In the Blog
Mad Students Society Presents: “Crossroads and Trail Mix”
What? Our March 2012 downtown Toronto peer support meeting When? Saturday, March 10 from 3:30-5:30pm Where? Email outreach@madstudentsociety.com for details
The month of March hosts a number of different religious, cultural, and political holidays and events including: Nineteen Day Fast, Mardi Gras/Carnival, Lent, International Women’s Day, and St. Patrick’s Day. Black History Month and International Mother Language Day occurred in February. Passover and Easter are coming up in April.
The significance of the “crossroad” as a liminal (in-between) space appears in a number of cultural mythologies. In some places in the past, people who died by suicide were buried at crossroads for a variety of religious/spiritual reasons.
Join us this month to talk about how we navigate crossroads, intersections, and borderlands as Mad people. How does madness intermingle with other communities, cultures, and social categories? How do we construct and perform identities? Where do we seek and find acceptance for (some of) our selves? How do we experience and strategize around oppression and exclusionary processes in mainstream and subculture spaces? How do we respond to feelings of disconnection and isolation when no community seems to fit?
Come share your recipes for “trail mix” that nourish and energize during the hike. Meet other walnuts, pine nuts, and peanuts for your next mix! Of course there will be plenty of time to talk about whatever else is on our minds… We welcome new members, frequent faces, and folks we haven’t seen in a while!
Please share this event widely.
** Mad Students Society (MSS), created in 2005, is a community of students who are attending or planning to attend institutions of post-secondary or adult education and have past/present experiences with psychiatric/mental health systems. We meet monthly and communicate through an email listserv to support each other, discover tools for self-advocacy, and connect with our history and broader social movements.
MSS meets monthly in downtown Toronto, North York, and Hamilton. Soon we will be hosting monthly meetings online through a real-time chat/discussion. We also maintain an active, private, confidential listserv hosted on Google Groups where Mad Students (only!) share news and events, support each other, and organize around Mad/school related issues. For more information on meeting locations, joining the email listserv, requesting brochures, or about the group, please email Elizabeth at outreach@madstudentsociety.com. Visit our website or check us out on Facebook!
