The underlying prejudiced belief system that makes "medicine slurs" effective: the notion that people who take psychiatric medication are less credible, less rational, and should be quieter. It's the bigotry that equates being medicated with being intellectually or morally deficient, and views medication's primary purpose as making difficult or dissenting people easier to manage. This bigotry stigmatizes both the need for medication and the act of taking it, creating a catch-22 where speaking with passion risks being labeled "unmedicated and unstable," while being openly medicated risks being labeled "too chemically altered to think clearly."
Example: A streamer is open about managing their ADHD with medication. During a live debate, they get rightfully angry about a blatant falsehood. Chat immediately fills with, "Your Vyvanse is talking, not you," and "Calm down, you're overmedicated." The bigotry here frames their legitimate emotional response not as a reaction to dishonesty, but as a pharmaceutical side-effect. It denies their agency and authenticity, reducing their entire persona to a drug interaction, which is both dehumanizing and designed to silence them. Medicine Bigotry.
by Dumuabzu January 25, 2026
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