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This is a unique collection of poems written by and for people who have survived our mental health system and the diagnostic process that is used to categorise and treat mental and emotional distress.
In October 2016, Jo Watson launched A Disorder for Everyone (AD4E) – an international campaign to challenge the culture of psychiatric diagnosis and the labelling of expressions of emotional distress as medical disorders. Since then hundreds of people have attended AD4E events all over the UK, and thousands have joined the campaign Facebook group ‘Drop the Disorder!’ What began as a shout of protest has become an international roar.
Poetry has long been used to give voice to resistance and to drive change in all kinds of social movements, and it is a central aspect of this campaign as well. It has been at the heart of every AD4E event and, more recently, several online poetry events have brought together poets and poetry-lovers from across the globe under the Drop the Disorder! banner.
We Are the Change-Makers is a collection of these and other poems that seek to describe the otherwise inexpressible and challenge the power of psychiatry that misrepresents and medicates what it does not understand.
Foreword
Introduction - Jo Watson
Decolonising distress
Sanah Ahsan
Fuck the DSM
Jyl Anais
Burgundy
Jasmine Gardosi
I work within the crisis team
Amanda Bueno de Mesquita
Nocebo effect
Dr Julie Carter
Tilt
Ruth E. Dixon
More and less all of this
Lydia Daisy
Self-discovery
Mica Gray
Drop the disorder!
Jo Watson
Act of war
Jyl Anais
On the Inside
Martha Enticott
Open the can of worms
Tracey Farrell
The Killing of Susan Kelly
Dorothy Dundas
Crazier than me
Ruth E. Dixon
Everyday magic
Dr Julie Carter
I mistook myself for a scientific label
Dr Peter Gordon
Dis-ease Kathleen
Halley Angus
No apology in pathology
Sally Fox
Six verses
Viv Gordon
A penny dropped
Ruth E. Dixon
When daisies talk
Mica Gray
Jump start
Jyl Anais
I remember
Wend Badger
They think
Toni Hurford
All of this disorder stuff
Jo Watson
Look into my eyes
Sue Irwin
Smart move
Jackie Hagan
It could have been me
Jen Yates
Drop the disorder haiku
Amanda Bueno de Mesquita
I can see you (but you are so very far away)
Ruth Jackson
Let’s stop pretending
Brian E. Levitt
I’m gonna run
Viv Gordon
In this moment
Mitzy Sky
Empire
Jo McFarlane
Your chemical embrace
James Moore
The object of my hate
Anonymous
Battle weary
Sally Fox
Dignity cannot be taken four times a day
Dolly Sen
Don’t blame the canaries
Matthew Morris
A million conversations about ‘ECT’
Jo Watson
Other than personality disorder, what term could you use to describe these people?
Clare Shaw
Labels
Jacky Power
Text book
Dr Peter Gordon
Manipulation
Jo McFarlane
I am a storm
Erin Stevens
What if psychiatry has got it all wrong?
Dr Jessica Taylor
Rvenge of the crazy wimmin
Leah Ida Harris
Watching the sun rise from her chair
Ruth E. Dixon
Everything you have ever lost
Joelle Taylor
Trauma-reducing not trauma-inducing
Dr Karen Treisman
Unlabelled
Jo McFarlane
I do not believe in silence
Clare Shaw
Fuck you
T.O. Walker
I’m with her
Jo Watson
'What a rollercoaster of emotions! These are poems of truth, pain and power reclaimed. I salute the poets for their courage.'
Deborah Alma, Emergency Poet and founder of the Poetry Pharmacy;
'These are the voices of the rebel souls, the truth tellers, the defiant and the righteous...This book is rich, full and will take you on a journey with no turning back. You will be transformed forever.'
Akima Thomas, OBE, founder and clinical director, Women and Girls Network
Jo Watson is a psychotherapist, supervisor, trainer and activist with 30 years' experience of working with people who have faced trauma and adversity. She challenges the medicalisation of emotional distress and advocates for approaches that reject the pathologising of people and communities. Jo is founder of the Facebook group Drop the Disorder! and co-founder of A Disorder for Everyone (AD4E) (adisorder4everyone.com). Jo is also a founding member of Mad in the UK (madintheuk.com), an affiliate of the website Mad in America, which serves as a catalyst for fundamentally re-thinking theory and practice in the field of mental health in the UK and promoting positive change. Jo is the editor of Drop the Disorder!: Challenging the culture of psychiatric diagnosis (PCCS Books, 2018) and We are the change-makers: Poems supporting drop the disorder (PCCS Books, 2020).
