We've Been Too Patient

1. What’s We’ve Been Too Patient: Voices from Radical Mental Health by L.D. Green and Kelechi Ubozoh about?

• Radical mental health focus: The anthology challenges the dominant biomedical model of psychiatry, centering lived experiences, personal stories, poetry, essays, and research that explore alternative frameworks like the recovery model, trauma-informed care, and mad pride.
• Systemic critique and alternatives: It critiques the mental health industrial complex and advocates for mutual aid, peer support, and community-based, culturally responsive care.
• Intersectional and social justice lens: The book situates mental health struggles within broader social, economic, and political contexts, urging collective healing and systemic transformation.

2. Why should I read We’ve Been Too Patient by L.D. Green and Kelechi Ubozoh?

• Authentic lived experience: The book amplifies marginalized voices, including people of color, queer individuals, and peer specialists, offering direct insight into the failures and possibilities of mental health care.
• Challenges stigma and oppression: It exposes structural oppression, stigma, and sanism, while celebrating mad pride, creativity, and self-agency, making it essential for advocates, clinicians, and anyone interested in mental health justice.
• Hopeful and practical alternatives: Beyond critique, it presents hopeful visions and practical alternatives rooted in mutual aid, spirituality, and community care, inspiring activism and healing.

3. What are the key takeaways from We’ve Been Too Patient by L.D. Green and Kelechi Ubozoh?

• Critique of biomedical model: The book demonstrates the harms of reducing mental health to chemical imbalances and forced treatments, advocating for more holistic, person-centered approaches.
• Power of narrative and mutual aid: Personal stories and mutual aid are highlighted as radical healing strategies that restore dignity, autonomy, and community connection.
• Radical mental health as social justice: Mental health is deeply intertwined with structural oppression and trauma, requiring systemic change, peer leadership, and recognition of neurodiversity as a strength.
• Need for accessible, compassionate care: The anthology calls for trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and peer-led alternatives that honor individual agency and make care more accessible.

4. What are the best quotes from We’ve Been Too Patient and what do they mean?

• “Just listen.” (Robert Whitaker): This quote underscores the importance of hearing directly from those with lived experience, rather than imposing outside interpretations or solutions.
• “You can pray until you faint. But unless you get up and try to do something, God is not going to put it in your lap.” (Fannie Lou Hamer, quoted): Emphasizes the need for both spiritual support and practical action in mental health recovery.
• “Nothing about Us without Us”: A rallying cry for participatory knowledge and inclusion of people with lived experience in shaping mental health care and policy.
• “Dangerous gifts”: Reframes neurodiversity and mental difference as sources of strength and creativity, not just pathology.

5. How does We’ve Been Too Patient by L.D. Green and Kelechi Ubozoh critique the biomedical model of mental health?

• Reductionism and harm: The book critiques the biomedical model for reducing mental distress to brain chemistry and DSM diagnoses, often leading to over-medication and forced treatment.
• Neglect of social context: It highlights the model’s failure to account for social, cultural, and political factors that shape mental health.
• Pharmaceutical industry influence: The anthology discusses the problematic role of pharmaceutical companies in shaping research, treatment, and public perception.
• Call for participatory knowledge: It advocates for including people with lived experience in producing psychiatric knowledge and policy.

6. What is radical mental health according to We’ve Been Too Patient by L.D. Green and Kelechi Ubozoh?

• Valuing diversity and interconnectedness: Radical mental health embraces psychic diversity and sees mental health as influenced by social, cultural, spiritual, and environmental factors.
• Rejecting narrow definitions: It challenges the idea of “normality” and pathologizing labels, instead promoting self-determination and harm reduction.
• Community and mutual aid: The approach emphasizes the importance of community, mutual aid, and peer support in healing and recovery.
• New languages and cultures: Radical mental health encourages reclaiming and inventing language that reflects personal experiences, supporting storytelling and activism.

7. How does We’ve Been Too Patient by L.D. Green and Kelechi Ubozoh address stigma and the recovery model?

• Stigma as social process: The book explores how public and self-stigma marginalize and dehumanize people with mental health challenges, blocking access to employment, housing, and care.
• Promoting pride and disclosure: It highlights programs like Honest, Open, and Proud, which help people weigh the pros and cons of disclosure and craft empowering narratives.
• Recovery as hope and accomplishment: Recovery is framed as a realistic, hopeful process where people define their own goals and embrace their identities authentically.
• Intersectional perspectives: The anthology addresses how stigma intersects with race, gender, and culture, especially in communities of color.

8. What role do peer specialists and the peer recovery movement play in We’ve Been Too Patient by L.D. Green and Kelechi Ubozoh?

• Peer specialists as change agents: Individuals with lived experience provide unique support that complements clinical care, challenging traditional hierarchies in mental health systems.
• Movement history and challenges: The peer movement emerged from psychiatric survivor activism but faces risks of co-optation and tokenism.
• Collaborative models: The book advocates for integrating peers and clinicians in community-based care, as seen in models like Parachute NYC.
• Training and anti-oppressive practice: It calls for social work education to include training on peer-clinician collaboration and anti-oppressive practices.

9. How does We’ve Been Too Patient by L.D. Green and Kelechi Ubozoh use narrative and imagination in trauma healing?

• Narrative therapy and storytelling: The book emphasizes the power of personal stories to validate experience, foster self-understanding, and challenge dominant medical narratives.
• Imagination in trauma treatment: Programs like DE-CRUIT use drama and Shakespearean monologues to help individuals process trauma in a safe, communal setting.
• Therapeutic benefits: Creative methods provide aesthetic distance, mimic diverse consciousness, and facilitate self-forgiveness and connection.
• Group support: The anthology highlights the importance of creativity and group support in trauma recovery.

10. What is mutual aid in mental health, as defined by We’ve Been Too Patient by L.D. Green and Kelechi Ubozoh?

• Reciprocal support among peers: Mutual aid is described as a process where peers support each other, engaging in self-reflection and spiritual growth together.
• Contrast with hierarchy: It differs from traditional therapeutic relationships by emphasizing equality and shared experience, rather than hierarchy.
• Emotional labor and community: Mutual aid requires emotional labor, often undervalued, but is a powerful force for individual and societal transformation.
• Practical examples: The book shares stories of friends providing tangible support during crises, such as bringing groceries or creating care calendars.

11. How does We’ve Been Too Patient by L.D. Green and Kelechi Ubozoh address mental health in communities of color and suicide prevention?

• Cultural specificity and underreporting: The book reveals that suicide is often underreported in communities of color due to stigma and misclassification, such as "blue suicide" in Black communities.
• Trauma and strong Black women: It discusses how cultural expectations of strength can mask mental health struggles among Black women, leading to under-treatment and dismissal by providers.
• Policy recommendations: The anthology suggests employing mental health ambassadors from diverse communities, involving survivors in planning, and creating culturally relevant prevention tools.
• Alternatives to law enforcement: It advocates for expanding crisis support alternatives, such as peer respite centers, and training that addresses intersectional oppression.

12. What is the “mad underground” and how does it relate to mental health activism in We’ve Been Too Patient by L.D. Green and Kelechi Ubozoh?

• Definition and emergence: The mad underground is a new wave of mental health activism that centers lived experience, challenges psychiatric authority, and embraces identity politics similar to disability and LGBTQ+ movements.
• Epistemological shift: This movement demands inclusion in knowledge production and language creation, moving beyond anti-psychiatry to participatory culture.
• Resistance to surveillance psychiatry: The mad underground critiques technologies that monitor and predict mental illness, warning against loss of privacy and increased coercion.
• Digital organizing: It uses digital media to network, organize, and amplify marginalized voices, fostering a participatory and activist culture.