Still Sane

Still Sane is a catalog of an exhibit by Persimmon Blackbridge and Sheila Gilhooly about how lesbians have been considered mentally ill by psychiatric establishments. Full-page photographs of Blackbridge's clay forms of partial female bodies convey the anguish of isolation and abuse, then the exhilaration of self-discovery and freedom. Gilhooly's texts refer to her own experience of being in and out of mental hospitals in the 1970s after she was diagnosed with Lesbianism. Essays by lesbian and Mad Movement writers describe the progress both communities have made in protecting women from diagnoses of deviance. This book is about refusing to be what others label you, about surviving undiminished, about reclaiming yourself.