misery is a mental health community and sober rave based in London and led by and for queer, trans, intersex, black people and people of colour (qtibpoc) with lived experience of madness, mental health challenges, time in hospital, addiction, public service use, disability, trauma, medication and neurodivergence.
They co-create free, playful, accessible sober spaces, services, practices, parties and resources to cultivate communities of connection, care and solidarity that can support and sustain the collective healing and resilience of qtibpoc world over. With the knowledge that healing and liberation are interwoven, they seek to disrupt the growing privatisation of healing and the “self-care industrial complex” by nurturing community care and addressing collective trauma.
three years into running a mental health collective with overwhelming demand from our community and no support or protection for ourselves, we recognised that we needed to slow down, rest, nourish, and ask for help if we were to keep misery alive. the national survivor user network (nsun) heard our call, and we are now honoured to be one of their hosted projects, until 2024, the aim of which is to support the growth and development of misery by enabling us to benefit from the container of nsun’s policies, safeguarding and legal structure.
misery
misery’s goals are:
- “to provide accessible, supportive and politically engaged events, spaces and services by and for qtibpoc to build community and help us to be in right relationship with ourselves, each other, and the land
- to develop resources, research, artistic work, modalities and practices that facilitate healing and challenge dominant misperceptions about mental health, addiction, disability, trauma and neurodiversity
- to promote leadership and development opportunities for qtibipoc with lived experience of mental health problems, madness, addiction, disability, trauma, and neurodivergence – within our communities, health and wellbeing settings, the arts and wider society.”
Talking about their roots, misery say: “our work is rooted in the principles of healing centered harm reduction including trauma-informed care, agency, collaboration, intersectionality, consent and acknowledges the historical and on-going social, cultural, environmental and economic systems that constantly terrorise our communities including experiences of colonisation, anti-blackness and racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, ableism and other oppressions.”
You can follow misery on Twitter and Instagram, and a website is coming soon.
