New zine: Our Dark Passenger: Anarchists talk about mental illness and community support
Our Dark Passenger: Anarchists talk about mental illness and community support is now out, published by Katipo Books. Weighing in at 34 pages, it is a collection of articles about living with mental illness by anarchists from around Aotearoa, and some writings from overseas. I’ve written a few of the pieces, and collated and designed the zine.
Our Dark Passenger can be purchased from Katipo Books (who will mail it anywhere in the world) for just NZ$2.00 + postage. You can also download the .pdf and print it yourself by clicking here (1.93MB).
The zine has no copyright, so feel free to print and distribute copies as you see fit (just don’t charge more than you need to cover costs). You can download a version imposed for printing by clicking here (for the inside, 1.83MB) and here (for the cover, 100KB). If you distribute it anywhere outside Aotearoa / New Zealand, I’d appreciate it if you emailed me at anarchiazine[at]gmail[dot]com and let me know, it’s always interesting to see how far things spread.
Contents
Page 1 - Front Cover
Page 2 - Contents
Page 3 - Introduction (Asher)
Page 4 - Bryden’s Story (Bryden)
Page 6 - Ending it all (Anonymous)
Page 7 - Cartoon (The Icarus Project)
Page 8 - Mental Illness: My Struggle (Asher)
Page 10 - Depression, police terrorism, and me (Anna-Claire)
Page 12 - Amy’s Poem, Drawing, Are we Falling? The war machine (Amy)
Page 14 - On Being Alone (Asher)
Page 16 - Places to look for help in Aotearoa / New Zealand
Page 17 - Activism and Depression (Bexxa)
Page 24 - Discussion Questions for Workshops and Groups (The Icarus Project)
Page 25 - How I Became a Thief (Jessica Max Stein)
Page 28 - Also from Katipo Books
Page 30 - Back cover, 5 things to NOT say to someone suffering from depression
WARNING
Parts of this zine are likely to be triggering to those who have a history of self-harm or mental illness, so please use your own discretion when deciding to read.
If you think you are likely to be affected negatively by this zine, please DO NOT read it!
UPDATE
Unfortunately, we had to remove the article The Spoon Theory due to copyright issues. Oh well….
April 29, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Thanks.
April 30, 2008 at 9:10 am
I’m looking forward to reading it. Thanks for putting the time and energy into writing it.
May 1, 2008 at 5:53 am
[...] see here for more information. [...]
May 4, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Hey, Asher. Thanks for this. Even though pdf’s are tedious on my computer, I did download it, mostly to read Anna-Claire, I confess.
I’d like to leave a note here for her if I may, to say that I have noticed and appreciate your voice when I’ve seen you write here or at jo’s blog, that your words always leave me with a yen for more of what you have to share, the way you express yourself . (So, have you thought about blogging, hint, hint, if you don’t already do that somewhere I’m not aware of?)
May 5, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Ash,
this is lovely work, & neatly complements the Icarus Project zine I picked up last Friday @ Freedom Shop..
Next time, I’ll write something f’ya, I just haven’t been doing much real serious writing lately.
xxx KT
May 6, 2008 at 1:49 pm
ah, gee, starfish… thanks for the compliment. Not planning on blogging anytime soon, but its encouraging for my writing to hear your words. I have been thinking I should spend more spoons on it…
Asher, much love and respect to you and thanks for creating the forum here and in your zine for us to talk about mental health. Your strength and honesty in speaking about your own experiences is an inspiration. Reading this zine and then tripping onto the UK feminist mental health blog reminds me how lucky I have been - so well supported and cared for by an amazing group of friends, and able to stop work and take the time to heal.
So, I’m not depressed anymore! Life is so sweet. Looking over my writing of that time, I find it hard to connect with the feelings I expressed. They are just so far away now. Depression takes me away from my true self - I am naturally a happy, loving, outgoing, motivated person. I enjoy being social soooo much now, it gives me such a buzz to go to a party or meeting and be able to talk and be myself without getting uncomfortable.
How naive of me to write “approach my family and begin our healing”, replace this with “approach my family and be ignored”. My depression has been primarily the result of post traumatic stress from 6 years living in an abusive home (and disposition, considering family history of loonies). The inability to express my great sadness and anger at what I went through, instead for years blaming myself or believing that nothing was done to stop it by the adults around cause I wasn’t worth it (constantly being told I was worthless by my abuser probably didn’t help). So maybe we just replace that sentence “approach family, be ignored, get more depressed (esp over birthday), realise I am tired of suffering for their emotional fuck-up-edness, recognise my own self-worth and let go”.
btw the way I think my piece is a tad out of context, but hopefully stands on its own as example of stategies for dealing with stress when depressed. It took me 6 months of full time work on myself to recognise the value of creative expression and movement in dealing with sadness. Any movement - walk, run, dance - shifts so much emotionally. Combine with space to cry for best results.
This zine makes me think about putting together my own of all my writing over that time. Its all there just needs some glueing together. One day. I’ll be sure you get a copy, starfish x
Lovelove,
Peace,
AC
May 7, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Anna-Clare:
That is an amazing post!
I’ve had similar ups-and-downs with a family of abusers and blamers, who choose not to see their responsibility for events that happened to my sister and I in our childhood and teens.
I meet so many people who don’t relate to that, it was hard to read your words above and recognise my own struggles to physical and mental health duplicated in your experiences.
Kia Kaha!
I’ve found that prioritising myself and sticking to my guns has given me some respect from my sibling, if not my mother.
Some difficult, emotionally fraught discussions have been conducted, and some issues still remain to be resolved, but I’ve done what I can.
It’s up to them, now, to come the rest of the way to a responsible, adult appreciation of what our lives have become, and why that happened.
I suspect that, as I did at my Aunt’s funeral, I will stand by gravesides and regret that the issues were never fully resolved, due to the obstinate decision not to engage in the reality of the culture of abuse in our family, taken by my relatives.
So be it. I refuse to play their games any more.
They get to engage with me on my own terms, or not at all.
Sounds harsh, but it’s a protective mechanism to stop any further emotional, psychological or physical abuse, and so far, it’s working.
Arohatinonui ki a koe,
KT