All right, were about to get the event started. You also much for coming. We are a packed house tonight. Welcome, were really excited to host the event tonight around, this is almost a twopart event for tonight, reading from the contributors of the book and then followed by a Panel Discussion and there will be q and a, all that amazing stuff afterwards but i just wanted to give you a big round of applause and thanks for coming out because its support from Community Members like yourself that independent booksellers can keep growing and continuing to be around. In fact, were opening up a new location in the south street seaport come august 1 id love to see you there. Just a few housekeeping notes for tonight , there will be an audience q and a after the Panel Discussion. Plus a chance to have a book signed so you will see books over here and behind that will move to the stable. For the q a portion we ask that you keep your questions concise and respectful and for the book make sure to pay for them on your way out. Times they just run away. The store will be open until 10 pm tonight so feel free to explore. The space is yours to enjoy. Were pleased toast for incredible panelists and a moderator was also incredible discussing weve been to patient which is a collection of poems and essays written by four people with lived experiences of Mental Health care systemin america. On the Mad Pride Movement to the Consumer Movement to trauma informed care, weve been to patient dedicated to finding walking alternatives to the Mental HealthIndustrial Complex. Often unexpected ways and places through sun ship, respect andcentering on the truth of the lived experience so without further ado, i want to bring up two of your panelists. [applause] its so good to see you, my name is Kelechi Ubozoh, one of the coeditors of weve been topatient. Im excited youre here to have a real conversation about health and share all of these Amazing Stories and have a great conversation. Im the coeditor of weve been to patient, im l. D. Green. I hope you enjoy the testimony of these voices and thank you very much for being here. Thank you random house for distributing us. Cant forget them hosting us. First up, we have casey gardner. Casey gardner is a queer poet and educator who writes both to heal and critique the intersections between identity and culture. He teaches with both poetry and digital storytelling and has been on three National Poetry slam teams. Shes pursuing her masters in english education ucsc, i think he already has her masters so these are a little old so welcome to the state casey gardner. [applause] high. All right, im going to preface this with the fact that this poem is a little old so bear with me, these are some older things about myself. I have one called occupational therapy. One year ago i was in the hospital. I asked myself what i was doing here besides keeping myself safe from the pill bottle next to my bed. I couldnt sleep in that place. They checked on us every 15 minutes, yelled in the hallway, sometimes i still smell the formaldehyde from the blanket and i think am i supposed to be there now . A year enough to be healthy . That question hangs in the air when i kiss you. You say you need more time to learn how to love yourself before you can love me. Three months, three months until im supposed to start seeing my future inside of you, three months until i move away, three minutes to read this poem. Is any ofthis enough . Lately ive been hearing everyone say the same thing. Art is not therapy. I introduce you to poetry, to art because i wanted you to get better. I started doing poetry because i wanted to get better but did i get better mark i had a panic attack before i wrote this. I did not eat orsleep enough this week. All things therapist told me to focus on before they would release me. I promise, i promised i wouldnt fall in love with anything that wasnt myself and now im so in love with you. I cannot eat or sleep even though eating and sleeping means my anxiety taste quiet. I came back from the hospital just in time to jump back into my heart like a bottle of pills, this was the cure for a while but the iic held the scars on my wrist have not healed over. Can you see how afraid i am going back to mark like i believe i am still just a single servingjello, a morning pill regime area and part of me is still in a room full of 5150 reading a poem because i knowthis is the only way i can heal. But if i could see that therapist again i would tell her this i got into graduate schoolyesterday. I spent three months in my moldy apartment investing in my future. Year ago i didnt think i had afuture. Couldnt go out in public without hearing all the voices of my demons superimposed on my friends. I made progress. I fixed my bicycle. Eating fruits, stopped talking to people who wanted to swallow me when my anxiety creeped into my nightmares, i changed. Everyone thinks im still a little crazy, that my chewed nails and shaking hands will mean i am sick but i am still different. Like yesterday, you kissed me and i told myself my health ismore important than this. Last night i was supposed to write a poem, memorize it, they get ready for the state but instead i made cupcakes. I played music and i am here writing about it now because that is more important than any applause is paid has held me in its arms saying do you love yourself today . That is more important than being the best writer or artist. I and my best self. And i am better than i was yesterday. And we are all better than we were yesterday and isnt that the most importantthing . Isnt that the best poem ive ever written . Thank you. Thank you casey. Welcome to the state, the writer ramona rio writes in the book as alisa mcgowan, big round of applause. Infiltrating the Mental HealthIndustrial Complex. The patient professional paradox. The Mental HealthIndustrial Complex functions on a division between Mental Health professionals on the one hand and Mental Health patients clients on the other. These Mental Health professionals have the authority to diagnose and label individuals as possessing a psychiatric and psychological disability. Supposedly, these Mental Health professionals are individuals who do not possess a diagnosis or suffer from Mental Health problems. Mental Health Professionals are psychologically quote, stable whereas Mental Health patients are psychologically quote, unstable. Patients and professionals are supposedly too distant types of people. This Division Operating patients from professional is rooted in hierarchies based on class, race and ability. Supposedly, a person cannot be a patient and a professional at the same time or in the same space. But i am, i am body both identities and experiences. On the one hand i look earned a bachelors degree in psychology and a masters in social work and have worked as a Mental Health therapist for over four years. On the other hand, i have gone through Substance Abuse treatment four times for my early adolescence into early adulthood. Shortly after obtaining my msw, i experienced a druginduced Mental Health crisis during which i was beaten and tasered by the police and psychiatrically hospitalized against my will. The affective disorder prescribed as my diagnosis. I regularly see a psychiatrist and therapist and i have been taking psychiatric medication ever since my Mental Health crisis. Identify myself as a social worker and therapist. Notwithstanding this, i also self identify with the history of the mad movement. And the antipsychiatry movement. I self identify as neuro atypical, a mad activist, and a survivor of Police Brutality and the Mental HealthIndustrial Complex. This brings me to name. This meant brings me to what i would like to name asthe patient professional. The Mental HealthIndustrial Complex stipulates those who are Mental Health professionals are psychologically stable and those who are patients are psychologically unstable, then my existence as a patient professional is a paradox. To be a patient professional is to inhabit a body, a mind , a space and a place between the binary of the patient and the professional. I understand the experience of being stigmatized for possessing a psychiatric disability and i understand that legitimate resistance of clients with whom i interact who vehemently reject the idea that they are mentally ill. Navigating this division between the patient and the professional is a task that i find requires almost instinctive complexity, creativity and nuance. [applause] next up we have jesse roth. Jesse is an author and an activist working at the intersection of storytelling, Mental Health and social justice. She is codirector of the institute for the development of human arts, a community of advocates who support growth and change in the Mental Health system. She has a degree in narrative she ecology. [applause] i. I also want to thank the others so much for putting this all together. Its so awesome. Id like to thank all the contributors. I get nervous in public speaking but im dedicating what im reading to my sister who i wish could be here with us tonight. This is all inspired by her. Also, im reading my thesis, part of anepilogue in the book. The heart of this anthology is a simple idea. One of the ways we can implement the recovery model is throughnarrative. The narrative model supports participants to reclaim complex situations and supports them to rewrite damaging stories instructing battle alternatives. This type of narrative inquiry is a new model for navigating Mental Health. This mode of thinking and sitters the unique stories of individuals and fosters a purpose for their participation in a system that is starkly not supported and excluded them. The act of translating a experience into a written one validates the fact that it happened. Textual evidence assigned meaning to an experience and makes it possible for a person to view a potentially painful experience from a distance. The discrepancy between the lives and textual cells by strategies for the future problemsolving of aperson , tightening their overall potential for growth. Writing is an empowering practice, it provides control and delivers a sense of satisfaction little else can. At the endof the day life is best understood when its told as a story. This dismissing the power of personal narrative amidst an instant essential voice in the conversation about Mental Health, thevoices of those lived experiences. Mental health is too delicate, too intertwined with lived experience to be assigned a single medical eyes story or worse, to ignore the presence of story altogether. The editors and contributors of this volume firmly believe that Mental Health research and practice dan to be improved by privileging the voices of those living with mental difference. Such as this illuminate the experience of Mental Health for readers who would not otherwise understand. The reading experience allows its audience to bear witness to our stories which have the potential to foster empathy and reduce month. How we heal is implicit within the unique story of our lives. Thank you so much. Next up we have to sascha altman dubrul, director of support media projects, has a masters degree as a recovery specialist, trainer at Columbia Center for practice innovations and is currently the training director for the institute for the development of human arts. So heres the deal. Ive got three minutes and ive got a long essay im not going to read what im going to do is review the first paragraph and tell you a little bit about the context. The context is this. Three years ago right now i was finishing my masters in social work at hunter and i spent 12 years of my life working on this thing called interest project at a bunch of the people reading tonight have also been involved in and its a network of based Mental Health support groups and we started it because we were trying to change the language and culture of whats called Mental Health and Mental Illness. I went back to school because i saw that the Mental Health system needs to change and there are people who need to be on the inside but i also went back to school because i was looking for mentor ship and looking for more guidelines and trying to understand what it meant to be a clinician so the thing that i wrote called underground transmissions center of the marginalized, Collaborative Strategies for reenvisioning the public Mental Health system. And it was a 58 page paper that i wrote about working in a place called the parachute project, i was on a mobile Treatment Team and everyone on the team was trained in something called open dialogue which is a Family Therapy model and we were working with young people diagnosed with psychotic episodes. The thing about that team was that everyone who, half the people on the team were clinicians and half the people on the team were people who work here specialists which means there they were people diagnosed with a Mental Illness themselves and were working in the system and hada different perspective than the clinicians. I was a clinical intern on the team and when i got there i was like weights, and i quit clinician, michigan up here . Then i got interested in the working relationships between peers and clinicians so thats the context, let me redo the first paragraph. Its academic writing, its not the most allies writing we will see. Hopefully all right. And its kind of lofty, its kind ofgrandiose. I have a diagnosed bipolar disorder which means some people think im grandiose. The purpose of this paper is to lay the intellectual foundation for development of a new generation of Mental Health support services. These services will model cooperation between clinicians and the growing fears specialist workforce in the public Mental Health system and actively encourage the proliferation of a vibrant, independent here led movement has the power to creatively influence the current culture of Mental Health services. Is quite a sentence there. This Grassroots Movement would express its influence both within and outside of the public Mental Health system with a common sense of Core Principles based on selfdetermination and justice. That was the first paragraph, if you get excitedabout that, read the whole thing. Thank you. [applause] thank you so much sasha. All right. Next up we have leah harris, and intersectional feminist writer calling for a revolution in how we understand and respond to suicide. Her publications include world warrior, and busters, beltway poetry, covington post, madin america and truth out. Her story was featured in a documentary on suicide , the f word. Thank you so much, welcome leah. [applause] all right. I want to echo everybody elses thanks and gratitude to Kelechi Ubozoh and ld for making this possible. I want to read a poem called dear doctor which ofthem was the beginning of me taking my power back. Your doctor. On that proud glorious day you graduated from medical school you took an oath as old as hippocrates, remember . Above all, do no harm. Above all, do no harm. Do no harm. No harm. But the trouble is you thought you were doing good by warehousing us in that style, oppressive, inhospitable place you called the hospital. You practiced the highest form of tough love there is. So tough i could not seeno love nowhere. You place the blame squarely on our brains. Clearly on our serotonin flow, our synapses. Labeling us with whatever diagnosis on whatever page of your book you found appropriate at the time. You thought you couldturn us around. Make us into productive future citizens. Make us fit into this authoritarian sexist, racist, ageist, homophobic transforming, icould keep going. Generous society, your generation, the greatest generation. You always insisted that we were the problem and that you were the solution but your treatments, your cures, your directives issued from on high did not heal our brains. Did not open our hearts. They merely transformed these organs into impassive lumps of bitter rage. If anything dear doctor you taught me how to act. You taught me all the world is a stage. You pushed me to awardwinning performances. The award being life away from your indifferent eyes. Your pronouncements of orville. The indecipherable scribbles on the prescriptionpad. The infernal team minutes you gave me. In a word your doctor, the award was freedom or at least a glimmer. Perhaps i give you too much credit dear doctor, assuming that you saw us as something more than billable hours, business as usual. Another bed filled until the money ran out this time. Your doctor, youll never know in your ivory tower on the second floor of the lost team award how many years i spent sweating and struggling to un