OPINION | Luisina Daives, Amadem psychologist
These days the City Council of Dénia AMADEM was involved in celebrating, raising awareness, and generating movements of love around diversity. We celebrated breaking down stigmas, myths, discrimination, and explicit and implicit aggression towards diversity. A parallel was drawn, creating the phrase: “pride of madness, madness of pride,” understanding that “mad pride” and “LGBTQ+ pride” are movements that are responses to years of abuse, aggression, and hostile messages towards people who, on the one hand, may have a mental health diagnosis, and on the other hand, those who choose or identify differently from what their body indicates.
LGBTQ+ Pride reminds us that what was persecuted, silenced, or considered an anomaly for years can be transformed into dignity, community, and collective strength. Mad Pride follows a similar path: it asserts that people with experiences of mental health suffering are not a mistake to be hidden, nor a diagnosis that should confine them.
It was beautiful and very moving to see hundreds of people defending equality and respect. education. and integration into a society While we boast of progress on these issues, we believe there is still much work to be done. The rates of suicide, anxiety disorders, and depression are high among members of the LGBTQ+ community, leading us to ask: What is happening? What do we, as a society, need to change? Pride is about celebrating the diversity of ways of being, feeling, thinking, and living.
It's about a cross-cutting struggle. Because all of us who have ever been singled out, ostracized, or considered "other" share the same desire: to live with dignity, without fear, and without stigma.
