Patient's Rites (2014)

I spent 18 years as an inpatient in an asylum but this did not curtail my creativity. Free since 2009 I have been focused on using the arts as a healing and trans formative tool for me and others who have suffered in addition to their families and friends. Using the institution of popular song married to the music video idiom I have created an autobiographical 48 minute musical documentary titled Patients Rites. It exposes the familiar tropes and stereotypes associated with the mental health community while opening a dialogue about preconceived and prejudicial ideas stigma the realities of the mental health system and how openness can aid in respecting psychiatric survivors who are our fathers mothers daughters sons friends and neighbors.