Image description: [ a photo of the Psych Survivor zine in a bush of ivy. The cover is a collage made out of medical records, vintage flower drawings, and magazine letters spelling “psych survivor zine".]
Hello everyone! I am so thrilled to announce the launch of the psych survivor zine, now available to download on www.psychsurvivorarchive.com.
A little bit about this project:
The Psych Survivor Archive is an abolitionist organization deeply invested in mad liberation and cross-movement organizing.
We host two projects: the Psych Survivor Zine and the Digital Story Archive. The Psych Survivor Zine celebrates Mad art in volumes released twice a year, with thematic prompts for each edition. The Digital Story Archive is a more informal forum for psych survivors to write about our lives and share as much as we want, when we want, how we want.
Through this archive, I hope to create a platform where psych survivors are believed and the psych system is held accountable for the ways it has harmed us. Our pain, resistance, knowledge, and grief are worth listening to, and I offer up this archive as a communal method of bearing witness.
This space is for the imperfect crazy person, the noncompliant patient, those of us who trash our rooms in the psych ward and yell to ourselves on the street. This space is for our comrades still incarcerated in all kinds of institutions and prisons. This space is for anyone who has been harmed by the psychiatric system and wants to rage about it–and this space is for anyone who doesn’t have the words to talk about it.
This space is for you.
You can download a pdf and an image described pdf for free on the website, or order a physical copy! This zine is incredible-featuring artwork by 13 different Mad artists, the 55 page zine includes collages, poems, harm reduction toolkits, and more!!
Artists include @kihnindewa, @bioethicists, @gothhabiba and @librarycards, among many more!
This project has been really vulnerable and cathartic with me, and I am so excited to share it with you. Feel free to explore the website, submit your story, and check out our resource guide.