Join us for a workshop with advocate and memoirist Brooke Siem, as she shares her story of severe antidepressant withdrawal and how she turned her experience into her award winning memoir, MAY CAUSE SIDE EFFECTS, which was published in 2022 and garnered press from Good Morning America, The New York Post, Washington Examiner, Insider, and more. 

Brooke believes that one of the most powerful forces for change comes through art and writing, and she has spent years learning how to tell difficult stories in ways that protect the writer and honor the reader. This workshop is for anyone who wants to explore how creativity can help them through withdrawal (without getting triggered!), and how their story can be used to bring hope and healing to others. 

This event is donation based, as Brooke is working to regain the rights to her book after a publishing dispute. All proceeds will go to support a revised second edition of MAY CAUSE SIDE EFFECTS, which will include additional research, resources for parents, a Q&A based on her decade of advocacy, and a brand new audiobook. 

About the Event

As conversations around mental health care continue to expand, it becomes increasingly important to hold space for perspectives around patient autonomy and the unintended harms that can come from psychiatric care. At a time when public awareness of mental health is expanding, we are being asked to grapple with more complex and often marginalized perspectives—particularly the ways in which systems of care can misinterpret, dismiss, or even exacerbate suffering.

Join IDHA on Wednesday, June 11 from 6–8pm ET for a virtual, creative, and experiential workshop challenging dominant medical narratives by centering lived experiences of psychiatric medication and withdrawal-related distress. The session will combine an educational presentation, video excerpts, and artistic documentation to examine withdrawal, misdiagnosis, and the systemic misunderstanding of states linked to psychiatric treatment, while offering alternative frameworks for making sense of these experiences. The session also includes a guided creative workshop where participants can engage in writing, visual art, or embodied expression using everyday materials, followed by optional group reflection and discussion. With an emphasis on consent, pacing, and self-care, the session provides both educational content and space for personal exploration, concluding with shared resources and avenues for further support. By combining lived experience, activism, and artistic practice, the event contributes to broader debates regarding informed consent, diagnostic authority, and the role of grassroots knowledge in reshaping mental health discourse.

This event is open to mental health workers and clinicians, researchers, educators, activists, survivors, peers, current and prior service users, writers, artists, and other advocates – anyone who is interested in exploring the link between personal and societal transformation.

Register in advance via Eventbrite to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join.