May 18 (edited) • Community Updates
We’re Making a Community Zine: Out of Their Grip — Submissions Open
A community collage of survival, creativity, healing, and truth • May 2026
May is Mental Health Month, and it felt like the perfect time to begin creating something together as a community: a digital Unlock Psych zine called Out of Their Grip. (I'm calling it that because my initial idea for a cover illustration featured a pair of grippy socks!)
For anyone unfamiliar, a zine is a community-made DIY magazine filled with creative expression, writing, art, reflections, and shared experiences. Zines are often deeply personal, raw, funny, emotional, political, healing, or all of the above at once. They’re a way for people to tell their stories in their own words and create something meaningful together.
This will be a digital zine created by our community and shared online so everyone can contribute to and experience it together.
We may not finish this by the end of May, and that’s okay. What matters is that we start. The process itself can be cathartic, connective, and powerful. I think there’s something healing about seeing our experiences side by side and recognizing that we are not alone in what we’ve survived.
My hope is that this can become an annual Unlock Psych Mental Health Month project — and next year we can start earlier and maybe even have a completed zine ready by the end of May. 🌱
I would LOVE submissions from the Unlock Psych community. This can be serious, funny, artistic, emotional, messy, reflective, hopeful, angry, creative — whatever feels real to you.
Some ideas for submissions:
• Poetry
• Digital art or hand-drawn art
• Photography
• Collages
• Meaningful quotes or mantras you love
• Reflections about your experiences in Unlock Psych meetings
• Reflections about psychiatric hospitalization or hospital trauma
• Thoughts about healing, mental health, growth, recovery, or survival
• Funny reviews of the worst psych hospital experiences you’ve had
• Lists of things you wish psych hospitals actually had to make them helpful
• Recipes for your favorite “first meal home” after getting out of the hospital
• Journal entries
• Song playlists
• Comics
• Short essays
• Random thoughts that feel like they belong in this community
• Literally anything that feels like it belongs in an Unlock Psych zine
You do NOT need to be a professional artist or writer. This is about honesty, expression, connection, and community.
Also — I’d love to include some short community interviews in the zine. If anyone would be interested in doing a brief chat interview, I’d love to talk with you about:
• Your experience with Unlock Psych
• How being in community with others who have experienced psychiatric incarceration has impacted you
• How shared understanding and peer support have affected your healing process
• What you wish more people understood about psychiatric trauma and recovery
• Anything else you’d want to share with the community
It would just be a casual conversation through chat/messages with a few questions. Nothing formal or intimidating.
If you’d like to submit something or volunteer for an interview, comment below or message me directly. You can also email me at care@unlockpsych.com. 💛
I really believe we could create something powerful together.
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We’re Making a Community Zine: Out of Their Grip — Submissions Open
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