🧵 (continuing)

The media reporting on her death: "the stigma was so big", "her mental health issues were playing up"... referencing to the abuse and her courtcase only minimally. I was so pissed about this. She literally stated in her video's that she doesn't care about taboos, that she wrote books about this topic because she wants to talk about awareness and improvements. Her life's work wasn't about stigma and mental health, it was about medical abuse.

#BrendaFroyen #psychiatry #ableism #MedicalAbuse #PatientsRights

🧵 (continuing)

So I told them about what happened with Brenda Froyen:

Brenda Froyen was a Belgian activist for patients' rights, specifically in psychiatry. In 2012, she had a psychosis and wrote a book about it to raise awareness, and then wrote a second book in 2016 about her criticism on the psychiatry sector. For me she was thé locally famous activist, she was the one who got asked to talk on tv when some debate was happening etc.

Last year, she relapsed and got hospitalised again. Nothing had changed, and she was retraumatised. She posted a video on social media about her experiences in the isolation cell, and she got sued by the hospital for defamation. So she sued them for medical abuse. Summer 2024 she had a crowdfunding for the legal costs and she was posting calls for first-hand stories of abuse in psychiatric wards.

She died by suicide a month ago.

#BrendaFroyen #psychiatry #ableism #MedicalAbuse #PatientsRights