the 1960s when psychiatric treatment survivors began organizing in North America and the UK against the dehumanizing treatment in mental institutions such as forced medication, electroshock therapy, and extended confinement. Judi Chamberlin, in her 1978 book On Our Own, was a foundational text that argued that people with psychiatric histories should be allowed to define their own care and build their own support systems. The term “mad pride” was first used in 1993 in Toronto, Canada, when psychiatric survivor activists reclaimed the word "mad" in a similar vein to how the LGBTQ+ community reclaimed the word "queer.” A similar movement began around the same time in the UK, and soon Mad Pride events were being held around the globe to reclaim the label of “mad,” celebrate survivor identity, and challenge psychiatric oppression. By 2000, Mad Pride events were happening across Canada, the UK, Australia, and the United States.
