Barge arrives at Red Dog!

Bsilver, this is the story of HK, who, in his twenties, went through three episodes of delusional outbursts. New Messiah, she is responsible for spreading anarchy on earth, in a gentle and non-violent way. For this book, she draws on her notebooks, her medical file and letters from loved ones to recount her madness, her relapses and her recovery. And say how, thanks to meetings and collectives, she politicizes her personal history and the relationship with the psychiatric institution. First self-published by the author in 2019, Barge enjoyed impressive success. At Editions du Chien rouge, we are very happy to allow it to live a new life by republishing it identically. The book, pre-sale at a reduced price by writing to us ([email protected]), comes out on January 26 in bookstores ! But in the meantime, the word is up to the author !

You released the first edition of Barge in 2019. Can you come back to what triggered the writing of the book? ?

“ I had been telling bits of my story for around ten years, in brochures or during meetings around psychology organized with the Crazy Horde1 collective in Toulouse. The fact that my lover is embarking on a film about his own story2 gave me impetus to take on a slightly more complete story of myself. Like him, I was not aiming so much for autobiography as to make people understand and feel the acute states that one can go through during delirious outbursts. From my place, with my words and my convictions. »

In recent years, mental health issues and testimonies from people affected by psychological disorders have increased in the media. Do you see it as a form of destigmatization of madness? ?

“ First-person testimonies are multiplying and are rather well received, and that’s good. We can find plenty of explanations for this: the field opened by social networks for self-expression and the recognition of a common experience, the impact of the Covid-related crises on the mental health of the general population, the growing presence of people concerned in health democracy bodies3 (within local mental health councils, user representative commissions, during conferences, etc.). But it seems important to me to point out a drawback of these advances in destigmatization: the words are often formatted to correspond to the needs of the platforms (content catchy and sometimes stereotypical, ultra editing cutlittle space for long analysis, etc.). »

What depoliticizes the issue of mental health ?

“ We mainly highlight individuals and their diagnosis, rarely collectives and their dynamics, while solidarity and mutual aid are essential to get better. We often ignore the economic, political and social parameters that cause us to do poorly, and the social inequalities in health that also hamper our recovery paths. As if mental health was above all an individual question, and that with the right rehabilitation course, the method and a little good will, it was within everyone’s reach to recover… This is to Discovering the British collective Recovery in the Bin, for whom there is no recovery without social justice, made me happy. It also seems important to me to remember that not everyone has the means to tell their story: you need assurance and self-confidence to feel legitimate to take up space with your own story – that can be more complicated if you belong to a minority population category ; you need financial capital, access to the means of production and distribution… Fortunately, devices like living libraries4 attempt to remedy this. »

You have already self-distributed nearly 4,000 books, mazette ! Can you go back to the highlights of the presentations? ?

“ I myself was surprised by the success of the book. I see the power of word of mouth, the strength of the network built over the years, as well as the support of certain bookstores (Terra Nova in Toulouse, Terre des Livres in Lyon, L’Hydre in Marseille: big up !). I wrote Barge to open spaces for discussion around madness and its accompaniment, and I have done around thirty dates since the book was released, in lots of different places. Each time, it was rich and intense. The strongest moment for me certainly remains the presentation at the Tanneries in Dijon, because there were my parents but also locals who had known me to be very crazy at the time. »

You are now a peer helper in a psychiatric hospital (HP). Can you tell us more? ?

“ It is following a reading of Barge that I was hired by a new team of psychiatrists from the small HP from Lavaur (Tarn). She attempts to change care practices by drawing inspiration from institutional psychotherapy, community psychiatry and phenomenology. There is room to invent, to open up less conventional spaces. I run the library and the information kiosk, I facilitate a discussion group without caregivers, I co-lead the journal workshop and the working group on advance directives, I participate in a research project on recovery in schizophrenia, I also supports people individually… it’s really very rich. Including the political questions that it poses to me, the compromises that I agree to make and why. This peer worker job is still being defined at the national level, and it is very stimulating to build it on a daily basis. At the moment I am working on the question of people’s sexuality during their hospitalization, which was obviously an important issue for me at the time. I feel carried by this continuity of meaning, even if it is far from relaxing ! »

Comments collected by Cécile Kiefer

Stolen pieces “ December 19, 2000. Dijon University Hospital – Psychiatry consultation. 21-year-old girl came to the emergency room accompanied by her father after running away. – difficult contact – fixed gaze – lack of hygiene Said to be hospitalized “ to take a break “. “ I am a bit of a nymphomaniac, that is to say attracted to human relationships “. Does not feel distressed, is not aware of exhibiting abnormal behavior. At the end of the interview, contact is a little better. She tells me “ hearing voices speaking to him, words of love or insults “. It started this summer.
— – The Zyprexa, it stuffed cotton into my brain and flabbiness into my body. It quickly smothered, like a damp blanket, the roaring flames of my delirium. He blew out my vital energy like blowing out a candle.
— –

2002 was the year of demonstrations against Le Pen in the second round, Dijon teeming, assemblies in public squares. Chaos seems possible, it’s terrifying and exciting at the same time. I’m often at the Tanneries squat and at the libertarian premises, zoning out, having a blast. My sentences are twisted, but no more than the messages of the activists which seem coded to me. I fear betraying them by looking at them in the face: the cops could, via my camera eyes, photograph their irises and file them. During a night demonstration, on the main boulevards, my head is invaded by racist insults, and in my field of vision appear superimpositions of swastikas and the flames of the National Front. It’s the panic. No doubt we sold access to my brain to the enemy, who thus benefits from a super-powerful, universal transmitter, since everyone, and by that I definitely mean all the inhabitants of the planet, see what I see and hear what I think. »