Launching the Psych Survivor Archive!

For this zine and the associated Psych Survivor Archive project, I wanted to offer psych survivors a space to create our own record where we are believed and celebrated in all the complexities of our madness. Our community needs space to accompany each other into the depths of what it means to have survived, mourn everything we have lost, and affirm that our histories, our dreams, our wisdom, are lifegiving. For the first edition of this zine, I asked participants to transform their medical record, and was astounded with the incredible variety of creative responses generated by that prompt. Embracing Madness as an artistic method, this zine highlights some commonalities (we really like nonlinear storytelling, collage, and cutout techniques,) but also diverges in aspects such as subject matter and experience (some artists have been published many times before, while others are new at creating). I am so incredibly honored and grateful to present the artwork from the 13 contributors selected for this first edition, who amazed me with their thoughtful and unique approaches to this zine.