Leah has been active in the consumer/survivor/ex-patient movement for almost 25 years, advocating for raised awareness around the psychiatrisation of human experience.

You may remember Leah from the original Emerging Proud film, where she shared her incredible story of liberation. You can read Leah’s full story HERE.

Leah Harris (they/she) is a mad liberationist and abolitionist based in the settler colonial US. She was born to two parents diagnosed with serious mental health conditions, and her family experienced the harm caused by the interconnected prison, psychiatric, and child welfare systems. She joined the psychiatric survivor/ex patient movement around 25 years ago and has been active in fighting force and coercion. Leah is also a writer and journalist whose work appears in Mad in America, Truthout, The Progressive Magazine, and the anthologies We’ve Been Too Patient and the forthcoming Mad Studies Reader. She’s currently at work on a memoir entitled Noncompliant which traces her family’s story alongside the story of deinstitutionalization in America and a call for psychiatric abolition. Leah is also the founder of Menopause Solidarity, a new organization providing gender-inclusive peer support and mental health education to support the menopausal transition. 

Contact Leah at: Instagram @leah.ida 

https://www.leahiharris.com/contact

Here we are, 7 years on. It’s such a joy to interview original Proud Emergees turned friends!