We've Been Too Patient: Voices from Radical Mental Health--Stories and Research Challenging the Biomedical Model

25 unflinching stories and essays from the front lines of the radical mental health movement

Overmedication, police brutality, electroconvulsive therapy, involuntary hospitalization, traumas that lead to intense altered states and suicidal thoughts: these are the struggles of those labeled "mentally ill." While much has been written about the systemic problems of our mental-health care system, this book gives voice to those with personal experience of psychiatric miscare often excluded from the discussion, like people of color and LGBTQ+ communities. It is dedicated to finding working alternatives to the "Mental Health Industrial Complex" and shifting the conversation from mental illness to mental health.

Author: L. D. Green
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
Published: 07/09/2019
Pages: 264
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.00w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9781623173616

About the Author
L. D. Green (they/them) is a queer and nonbinary writer, performer, college educator, and mental health advocate living in Richmond, California. Their work has been published on Salon, The Body is Not an Apology, Truthout, and in Sinister Wisdom, Foglifter, and elsewhere. They have been featured at dozens of reading series, slams, showcases, and workshops in schools, colleges, and open mics locally and across the country. As a playwright and writer/performer, they have had their work performed at multiple local and national theater festivals including the National Queer Arts festival as well as the San Francisco Fringe Festival. L. D. received their BA from Vassar College and their MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College, and they were a 2010 Lambda Literary Fellow in Fiction. They attended Tin House Writers' Workshop in 2012 and were a Catwalk Artist in Residence in 2013. They are a professor of English and Creative Writing at Los Medanos College in Pittsburg, California, and were an active member of the Bay Area chapter of The Icarus Project from 2009-2011. L. D. writes poetry, plays, screenplays, fiction, and nonfiction. Their chapbook of poetry and creative nonfiction is forthcoming from Nomadic Press. For more information visit, www.ldgreen.org.

KELECHI UBOZOH is a Nigerian-American writer, mental health advocate, and public speaker. She is the first undergraduate ever published in the New York Times. Her story of recovery is featured in O, The Oprah Magazine and the documentary, The S Word, which follows the lives of suicide attempt survivors (now on Amazon Prime). She has appeared on CBS This Morning with Gayle King, and has presented at Cornell and Yale. Ubozoh previously supervised mental health programs and led communication operations at a mental health nonprofit organization. Currently, she is a consultant and works with communities on system transformation. When she isn't working, she enjoys writing poetry and performing. Ubozoh's work is published in Argot Magazine, Multiplicity, Endangered Species, Enduring Values, and the forthcoming anthology Trauma, Tresses, & Truth: Untangling Our Hair Through Personal Narrative. In 2021 she was named a Mental Health Champion by the Steinberg Institute. For more information, visit kelechiubozoh.com.