It has become normal to be mad. And when I say mad I don’t mean all those with mental health diagnosis. I am talking about the crises we are swimming in. The ignorance and delusion that suspends us in separation causing vicious cycles of human suffering. And the destruction of the very earth in which we live.
Mental health is interconnected, interdependent and as Thich Nhat Hanh attributed, has ‘interbeing’:
“Everything relies on everything else in order to manifest”
Our society has wicked problems that sustain oppressive systems that our communities, families, relationships, continue to be impacted by. We create cultures of ill-health. Each and everyone of us will experience directly and/or vicariously; distress, violence, abuse, addiction, homelessness, suicide, physical ailments, and loss.
To give myself to this cause means that I am in the field of reparation. I do not claim to be an expert, I am not here to give advice, solutions or ways to fix. This is not possible.
I identify as a Buddhist Chaplain, a lay representative of the Thai Forest tradition specialising in Mental Health Ministry for young people. A Lived experience educator, a person living with complex mental health challenges who makes knowledge/information/resources accessible for youth self-determination. Situating myself in the mad pride and psychiatric survivor movements. A trans-disciplinary artist, facilitating learning creatively through arts based participatory experiences. A buddying spiritual ecologist singing with landscapes of madness to engender a sense of belonging to our natural environment, and agency toward its custodianship. A re-imagining education activist, participating in the global movement of bringing into being ‘a world where diverse knowledge systems, ecologies and cosmologies coexist’.
Trauma and adversity faced as a child has led me to fight for child rights to be safe and sovereign. Growing up quickly made me childlike, an adult who values play and feels most at home with children and young people. I wish to raise awareness that extraordinary experiences labelled and treated as ‘mental illnesses’ are regenerative processes of psychic renewal. These experiences with care can be catalysts for societal healing and transformation.
I advocate for self-determination and informed choice not only a strategy, but an imperative for the safety and wellbeing of all. Especially for children and young people facing intervention. This is everyone’s responsibility. Not just the young ones in crises, their families, or health/education/welfare systems. Young people should be the decision makers of their futures and can learn democratic governance if adults support, encourage, guide, do not obstruct.
I engage from a trauma-informed, systems thinking, spontaneous, collaborative, strengths-based approach. Valueing deep listening, and the sharing of story in radical alternative spaces exploring mutuality and difference. To promote social and emotional wellbeing in complex and uncertain times. To go to the root of concerns pressing those directly impacted to cultivate personal and collective awareness and agency.
Through mutual aid; we can build tools, share resources, address needs, cultivate stable and healthy relationships, and live in communities and networks of trust. Not only for our human kin, but for our more-than-human allies.
I contribute what I have to co-create a world in which we go beyond medicalisation and illness centred care. To tear down barriers to access. And overcome discrimination and stigma.
I honour and thank those whose work has come before me, and those who together stand in solidarity and resist. May we reclaim culturally safe and ecologically sustainable practices to live and flourish.
