Mad in America

What if we all became preachers? Us madfolk Who’ve been locked up, lobotomized, and drugged into a living death Who’ve been tied to trees and left to sit in our own shit Who’ve been handcuffed and imprisoned, Restrained and held down until we complied. Until we complied with their vision of the world, their reality, their narrow ideas of what is right and wrong, good...

Me alive apparently - not sure. Jonah potential danger Dr. Ivorchuck is being paged. That's Shawn's voice. Dr. Oram- or him? I might have HIV so I better not go home. Everything is Tammy. Meghan. I think that was Lyle or Donald Cameron I understand what I was referring to in all the notes except "everything is Tammy". What did I mean by that?...

I wish you had tried to understand what had happened to me, but in the end, you lacked empathy. I tried to convey to you where I come from, and how it feels to cry for 29 years wondering where is my mum. But you scared me and often left me shaking. You glared at me with disapproval, as if I were...

Inside my brain Inside my brain are pitch black bits, They cause me to forget. I got them many years ago, Do I hate them?  You bet! All sorts of things can fall in there, And are never seen again. I cannot count all of the things That got lost in my brain. I always lose the names of folks That I don’t know that well. This terrible forgetfulness Is like...

Love we shared with exquisite tenderness With the Dr’s scripts has long since vanished. They say it wasn’t my responsibility Not guilty because of acute insanity. Yet they sent me for what they call “care” Putting me in a minefield, taunting “Don’t you dare”. For a decade I’ve stuffed all the pain After 67 attacks, from defense I’m supposed to still abstain. Dirty staff bait me and...

Peace to those who are not safe whose locked doors do not hold whose words are given no meaning but are taken for authority to smash and enter and remove.   Peace to you in your strange prisons, pretty places with well-meaning guards who worry about wellness   -- not their own! They are safe   But the prisoners! They must be made well. Or at least safe behind these locked doors That will hold. ***** Return to Poetry

The psychiatrist sits across the room While asking me questions about how the Medication is going Seldom looking over at me As she types my responses at her laptop I guess this is how they do it now Despite all the talk about improving mental health Their minds already made up About how this appointment will go It was already predetermined With little space for dialogue And she needs to...

An Ode Against “Recovery”: Flourishing After Childhood Trauma by Rebecca Donaldson I remember when a therapist of mine once told me I could “recover.” The word did not sit well with me. “Recover from what?” I thought, as I sat there crying. I had nothing I wanted to recover from. I wasn’t an addict. I wasn’t harming myself. I wasn’t sick. I wasn’t dying. I wasn’t mentally...

If you have never dropped out of school for mental health reasons, you probably won’t cry tears of joy on the car ride over to take your comprehensive exam. You probably won’t stare out the window in complete disbelief, astounded that you made it this far. You probably won’t wonder if you’re dreaming as you take your test. You probably won’t feel a sense...

What if we all became preachers? Us madfolk Who’ve been locked up, lobotomized, and drugged into a living death Who’ve been tied to trees and left to sit in our own shit Who’ve been handcuffed and imprisoned, Restrained and held down until we complied. Until we complied with their vision of the world, their reality, their narrow ideas of what is right and wrong, good...

Me alive apparently - not sure. Jonah potential danger Dr. Ivorchuck is being paged. That's Shawn's voice. Dr. Oram- or him? I might have HIV so I better not go home. Everything is Tammy. Meghan. I think that was Lyle or Donald Cameron I understand what I was referring to in all the notes except "everything is Tammy". What did I mean by that?...

I wish you had tried to understand what had happened to me, but in the end, you lacked empathy. I tried to convey to you where I come from, and how it feels to cry for 29 years wondering where is my mum. But you scared me and often left me shaking. You glared at me with disapproval, as if I were...

Inside my brain Inside my brain are pitch black bits, They cause me to forget. I got them many years ago, Do I hate them?  You bet! All sorts of things can fall in there, And are never seen again. I cannot count all of the things That got lost in my brain. I always lose the names of folks That I don’t know that well. This terrible forgetfulness Is like...

Love we shared with exquisite tenderness With the Dr’s scripts has long since vanished. They say it wasn’t my responsibility Not guilty because of acute insanity. Yet they sent me for what they call “care” Putting me in a minefield, taunting “Don’t you dare”. For a decade I’ve stuffed all the pain After 67 attacks, from defense I’m supposed to still abstain. Dirty staff bait me and...

Peace to those who are not safe whose locked doors do not hold whose words are given no meaning but are taken for authority to smash and enter and remove.   Peace to you in your strange prisons, pretty places with well-meaning guards who worry about wellness   -- not their own! They are safe   But the prisoners! They must be made well. Or at least safe behind these locked doors That will hold. ***** Return to Poetry

The psychiatrist sits across the room While asking me questions about how the Medication is going Seldom looking over at me As she types my responses at her laptop I guess this is how they do it now Despite all the talk about improving mental health Their minds already made up About how this appointment will go It was already predetermined With little space for dialogue And she needs to...

An Ode Against “Recovery”: Flourishing After Childhood Trauma by Rebecca Donaldson I remember when a therapist of mine once told me I could “recover.” The word did not sit well with me. “Recover from what?” I thought, as I sat there crying. I had nothing I wanted to recover from. I wasn’t an addict. I wasn’t harming myself. I wasn’t sick. I wasn’t dying. I wasn’t mentally...

If you have never dropped out of school for mental health reasons, you probably won’t cry tears of joy on the car ride over to take your comprehensive exam. You probably won’t stare out the window in complete disbelief, astounded that you made it this far. You probably won’t wonder if you’re dreaming as you take your test. You probably won’t feel a sense...