[D66] WE'VE BEEN TOO PATIENT: VOICES FROM RADICAL MENTAL HEALTH

[A.OUT]

Advance Praise for We've Been Too Patient

Justice is not possible unless we make space for the stories of the
margins. What more powerful elucidation can there be than to cast light
on the margins of the mind? We've Been Too Patient shreds stigma and
replaces it with dignity, autonomy, and power. This anthology heralds
the necessity of our messy radical neurodivergent brains, so that we
might call forth a world where we are never again forced to be "too
patient."

--Sonya Renee Taylor, activist and author of The Body is Not an Apology:
The Power of Radical Self-Love

​Suicide prevention and mental health promotion are some of the most
under addressed, cross-cutting social justice issues of our time. Too
many people are dying and suffering in isolation or receiving
‘treatment’ that feels more like trauma. We can do better and the
stories in this book show us how.

--Dr. Sally Spencer-Thomas, psychologist and co-founder of United
Suicide Survivors International


Nothing beats the advocacy and ideas of someone with lived experience in
a subject and this book is proof. The insights and ideas might be
radical to some, but anyone who has lived experience with mental illness
and/or suicide can see this is actually a long-overdue and very
reasonable plea for basic human dignity, compassion, support and sense
of community.  This is how we should treat people who are suffering.
Whether you are a loved one, someone who suffers, a politician or a
mental health worker, please read it.

--Paul Gilmartin, comedian and host of Mental Illness Happy Hour


This book's message honors the diversity of each person’s mind and body
by moving us outside the limited scope of the biomedical model. This
message needs to be spread to counter the stigma, labeling, and
pathologizing entrenched in the current mental health system.  I share
the vision of this book: a mental health system that is not based on
forced treatment as its default, where people choose services and
supports because they serve their needs as defined by them.  This would
be a system that does not reduce people to chemical imbalances, but sees
them holistically, with myriad needs and influences.  We've Been Too
Patient moves us all toward this substantially different perspective of
mental health.

--Sally Zinman, pioneer of the consumer movement and Executive Director
of California Association of Mental Health Peer Run Organizations


We’ve Been Too Patient is a must-read for all.  Through mad rage, mad
resistance and mad pride this brilliant collection creatively and
provocatively challenges the structural oppression, stigma and sanism in
our everyday lives as well as within the very mental health services
that are purported to support us. Not only does it showcase the
narratives, research-based analyses and knowledges of those deemed mad,
it demands of the reader to fully appreciate the lived experience of
capitalist psychiatric oppression, and to both respect and consider
nuanced understandings of radical healing potentials emanating from mad
movements.  This book is not only silence shattering; it moves adeptly
beyond revealing the harm and shame experienced by so many of us to
expose the triumphs, creativity, dignity and self-agency attached to
mutual aid and other alternative approaches to healing.   In short,
We’ve Been Too Patient is a courageous, powerful and important
contribution to radical mental health and to the field of mad studies.

--Brenda A. LeFrançois, Professor, Memorial University of Newfoundland,
co-author of Mad Matters and Psychiatry Disrupted

This powerful anthology shines a spotlight on the mental health system,
highlighting serious flaws.  The authors, often re-traumatized by the
care they received for real and perceived mental illnesses explore their
journeys in rich, vivid language.  Rather than accepting victim roles,
the writers detail "call-to-arms" epiphanies that allow them to embrace
their experience and emerge as activists.  This powerful book is a
game-changer for anyone serious about looking at the mental-health
system from a patient's perspective.  An excellent read.

--Nicki Breuer, Owner, ODIN BOOKS, Mental Health, Education & Special
Needs bookstore (founded 1991)

Isolation kills; community heals. Well, depending on the community.  For
too long those living with mental health conditions were marginalized,
dismissed and distrusted by the very communities in which they lived
leading to isolation, often in the name of treatment. The power to
overcome this forced isolation and faulty identification to instead
construct a community built on mutual trust and support has taken
enormous faith and courage. You can hear the courage in the voices found
throughout this anthology.  The courage they inspire is contagious and
serves as a guide to building the healing communities that those living
with mental health conditions need and deserve.

--Joseph Robinson, Each Mind Matters


On 02-08-19 10:52, A.OUT wrote:
> https://www.wevebeentoopatient.org/
> 
> WE'VE BEEN TOO PATIENT: VOICES FROM RADICAL MENTAL HEALTH
> 
> Stories and Research Challenging the Biomedical Model
> Released: July 9, 2019.  Available for pre-order now on Indiebound,
> Barnes and Noble, and Amazon.
> 	
> 
> About the book
> 
> Overly medicating minors, police brutality, electro-convulsive therapy,
> involuntary hospitalization--not to mention the traumas that lead to
> intense altered states and suicidal thoughts: these are the struggles of
> those who are labeled mentally ill. Much has been written about the
> problems of the mental health care system, but in this book, we give
> voice to those who have endured psychiatric “care” themselves.  But
> these stories are not without hope, and many speak to radical healing in
> the form of mutual aid, peer support, spirituality, art, and story
> itself.  As Robert Whitaker suggests in his foreword to our book, the
> current psychiatric system believes in the “magic bullets” of
> pharmacological drugs and dehumanizing diagnoses. There are no magic
> bullets, no single story. From the Mad Pride movement to the Consumer
> Movement to trauma-informed care, mental health care stands to be
> radically revised by this multitude of voices.
> 
> Published by North Atlantic Books
> 
> Distributed by Penguin Random House
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