This continues my last entry on how I have fortunately ridded myself of most of the feelings of shame and stigmas relating to my living with mental illness.  Writing and getting a book published about my mental health journey helped.  But there’s more.

Learning that other individuals whom I respect greatly have lived with mental illness has also helped.  A couple of examples:

Winston Churchill:  When I was in the seventh grade, a classmate initiated a petition to name the new junior high being completed in our growing Salt Lake suburb “Churchill.”  The school district had chosen the mundane name “Foothill.”  It was early 1965 and the great former British prime minister had just died.  My classmate was successful and I began attending Churchill Junior High School when it opened the next school year!  The name didn't mean much to me back then.  But now this great leader who was so key in leading the Allied forces to victory in World War II is a great inspiration to me.  If he could do great things living with the “black dog” as he referred to his bouts with depression, then perhaps I too could be worthwhile to the world in a smaller way.  He spoke of his depression to others.  So could I.

The book by Nassir Ghaemi, “A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness” tells of how Churchill and other leaders have been great because of their mental illness, not in spite of it.  His descriptions of Lincoln and Gandhi have also been especially inspiring to me.

Fred Frese:  I heard this great psychologist speak at a NAMI state conference a few years ago.  He became a director of the same Ohio state mental hospital that he had been committed to after being declared “insane” with schizophrenia years before.  He said that he views his disease as not a “deficit” but a “difference” from those who are “chronically normal.”  He said that among other good traits, people with schizophrenia usually have greater abilities in theoretical rationality.

Listening to Dr. Frese helped me feel like my experiences with depression and anxiety did not make me defective but rather imbued with special talents that I could use to help others.

The examples of these great men have genuinely helped me to eschew stigmas and feel good about myself and develop a zeal to be an effective and impactful mental health advocate.

At a weekly NAMI peer-to-peer class I teach for those of us who live with mental illness, a fortyish woman showed-up for the first time.  She was articulate and quite expressive of her feelings in a positive way.  She told us how scared and reluctant she was to come to a “mental illness support group.”  Her therapist had encouraged her.  She said that a family member had offered to accompany her for support, but she told him, "Absolutely not!" as that would make the situation even more embarrassing to her!

Incidents such as this remind me of just how strong the stigma about mental illness is in the minds of many people—both for those of us who know we have it and those who think they don’t.

We all know that the mental illness stigma is a big obstacle to people getting treatment.  I've been thinking recently about how it also prevents many from being more effective mental health advocates.  If we fear that others are going to judge us negatively if we reveal that we live with mental illness, then we are not going to tell anyone but our closest family members and friends with whom we feel very secure—if we share it with anyone at all.

These thoughts led me to ponder on how I got over most all of the stigma and shame I felt within myself when I was younger.  And I felt it a lot!  This was likely reinforced by my well-meaning parents who were trying to protect me when I was release from a psychiatric ward when I was eighteen after experiencing major depressive episodes.  Perhaps they were protecting themselves a bit also.  When visitors came to our home, my parents asked me to go to another room and remain unseen so the visitors would assume I was still away at college.  My parents didn’t want questions.  They told me not to go to church—really surprising as we never missed on Sundays even when away on vacations.

These feelings carried through my writing a book manuscript about my mental health journey.  I wrote it with all names of people and places changed.  I had dreamed up a scheme of getting it published incognito.  When I finally got the courage to share my writing with a few family members and close friends, a couple of them strongly encouraged me to put my own name of it.  They said I had an extremely important message to share, but that without a real author behind the book, it wouldn't sell.  I acquiesced.  I like to think that my altruistic side won-out over my stigma insecurities.  The feedback I've received about how it has helped individuals has been gratifying, and I've become a full-fledged, full-time mental health advocate.  This has been most satisfying for me.  But first before I could this, I had to overcome the feelings of stigma and shame within myself.

Taking part in a suicide awareness and prevention walk with about 70 Native Americans and a few of us “Anglos” was truly a thrill for me.   Today adults and youth from the Piute and Navajo tribes convened in a park in Washington, Utah.  We didn’t just walk.  There were short speeches and Native American ceremonies, singing, and dancing.  Normally, three hours at a Saturday event would be too long because of everything else I want to get done.  But I savored every moment of this experience.  A local newspaper reported on the event.[i]

One Native American framed the gathering best.  He told how the Mountain States are described as the “suicide belt” of the U.S. and Indian reservations have even higher suicide rates.  So sobering.

Glenn Rogers, a council member of the nearby Shivwits Band of the Piute tribe, told how his 27 year old son died from suicide.  He showed the Shivwits Band staff that was about his height.  It contained eagle feathers, buffalo fur, and buckskin.  Among the other significances, he said the staff is a memorial to his son.

Benn Pikyavit of the Kaibab Band of Paiutes said he also lost a son to suicide.  I recall that a couple of years ago Ben was Becky and my tour guide through Pipe Springs National Monument that lies within his reservation.  At today’s event, he performed a smudge ceremonial prayer.  He burned sage in a small pot, walked slowing around the large circle of participants, and fanned each individual with smoke using eagle feathers.

We walked about a half-mile to a Washington City recreation center meeting room where there were more speeches along with Native American dances and songs.  I was especially impressed with the spoken words of Nicolette Parrish of the Dixie State University Native American Student Association.  She told how American Indians must constantly defend their identity.  They must balance two worlds.  They have to know George Washington and Crazy Horse, Abraham Lincoln and Geronimo.  They must speak English and their native language. 

Nicolette was good enough to share with me a copy of her prepared remarks so I can quote some of what she said:

 “Today we came together to celebrate our lives and to give thanks to our ancestors who have fought and thank those who continue to fight for us today.  As American Indians resiliency is in our blood.  As a people, we have dealt with genocide, social ostracism, and cultural persecution for 500 years.  That means for 500 years there have been multiple attempts to eradicate our culture, our tradition, and our spirits.  But as a people, we have prevailed.  We have been fighting for 500 years.  Why stop now?

“As I mentioned earlier, we live in a tough society.  Everything around us is set up for us to fail.  Coming from an underperforming reservation school, single parent household, an alcoholic father, I had the odds stacked and they were not in my favor.  I grew up on the Navajo Reservation.  I had never spent more than three weeks off the reservation.  When I stared college I had to adapt to a whole new world.  I would like to say my transition was an easy one, but it wasn’t.  The friends I had did not understand who I was or my values—therefore I could not make meaningful connections.

“So whenever you go out and do something, remember you have all of Indian country and 500 years of history behind you.  And when you feel alone, please remember my brothers and sisters, I promise to fight for you and fight with you.  So let’s tighten our moccasins and continue to fight together.  We got this!”    

I feel overwhelmingly impressed with Nicolette’s sense of self, healthy pride in her great heritage, and her determination to help her people.

With great leaders like Nicolette and others that I met today, surely the Paiute and Navajo people will succeed—including reducing their rates of suicides.  I expect they will set the example for the rest including us “Anglos.”

[i] http://www.thespectrum.com/story/news/local/2014/11/23/native-americans-others-take-part-spirit-walk-raise-awareness-suicide/19435803/

Greetings from Sequoia National Park!  I write with my laptop upon a restaurant table in the park.  The nice server just presented me with a cup of hot chocolate topped with whip cream.  I awoke extra early leaving family asleep in tents in the nearby campground.  Not far away towers the largest living tree on earth named General Sherman.  It grows to a height of 275 feet—almost the length of a football field.  Its 1,400 tons of wood could build 120 medium-sized homes.

It started from a tiny seed a fraction of an inch long.  A park ranger told me these sequoia trees get so big because they produce a special chemical called tannic acid in their bark and wood that thwarts insects, decomposition, and fire.  So they can grow over 3,000 years and just keep getting bigger and bigger.

My mind likes think of metaphors about things that impress me.  So here I go.  To be good mental health advocates, we must have some tannic acid within ourselves.  Sometimes we get heat—even fire—in our efforts to overcome the stigmas and misinformation about mental illnesses.  We are fighting centuries of ugly stereotypes.  Unenlightened individuals sometimes make ignorant comments that can offend and discourage.  We must be strong enough to not allow these occasions to get us down.  Instead, we must use them to generate even more determination and enthusiasm within ourselves to carry on with courage.

I’ve wondered what it is exactly that that brings about this tannic acid in effective mental health advocates.  I’ve concluded that it’s primarily two things: 1) They have healthy self-esteem so they are not easily offended, and 2) They really care about helping other individuals—perhaps to assist them avoid the pain they’ve experienced with mental illness or that they witnesses in loved ones.

There is a man in my town who has a lot of this tannic acid.  His name is Lynn Bjorkman.  We work together in our local NAMI affiliate and on other mental health projects in our community.  He first got involved because he wanted to learn how he personally could aid family members who suffer from mental illness.  A couple of years ago he was recognized as the volunteer of the year for NAMI Utah—a well-deserved distinction.  Over the last year and a half, he’s created and grown a new organization I our county called “Reach 4 Hope” that fights suicide.  He’s built a network of leaders from several mental health related organizations in our community to coordinate suicide prevention efforts.  Schools, hospitals, mental health professionals, and other mental health promotion organizations are represented.  He’s spearheaded the training of hundreds of individuals in QPR on suicide prevention techniques.  His energy, organizational skills, creativity, and tenacity are remarkable.  Many lives have been positively impacted. 

I once helped Lynn with a booth on suicide prevention at a health fair in our city.  When I arrived he told me a woman noticed our signage and approach him to comment on it.  She said, “Our family doesn’t have those problems.  We are good people of faith.”  Lynn smiled as he related her words to me, being a bit taken back at her unenlightened boldness.  But I also saw in his eyes—and later through his actions—how he was even more determined to help educate people. 

I believe there have been suicide attempts in Lynn’s family.  Lynn and his wife are very good, religious people.  I’ve noted that they try to live their religion every day.   Nevertheless, Lynn could have found the woman’s words to be very hurtful.  But he didn’t appear to be offended at all…because Lynn has that tannic acid.  With it, he has grown into an effective and enormously impactful mental health advocate—as giant in this realm as the great sequoias are among trees.