A Groundbreaking Workshop
The Jews and “Mental Health” Liberation Workshop [see the article “The Jews and ‘Mental Health’ Liberation Workshop,” by Cherie Brown and Leah Thorn, on page 23 of Present Time No. 208] was groundbreaking.
All of us who attended—177 meshugena (Yiddish for “crazy”) Jews—now know that we have a home in Jewish “mental health” liberation. We know that there is nothing we can’t heal from. We can face being afraid that we’ll “go crazy” and can show the distresses we have been targeted for showing. We can count on [rely on] our connections with each other, discharge as we go (which doesn’t mean being client all the time), and stop worrying about “looking good.”
The two Jewish women who led us—Cherie Brown from the United States and Leah Thorn from England—reached for each other, came through as comrades in the struggle against their deepest hurts, and inspired all of us to do the same. We got a new perspective on the impact of genocide on our minds and hearts and gained confidence that we can recover from it.
I heard that “mental health” liberation is about being fully alive, being free of the pressure to look “normal,” and taking full charge of our minds.
To successfully build an RC Community, we need to understand “mental health” oppression, because it is the “stop sign” on all liberation work.
In organizing the workshop, I tried to follow Janet Foner’s direction to keep asking for help when I felt like I shouldn’t need it. [Janet Foner was the former International Liberation Reference Person for “Mental Health” Liberation. She died in 2019.] I am a relative of a “mental health” system survivor as well as a Jewish female, a mother, and a grandmother. All these roles pull me to make everything right for other people and to ignore my own needs. I want things to go well for others but not at my own expense! I decided that I would not do the organizing job alone.
Organizing, both inside and outside of RC, is all about relationships. I’ve been involved in RC Jewish and “mental health” liberation work for many years. So as the organizer, I made use of my connections with Jews worldwide whom I knew would be committed to making the workshop go well. I knew we could succeed with this complex project because people I loved and trusted would be overseeing the key organizing tasks.
I was also able to hold a perspective outside the perfectionism that had been imposed on me as an upwardly mobile middle-class Ashkenazi U.S. Jew. Organizing the workshop could not be “perfect” (whatever that means), and I didn’t have to do the “best organizing job ever.” My goal was for things to run smoothly enough that we would not be distracted from the content of the workshop. And we mostly made that happen, thanks to the skills and goodwill of the team leaders and 177 Jews of diverse ages, backgrounds, and nationalities. I am proud of myself and of all of us. I am pleased with what we did together, with Cherie and Leah leading the way.
Northampton, Massachusetts, USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion list for leaders of Jews
(Present Time 208, July 2022)