Meet the Punk Activist Who’s Changing the Psychiatric System From the Inside

Sascha DuBrul is not your typical clinician: he’s been institutionalized multiple times and is best known as the bassist of Choking Victim. But upending the way delusional patients are treated is the most punk thing he’s ever done.

Photo by Walter Hergt

On a Monday morning last October, Sascha DuBrul awoke later than usual, with two ringing ears. Less than twelve hours earlier, the 42-year-old DuBrul had been reliving his youth, stage diving into a packed crowd in Brooklyn’s Warsaw Ballroom. His old band, Choking Victim, had reunited for a rare performance. Their music, a relic of Manhattan’s early ’90s punk scene, has been discovered in the last few years by a new generation of teenage punks. And now, those teenagers were busy posting pictures from the show online.

DuBrul needed to run out the door to make it to the office, but he couldn’t resist a quick scroll through social media, where he maintains a modest-but-loyal following. He re-posted a photo that captured him, bass guitar in-hand, shouting into a microphone at the edge of the stage. He added his own caption: “No one at the office has any idea.” Then, he closed his laptop, and with fifteen minutes to spare, left his apartment and headed to work at Columb…