We've Been Too Patient

Edited by Kelechi Ubozoh and Liz Demi Green, twenty-five unflinching 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 who are labeled "mentally ill." Much has been written about the systemic problems of our mental health care system, but this book gives voice to those with personal experience of psychiatric miscare. The stories in We've Been Too Patient give hope and speak to radical healing in the form of peer support, spirituality, art, and the power of story itself, offering alternatives-like community-supported mental health-to the "magic bullets" of drugs and potentially dehumanizing diagnoses. We've Been Too Patient is dedicated to finding working alternatives to the "Mental Health Industrial Complex" and shifting the conversation from mental illness to mental health, often in unexpected ways and places: through friendship, respect, and centering on the truth of lived experience.