In her career Dolly has been a child alien in the Empire Strikes Back, written over ten books, screwed a lightbulb into the sky, sectioned the DWP, recited poetry in a tree, given a website a psychotic episode, tripadvisored a psychiatric hospital, visited California’s Death Row, dispensed an Apocalypse Loyalty Card, created a madvert calendar, worn a wandering womb with a clitoris hat to examine misogyny in medicine, turned fanny prints into a Rorschach test, given Alexa a mental state examination, created Bedlamb, shouted at Freud’s couch, made films about the lived experience of psychosis, galvanised people to Help the Normals, sold nothing on Ebay, subverted 100s of other things and in the process spanked normality’s bottom.
She is working class, Queer, interested in disability and the madness given to us by the world. She wants to disrupt systems that produce that programming called oppression, not through trojan horse viruses but with my little ponies on acid with a little sadness in their hearts.
She/They. She currently resides in Norwich in Norfolk.
E: dollysen70@hotmail.com
Insta: https://www.instagram.com/dollysen70/
DOLLY’S OTHER WEBSITES
www.cuckoosnestbooks.co.uk
Hi Dolly Sen. I am Rob Spicer and we had a great chat at the Wellcome Collection a couple of weeks ago about “Help the Normals? I just wanted to ask a small favour from this impressive charity? I am more than happy to make a donation in return. If you get this please can you contact me on the my email, many thanks. R
Hello
Are you the same Dolly with a chapter in Drop the Disorder ?
I am a survivor and doing a PhD on trust .
Could we chat?
S 🗽
Hi Dolly
Just watched your A Day In The Life Of An Artist ..Brilliant thanks cheered me up no end . I’ve decided to get a new website which will be up and running for August and so the old blog will be closed down. It would be great to have a a few articles about you . Basically the header will be divided into HOME< IMAGE<MUSIC <TEXT<SHOP<CONTACT Its a of a grown up venture for me , registering as a sole trader and such like ,selling Deviation Street t shirts and tote bags. How much are the Help The Normal collection things ? If you want to post ,write anything up let me know . I will also be adding a contributors page so people can provide links and such like . Stay Safe big hugs from here brian
Dear Dolly
I have seen your clips on Healthtalk.org
I was wondering if you might be interested in giving a talk (online video link, which I will organise) to our students on the topic of your experiences of mental health, using mental health services, particularly talking therapies, for a module called Professional issues in Psychotherapeutic Practice?
These are third year BSc Psychology and Counselling students.
The idea would be to help students to better understand what it is like from the client perspective.
It could take any form over 50 minutes, a talk, or i could interview you, whatever you think would work best with students who will be beginners in the world of counselling.
As a guest lecturer, the fee paid is £117.22.
The module runs on Thursday mornings from 9am to 1pm, and will start in October.
Many thanks for considering, and I am happy to chat on the phone if you like.
Damien Ridge
Hello Damien, sorry for the delay, I had been locked out of my wordpress site. If the offer still stands I am happy to do it, let me know, best wishes, Dolly
Hello,
My name is Leah and I am now a student in University of Southampton studying Contemporary Curation. Due to the pandemic, our university decided to do an online exhibition as our final project. I want to include “help the normals” in my exhibition and since its online, I will only be using pictures to indicate the artwork. So Im just emailing you to ask permission to use pictures of those artworks.
My exhibition is called “Teen Idle”, the description for my exhibition is “Due to lack of confidence, many teens would turn to celebrity idols to fulfil the emptiness in their heart. Most teenagers consider their life as an idle one because they are uncertain about their future and confused about their present life. They seek consolation and validation by mimicking the distinctive styles embraced by each idol. This exhibition is presented with a sarcastic approach, almost like a black comedy, to send the message of how most people, especially teenagers, at some point of their life, are all quite obsessed with pretty yet superficial stuff they see on tv or social media. This exhibition serves as a reminder that people should pay more attention to their loved ones instead of images on a screen.”
If it is possible, I will only be using pictures of “help the normals” in my online exhibition.
with regards
leah
Hey there, sorry I haven’t got back sooner, but if you still want to use the image you can. If you do, can you please send me the link. All the best, Dolly
Dolly – just spent some time browsing your instagram and thought I’d get in touch to drop you a line and say what an inspiration you are!
All love,
Hannah
https://twitter.com/DollyDollysen/status/1391750141191852034
“You can DM me if you don’t want to say publicly.” I wanted to DM you on Twitter but couldn’t find a way to do that, so I am leaving a comment here
I just wanted to say (1) Your work has literally saved my life and there are not any words for how much I appreciate it (2) I would be first in line to contribute to this particular project, if I had a vagina and/or identified as female, which as it happens I don’t (3) You’re going to obviously piss off a lot of people with the language you’re using here in re gender but I suspect you probably already knew that. Take care
(Like seriously, just love; y’know)
Dolly, It is some years since I have been in touch. I will hear from Michelle occasionally. I moved to Bolton 10 years ago and am Professor of Psychology at the University. I have been working with Andrew Voyce for the last couple of years and have co-authored a couple of articles with him. The two of us are working with one of my master’s students Robert Hurst on ‘Creativity in mental health recovery.’ We are looking to interview five people with creative talents. I know of few people more creative than you. Robert is hoping to use the five interviews as part of his MSc dissertation. I have managed to get some money for this and the five people will receive £200 each for taking part in the interview and hopefully a subsequent group Zoom talk on creativity. If you are interested then please e-mail me and I will get back in touch. I hope this finds you well?
Jerome
I have tried emailing you, Jerome, but my emails are getting bounced back.
A friend told me about your book with dodgy quotes from mental health clinicians. I edited a newsletter for ten years and we had a column called “from the horses mouth” which highlighted quotes like that.
that’s awesome 🙂
Hi, was interested in watching Inside, Outside and Life as a Side Effect films by you.
Have tried finding them on NetFlix with no success.
Can you help
Hello there, thanks for your interest. They are not on Netflix, I’m afraid.
You can see Outside with this link https://vimeo.com/99223723
You can see Life as a Side Effect https://vimeo.com/25089027
Inside is not public just yet. Let me know what you think, take care, Dolly
Thank you Dolly for all you do, your loving hard work for us survivors and those who haven’t but we carry their memory and lessons forward lovingly in our emotions, feelings, MIND AND COLLECTIVE MEMORY and look to construct alternatives to all care and treatment that is abusive and/or neglectful or in the alternative, discrimination, harassment, victimisation and negligence. Like you say, we are like lambs, we don’t know our fate, but together, WE ARE UNLIMITED (I hope I am contributing my written piece to your Birdsong from Unobservable Worlds
This has unleashed or released my creativity and given me a voice