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radical care

doing what we can

I like the idea of doing what we can do–no more or less.  I think of it as radical care.  It can be very appealing, to want to do ton, or try to save people.  But that often leads to burn out, and it’s impossible to save people anyway.

Then on the other hand, it can also be easy to get overwhelmed and do nothing.  When I’m overwhelmed, I sometimes want to run away or give up.  Perfectionism can do that to me too–if I can’t do it just right, I’m not doing it at all.

So it feels special, to do something–to find a middle spot where the work is pleasurable and stick with it, for a while.  I’m happy the Las Vegas Radical Mental Health Collective has been going for more than four years, doing what we can do.  Yeah!

how to respond

When someone in our everyday lives or at a meeting expresses huge feelings, big life problems, self-destructiveness, or other intense issues, how do we respond?

An important part of radical mental health for me is to react honestly, caringly, and not with standard wellness cliches.  I want to listen, meet someone where they are, validate, ask how I can help, and give them space if they want it.  The person I’m talking with is someone I deeply respect.  People are allowed to make the choices about their life.

Certainly I don’t want to rush in and try to fix things.  Nor do I want to say, “This is no big deal.  This doesn’t matter to me.”  I want to find a sweet spot that’s sustainable and makes sense for all involved.

I need to be kind to myself also.  How to help others in a way that’s not at my expense is a lifelong lesson.

regret

I’ve had friends and relatives who committed suicide, and that’s intense grief.  I’ve gone through regret, did I do enough, should I have done this or that differently.

The way I treat people is really important to me, including how I care, who I choose to make time for and prioritize.  When I was young, I had very few friends.  As the years pass, I have more friends than I know what to do with.  How I decide who to pay attention to and give energy to is a huge thing to learn.

But I know that I can’t save anyone, a person’s life is theirs to take, and I’m responsible in the sense that I loved them and was part of their life.  But I’m not responsible in the sense that I did my best, and their life was full of many factors other than me.

cause

I often think of proximal cause and distal cause.  For example, you could say a landscaper got skin cancer because they didn’t use sunscreen or a hat often enough.   Or you can say it’s because the chemicals they work with made too many free radicals, capitalism required they work way too many hours, or sunscreen prices are unregulated and they couldn’t afford it.

Likewise, when someone commits suicide, you can say it’s because of the bad news they got the day before, or too easy of access to harm-methods.  Or you could say our culture is dysfunctional, they were isolated by fear, or they had very few tools in their toolbox.

You could stop someone from jumping off a bridge, which is dramatic, but they might just do something else the next day.  I’d rather help create long term well-being by meaningfully being there for someone for many years, than step in at a magical moment for a dramatic save.

I like to work on big systemic issues as well as the small ones.  I want to love my friends and family how they want to be loved, but I also want to change the world.

culture

The work of love has to do with one on one, being there for people, listening, giving, hugging, reaching out, being real, and being vulnerable to an individual.

But the work of love also has to do with being real and vulnerable with the whole world.  I want to connect with individuals and be a good friend, but I also want to do what I can to transform culture.

Adjusting myself to the world is a smart thing to do, when I need to for survival and happiness.  But part of being radical is wanting to change the world.  Racism, misogyny, domestic violence, war, exploitation, hate against queers, harm to mother earth, and many other problems are Not Okay.  I can’t just look the other way, or adjust myself to the destruction.

balance

It’s a lot to balance–my well-being, how to interact with the people I know, how to change culture to be more just and work better for all of us, not just a rich few.

I’m happy to do what I can, treat people with respect, be who I really am, and do radical mental health as long as that makes sense for me.  Thank you for what you do also.

Radical care is a beautiful calling.  Thank you for everyone who answers the phone. —Laura-Marie

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angelic troublemakers

angelic troublemakers

This quote make me think of us, the Las Vegas Radical Mental Health Collective.  We speak the truth about:

*our own lives
*psychiatry
*family
*extreme states
*unmet needs
*disability
*medication
*hospital harm
*power
*gender
*community
*racism
*trauma
*feelings
*queerness
*violence
*capitalism
*what really works
All that truth plus mutual aid, with love and humor? Sounds fun / troublemaking.
We trouble the status quo of mental health treatment, and complexify how people with psychiatric diagnoses are seen.  We’re not your scapegoat or inspiration, simplified and easy.  We’re valid people.
But maybe we’re kind of angelic troublemakers also.
“We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers.” — Bayard Rustin
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meeting in person

purple sketchbook

Hey, we’re thinking of meeting in person next month.  Then we can draw and write in the purple sketchbook again!

Stay posted for the announcement of the first post-lockdown in person Las Vegas Radical Mental Health Collective meeting.  Please share your email address if you’d like to be contacted.

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suicide

suicide
I hear people scared of the suicidal feelings of others–I hear a lot of “leave it to the experts–that person needs to get professional help.”  Suicide scares people, so I can see why they want someone else to be responsible.  But what if professional help is harm?
Forced medication, hospital abuse, and losing our freedom–institutionalization is hell.  Psych hospitals are mostly prisons for we who misbehave enough to feel extremes and need something different.
If we act weird, that’s where society might put us.  But who comes out of a psych hospital healed?  We might be sedated, but mostly it’s a place of harm, losing our bodily autonomy, and having bad things done to us without our consent.
I love to have 20 tools in my wellness toolbox, to keep me strong enough to avoid mainstream psychiatry as much as I can!  Even science knows that hospitalization for mental health does more harm than good.  So why are we still told to seek it?
pretending
Why: it’s big money.  Emotional authenticity, to treat people as people, and to treat mental health struggles as a valid part of the human experience, is too big a risk, for many people who have power.  It’s way simpler for them, to pretend people who are crazy such as myself should lose our freedom and power.  It’s way simpler for people with more power to pretend that we are Other.
But we’re not Other!  Anyone can have strong feelings and need some sort of help.  Luckily, there are many types of help, including preventative inter-dependence and resilience-building, like the Las Vegas Radical Mental Health Collective.
The well-being of others is a collective responsibility.  We can pretend experts can do it all and do it well, but that’s just not true.  Suicide is a lot to face–strong emotions and destructive impulses.  I’m glad there are many ways, besides locking people up.  Psychiatric imprisonment could save them short term, but long term will not help.
Thank you for doing radical mental health, speaking your truth, normalizing emotions, and being who you are.  Hope you have all the options you need, when you need them.
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emotional first aid kit

emotional first aid kit

I first heard about emotional first aid kits from someone who attended the Las Vegas Radical Mental Health Collective.  It was when the collective was teamed up with the Las Vegas Street Medics to put on a de-escalation training.  Our collectiver friend brought up emotional first aid kits as a took for emotional regulation, related to de-escalation.

I was intrigued.  I love kits!  Not like baby foxes, though those are cool too.  Cute kits like a smallish package of materials gathered for a specific purpose.  Yeah!  Materials that will help do a specific thing.  It can be fun to assemble a kit.  Or someone else assembled it, and you can see their ideas, when you see the objects.

making kits

I researched emotional first aid kits, envisioned what I would like in my own, made one for me, one for a relative, one for a community space that had people wandering in who were in crisis.  There’s a kit I made for the Las Vegas Radical Mental Health Collective and brought to all our in person meetings, before pandemic.  I made a small zine about emotional first aid kits.

And I use the kit I made for myself.  First time I used it was two years ago, when I went into a strange medical place for a sleep study.  I’d been dreading that procedure for years.  Ming went with me, and while we waited for the worker to hook me up to machines, we played with my emotional first aid kit.  I wrote in the little sketchbook.  We looked at rocks together.  I held smooth rocks in my hand.

It was comforting.  But I realized that it wouldn’t work, to use the emotional first aid kit only when I was suffering, because I would associate it with painful situations only.  So I like to intentionally use it during lower stress times too, to associate more neutral fun with it also.

video

I made this video tour of my first aid kit to show the items I keep and tell a little about them.  People watching it can get inspired to make their own kits.

The video shows sensory pleasure objects to comfort and distract, like delicious smelling body butter and a squeezy ball.  There are good ideas to stimulate the mind, like the affirmations.  It includes chemical comforts, like magnesium glycinate and last resort pills if I really need to sleep.  There’s a fun variety of beautiful objects.

The video is almost eight minutes long, and it’s chill–it includes no suspense, danger, or real surprises.  There’s an option for auto-captioning that youtube provides, a little button that says CC on it, so you can read the words instead of hearing then, or while hearing them.

Thank you for caring for yourself and one another in all the ways you do.  I hope you have a lot of tools to stay well and happy.

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meaning under the meaning

strength
radical mental heath goals

I was explaining to a friend some goals of the radical mental health collective.  There are usually layers of what we’re trying to do, with any project.

Some basic intentions for the Las Vegas Radical Mental Health Collective are to support one another, connect with other people who have similar mental health experiences, offer alternatives to mainstream psychiatry, make friends with vibrant people who see the world in different ways.  Start a soteria house, make art and garden together, have a safer space to be social that’s free.

All that’s super-true, but I was telling a friend some other motivating ideas.

  1. build emotional intelligence
  2. help people learn or re-learn how to trust
  3. help us speak our truth
  4. normalize strong feelings
  5. normalize support
  6. inter-dependence
  7. honesty about feelings, including self-harm
  8. strengthen mental health in homegrown ways to help relationships improve
  9. honesty about our own lives
  10. emotional skill
  11. strengthen ourselves to avoid crumbling when something goes wrong
  12. strengthen ourselves to avoid hurting others
preventing harm

Having better relationship skills so we don’t abuse people or stick around to be abused is a great goal.  Making a pocket of happiness, if only for the hour and a half of a meeting, can have good consequences that reverberate out.

Many homeless people lost their job, struggle with acting normal under capitalism, or have issues with substance use.  But a lot of housing is about relationships.  If we can maintain healthy relationships, we can have a better chance at maintaining our housing.  So radical mental health, as a way to give us better relationship skills, is a way to prevent homelessness.

Similar with misogyny, transphobia, racism…  I’m not saying radical mental health is the solution to all of life’s problems, or the cure for violence.  But happy people who feel steady, supported, and have things to look forward to don’t need to do violence.

When I think of the most racist person I’ve ever known, he wasn’t a happy, well person.  He had so much loose anger, and had never examined many problems he had.  Emotionally, he was unskilled.

So I don’t have scientific evidence that radical mental health stops racism.  But it makes sense that if you can consider others, discuss feelings, and truly listen, you won’t need to hurt people, whether through racism, misogyny, hatred of queer people, ableism, or any other way.

healing

Radical mental health helps us work toward many kinds of healing.  Being skilled about feelings, communication, and inter-dependence will help with many aspects of life.  I feel stronger from it.

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the tale of the purple sketchbook

Gather near, collectivers and friends, and I will tell you the tale of the purple sketchbook.

It was long ago, circa 2017, before the pandemic–back when we could nonchalantly hug people, share snacks, share juice, and use the same markers and sketchbook.  How innocent we were!

dream

I went to bed one night and dreamed the Las Vegas Radical Mental Health Collective had a purple sketchbook–dreamt it back then, in 2017.  People enjoyed writing and drawing in it, during meetings, as a thing to do with our hands.  A calming activity, one choice of many.  It was magical, and its purpleness was important to the collective’s success.

So Ming took me to a craft store, so I could buy a purple sketchbook.  (This was before I understood that I can make my own sketchbooks.) But there were no purple ones.  We ended up choosing a white sketchbook meant to be colored, and purple paint to paint it.

yes

Then, yes, like the dream, it was a thing we brought to all the meetings, with markers.  Many people drew in it–doodles, mandalas, symbols, arts.  I wrote poems in there.  The purple sketchbook became a comfort.

Mostly the art is unsigned.  Whoever showed up that day and left their mark, blessing the collective in their unique way.

I photocopied some sketchbook art for the radical mental health collective’s first zine, Radical Mental Health is for Everyone.  Please reach out if you would like a copy!

future

The future of the sketchbook?  It’s waiting for covid to end, I guess.  When we meet again in person, hugging again.  Sharing snacks and markers again.

Maybe I could bring it to an online meeting to show, just for fun.

Thank you for hearing the tale of the purple sketchbook.  I hope you write in it again, one day!  The paper is thirsty for the ink you want to share, dreaming of your attention and time.  Mad love to all artists everywhere, but especially the open-hearted crazy ones.

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patches

patch

Hey, did you know the Las Vegas Radical Mental Health Collective begins to make patches?  Yep, that would be true.

Ming

Ming is holding the first one, the prototype–he was the lucky recipient.  He wants to put it on his backpack.  Though “we don’t need no stinkin’ patches” my dad would say.

Then I sewed this one also, me being Laura-Marie.  I started unintentionally janky, then got control and less janky, and now I can be more intentional.  Now that I have some needle control, and remembered my embroidery skills from childhood.

patch

“How much are you going to sell your patches for?” Ming asked.

I looked at him, mystified.  “Why would I sell a patch?” I asked.

Commerce is a way to get things to people, but there are a lot of other ways.  So I will just give the first few away, and make more of a plan if I keep making more.

Love to all on your journey, radical mental health or otherwise.

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new lvrmhc instagram

instagram

Hey, the Las Vegas Radical Mental Health Collective has a new instagram!  Yay–finally!  Please visit and follow, if you are so inclined.

https://www.instagram.com/lvrmhc

There are not many posts yet, but the purple power is evident even at this early stage.  Thank you for supporting community care and inter-dependence.

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radical mental health collective style

instagram
This morning I found this document about Las Vegas Radical Mental Health Collective style, meeting format, and philosophy.  Feels charmingly archaic because it was written before covid, when we met in person.  There’s something about snacks shared, the emotional first aid kit, and the purple sketchbook. Aw!
I miss the purple sketchbook!  The idea came to Laura-Marie in a dream, a group sletchbook we could all write and draw in, during meetings.  I want to find it and give it some attention, during its pandemic hibernation.
Please read on, to see how things are, with the Las Vegas Radical Mental Health Collective.  There are differences now, but over zoom, we do similar stuff!  Thank you for caring about inter-dependence, radical mental health, and loving one another.
how our meetings go
Our meetings are welcoming. Many different people come, of all genders, many ages, many mentalities and life experiences. But most of us have been touched by mental health challenges, whether through the system or on our own. We are pro-choice about medication.
Meetings involve a quick first go around for name or alias, pronouns, and some designated small fact about yourself, such as something you love or a favorite song.
Then we have a moment to explain what radical mental health is for newcomers. We share the emotional first aid kit and purple sketchbook. We pass around the safer spaces policy for you to read and agree to. (The safer spaces policy can also be found here, safer spaces policy, if you’d like to read it beforehand.)
We have juice to drink, and sometimes people bring snacks. Then we have a longer checkin where people have a set time of up to five minutes to speak about whatever they want to–how they’ve been feeling over the past week or anything going on they want to share.
We also talk about mutual aid–if anyone needs something or has extra of something to offer.  The whole thing is mutual aid, but this moment is about physical objects, mostly.
Not talking is ok–you can always pass. We offer hugs, but you can opt out of hugs also. Some people have been coming since the first meeting May 2017, and new people show up all the time too.
It’s a good mix of old and new, and the set format gives it more of a safe feel than the open-endedness of a party. There’s plenty of opportunity to connect with others, but in a way that feels less stressful because there are expectations and the certain order we do things.
for us, by us
This is a group run by people who are considered crazy, for people who are considered crazy. It’s not for the family members of the person considered crazy–it’s more for us, the actual affected people.
However, you don’t have to be crazy at all. You can come to connect with others and be social, for support during a rough spot, or maybe you don’t need support but can offer some. Maybe you like mutual aid and building community.
This group was started by Laura-Marie and Ming and has roots in the Icarus Project. Laura-Marie has a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, which entails mood swings including depression and mania, hearing voices, extreme states, and times of extreme anxiety. Laura-Marie is a writer (hi!–it’s me writing this!) and makes zines, some of which are about mental health and radical mental health.
The collective has its own zine also, which contains beautiful art and writings about mental health, our collective, the Las Vegas Street Medics, poems, and ways to get more info.
compassion
This group is special because we create a culture of compassion. We listen and respect boundaries, which means offering help when wanted, and being considerate if someone doesn’t want feedback also.
Many of us are unemployed, under-employed, disabled, retired. Many of us are queer and transgender, though not all of us are. Some are parents and some are not. Many are activists, and some are radicals, working to form a new world in many different ways, such as helping homeless people, creating art, working toward justice, street medicine, and waging peace.
A lot of us need a form of support that will accept us outside of the medical model, but many choose to engage with mainstream psychiatry also, to differing degrees. Some of us believe in mental illness as a physical brain disease, while others believe in mental illness as a social problem or response to trauma, or some combination of all this.
We like collaborating with other groups. If you have an idea of how to become involved, please come to a meeting and let’s talk about it, or you can contact us through facebook, our email address, or a phone call.
Below is our old mission statement from the first year the collective was in existence. Thank you for reading, and hope to meet you soon!
old mission statement
Our ideas of mental health are bound up with, and are inseparable from, the structure of the society we live in. In many ways the idea of “good mental health” has less to do with the everyday experiences of human beings and more to do with the degree to which they comply with the expectations of that society. When people do not meet those expectations they are often shamed as crazy, or lacking in good sense, or being delusional. The stigma associated with “mental illness” does not exist in a vacuum, and is not simply an emergent phenomena of human interactions, but rather a deliberate attempt at delegitimizing the suffering of those who do not fit easily within the preconceived and limited “acceptable” ways of being a human.
We are a coming together of people who seek to challenge these ideas, and in doing so create our own language of mental health, one which seeks to empower rather than quiet the voices of those who experience the world in ways that are commonly referred to as “mental illnesses”. We do not believe that these are problems to be solved, or diseases to be cured, but rather natural variances in human experience that should be celebrated. We believe that neurological diversity is valuable and makes our communities stronger by ensuring a variety of viewpoints and abilities are represented within them. We believe that the current psychiatric institutions, because they operate within an environment of social and economic inequalities, are not equipped to assist those most in need of that assistance, and that by reaching out to each other instead we can begin to build a new mental health paradigm, where compassion, self determination, and community support are available to everyone, regardless of economic or social status.
We do not believe that people coming together to help themselves and each other is, independent of this society, a radical notion. We believe that this is the most natural thing for humans to do, because we are a cooperative species, and our health as a whole depends on the health of each individual. That this should be seen as a radical or alternative approach is a reflection of the failure of this society to view those with mental health challenges as being capable of making their own decisions about how best to confront those challenges. Therefore we recognize that in this environment doing so IS a radical act, and so we choose to be unapologetically radical in our approach. We believe that we are our own best advocates, and that we can determine for ourselves and with each other what that paradigm should look like, and we intend to do so.
Our mission is to discover and create together this new language, as well as new ways of caring for ourselves and others with it. We are more than a support group; we are a radical community that seeks to change ourselves by changing our world, rather than the other way around. We envision a world where the differences that make us unique, physically and psychologically, are championed rather than shunned.
We are the Las Vegas Radical Mental Health Collective, and we hope you will join with us in creating this world.
Your uniqueness is essential to it.