Come and Join Us at a Sunrise Center Workshop!
Many Co-Counselors have taken RC ideas to other groups and projects that they have initiated or been involved with. One important project initiated by RCers is the Sunrise Center Project. It is aimed at giving people the resources they need to gain freedom from psychiatric drugs. It is not part of the RC Community, but it is very important.
Last November, outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, I got to be part of the leadership team for the “Mental Health” Liberation Leaders’ International Conference. It was our first conference without Janet Foner, and we grieved her loss and celebrated her huge life as our leader.
A team of ten people shared the leading of the classes and topic groups. Many more led small groups and helped with other important jobs. It was a powerful week, with Co-Counselors attending from around the world. All of us were excited to step up our leadership and keep moving “mental health” liberation forward!
I assisted Lois Yoshishige in teaching a class about the Sunrise Center Project. She said confidently that with this project we are ending “mental health” oppression. We are stopping the blaming of people and taking the hurts of oppression off them.
The oppressive society pressures people to suppress their feelings with psychiatric drugs so that they can “fit in” and be “normal.” It is a lie that there is not enough resource and people need to take psychiatric drugs. We know how to build resource, with discharge and connection. We have been building it at our workshops and saying, “Yes!” to liberation, fully and completely. People are getting their minds back and becoming empowered. Those who have done it already are with us. And who knows better than they how to help others?
The Sunrise Center Project offers workshops that are open to all active Co-Counselors who want to connect with others who are passionate about “mental health” liberation. This includes people who want to stop taking psychiatric drugs, people who are in the process of stopping, people who want to support someone else to stop, family members of people who are taking psychiatric drugs, “mental health” workers, people with psychiatric drug histories who want more discharge and contradiction [to the distress], and people who want to discharge about any kind of drug. (People who are starting to get off drugs should bring at least one person who wants to support them. That person will not only provide support but also get help to do their own discharging about drugs and “mental health” oppression, so that everyone’s life moves forward.)
We also respect and welcome to the workshops people who are not sure they want to stop taking psychiatric drugs. We hold out the possibility that they can and help them to build a support team that will work with them. The person getting off drugs is in charge. They get to trust their mind and train their helpers.
We have Sunrise Center Workshops annually on both the east coast and the west coast of the United States. Area Outreach Funds are not available for these workshops, but don’t let money keep you away. We have separate resources you can apply for.
Lois said, “Every way someone is fighting ‘mental health’ oppression needs to be celebrated, even if the person has to rant about it or can’t always function in rational ways, even if it takes time and they need lots of help. It all needs to be celebrated! If you are feeling hopeless about the collapsing society, then come and join us, because this work is a real contradiction. We get to have an attention-out attitude, make mistakes, have fun, and be close to each other.”
Asheville, North Carolina, USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion list for leaders of “mental health” liberation
(Present Time 198, January 2020)