My Operation Tomorrow: Mental Health Justice, Speaking Out for Our Rights, and Creative Maladjustment

Posted by David W. Oaks on June 22, 2016 in Activism, Environment, Mental Health | 3 comments

In a few minutes, I head up to Portlandia with my darling Debra, to get my throat slit tomorrow.

Do not worry, I have not been captured by ISIS for a beheading. My throat operation to insert a Gore-Tex  little implant in one of my vocal folds to help me, hopefully, be louder. For the past 42 years I have been a psychiatric survivor, and in the last few decades I have seen how working with the disability movement can amplify our voices.

Three-and-a-half years ago, I broke my neck in an accident, involving our cat, Bongo, really! Because of a pre-exisiting condition and complications, I ended up with not just a power chair, the new status of quad, but also about ten other disabilities, but who is counting?

I never expected the idea of trying to find my voice to become so literal!

And with good results, I hope to contribute my voice to Creative Maladjustment Week, which begins in two weeks, Thursday, July 7. This year the celebration week will become eight days long to include the birthday of the late psychiatric survivor, author, and friend, Leonard Roy Frank, July 15.

So what will be my first words after surgery? A documentary film maker David Zupan, another good friend, will be there to record it. I do not expect I will be as articulate as the late Charlie Chaplin, below, but you can enjoy him as he sums up what I would like to say!

For more info about CM week please go to the CM website and also please connect via the Facebook page.

Here is Charlie: