Hello, how are you doing? I’d like to share my zine presentation link. Some folx were present over zoom for the Zines ASSEMBLAGE conference in England. If you missed it, you can see my presentation whenever you like. It’s here.
I was aiming for 20 minutes and just about made it. Ming and I were at a library in the Bay Area. Thank you to Ming for reserving the reading room and respecting my projects.
Here’s the revised blurb about my zine presentation Emotional Healing by Breaking Open the Truth: Zine Making as Shared Authenticity.
blurb
Laura-Marie has made the autobiographical radical mental health zine functionally ill for 15 years, when she was first diagnosed bipolar 1 with psychotic features. Making this zine has helped her find unconditional self-love, community, and deep emotional healing. She explains how functionally ill began, details of physical production and sharing, how zine creation has helped her make sense of her experiences and heal, and how her zines have affected other people.
Functionally ill shares her process through diagnosis, rediagnosis, disability, disability justice, navigating mainstream medicine including medication, power imbalances in medical contexts, and creating wellness plans. Topics are trauma, therapy, sexuality, self-care, community care, and autism’s complexifying role. She talks about privacy, vulnerability, learning about being a valid person, death cliches, mutual strengthening through zines, and defining success for ourselves.
Many related zines made by Laura-Marie such as How Not to Domestic Violence Anyone, Resisting Capitalism for Fun, Love Is a Skill We Can Strengthen, Sexuality as Hidden, A Special Treehouse for Fat People, and Trike Diaries have spun off from functionally ill.
The truth about mental health isn’t something you’ll hear from a doctor or drug company or liability statement of a clinic; it’s something you’ll hear from the actual person considered crazy. Laura-Marie’s transformation from scared self-loathing in the first issue, to stable, clear, and unconditionally self-loving can serve as an example to anyone with mental health struggles who needs similar emotional healing. This community nestled, disability justice self-love stance repeated individually can contribute to a shared emotional healing of culture.
call for submissions
The zine conference is making a zine about the themes of the conference. Please see this link if you would like to submit!
2 replies on “my zine presentation realized”
[…] Most people don’t see colors in numbers like I do. Synethesia and face blindness are both common in people who have autism. […]
[…] resist gender bullshit. I can write about it in blogs and zines–I do have three issues of sexuality as hidden, which I believe in. Maybe I should make a fourth […]