Sipping my morning coffee this Good Friday morning watching a cardinal pair in our crabapple tree, I can’t help but want to pinch myself because after 16 years, today does actually feel good. Last night, I shared with my NAMI Brown County tribe that I accepted the position as Executive Director of NAMI NKY. As is rightly so, they have asked that I formally step down as president for NAMI Brown County. Earlier in the week, I shared my exciting news with Deanna Vietze, Executive Director of the Brown County Board of Addiction Services. Her “congratulations” email buoyed my expectations for a smooth transition into the next chapter for myself and NAMI Brown County.
Sixteen years ago, on my birthday I was on the psych ward: this birthday I will be starting my new job starting out part-time with the potential to be full-time. As a friend said to me recently, “Your journey, Danei, has been nothing short of miraculous.” I couldn’t agree more.
Coming from a family of preachers and teachers, faith has always played a pivotal role in shaping my identity. That faith in God through the act of praying saved my life in psychosis and allowed me to retain my strong sense of identity after all I lived through. Don’t get me wrong, the last 16 years have been brutal. As my first psychologist said, having a nervous breakdown or more accurately called a “psychotic break”, is like having a house with a cracked foundation with a pit underneath it. When your psychological house shatters, it falls into a thousand pieces onto the floor of that pit.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness or (NAMI) was a lifesaver for me, but it took me seven years to find NAMI after my break. Through the NAMI classes and support groups I learned that I was not alone and that mental illnesses are diseases of the brain. Writing has simply been good therapy as I worked through the grief process of accepting myself with a mental illness as well as the more than a decade I call “Medical Russian Roulette” to get my medications right for my unique body chemistry. In my rage at the disease, I threw out everything I believed and started over from scratch. Those were long, hard, confusing years, even after I found NAMI. Due to COVID, we have all had a taste of the isolation, loneliness, and depression that comes with a mental illness diagnosis. I am pleased to report that our society is now more receptive to allowing people to talk about their mental health struggles than when I was originally diagnosed in 2008. NAMI has been at the forefront of combating mental illness ignorance and stigma through research, education, and group wisdom we share based on our lived experience.
As Patrick Kennedy and many others have also communicated, we still have lots of work to do before mental illness is treated with the same medical parity of other diseases. The fact that I will be returning to work with a board that values me, and my lived experience, is something our culture told me wasn’t possible 16 years ago. When I began writing openly about my mental illness struggles it was considered “career suicide”. For me, it was the only clear path back to sanity. As Brene’ Brown in her book, Atlas of the Heart states:
“Language is our portal to meaning-making, connection, healing, learning, and self-awareness. Having access to the right words can open up entire universes…Language shows us that naming an experience doesn’t give the experience more power, it gives us the power of understanding and meaning.”
One night after a presenter meeting at NAMI Southwest Ohio in 2016, I stayed to talk with two other NAMI presenters who lived remotely like I did. We began talking about the fact that there was no NAMI affiliate in Brown County. “I really think we should start a NAMI affiliate out where we live,” one presenter said. We all concurred. In the weeks and months ahead, the three of us met regularly to hammer out the details of starting an affiliate. In July of 2017, the Brown County Board of Mental Health & Addiction Services contracted with me to be a Mental Health Advocate. I was elated.
A Fallen Warrior
Charles wasn’t the first person to speak up when entering a room, but often times he was the last to leave, ensuring everyone had a listening ear. One of the things I love about being a NAMI presenter is that you get to hear the other presenters’ stories. When Charles and I presented together, I learned he had struggled with suicidal thoughts since his teens. It wasn’t until he was married with two children that his mental illness first brought him to his knees. For even a warrior like Charles, it took homelessness to get him to admit he needed help.
Meet Charles
Over the last few years, however, Charles had made a remarkable recovery. When I met Charles, he was a presenter, working part-time as a Peer Support Specialist, teaching regularly at the NAMI Peer-to-Peer class, and voluntarily leading a group on the psyche ward at a local hospital. Soon after, he got engaged. At a subsequent NAMI meeting together, Charles pulled me aside to compliment me on being a gifted presenter. “What a humble man”, I thought, “willing to encourage someone else where he believes they have potential.” I never realized what pain he had behind those kind words.
During one of the Peer-to-Peer classes, we were discussing hallucinations. I remember Charles telling us his story of being at training. When he went back to his hotel room, he began hearing loud Irish music (Charles said he had never listened to Irish music). When he went out in the hall to protest, his friends explained to him that there wasn’t any music playing. Something seemed awry.
Showing a brave face
While teaching the Peer-to-Peer class, Charles was battling symptoms related to a medication transition. He told us before class one night, he felt like climbing the walls. He had experienced more severe symptoms during previous days at home, too. “Charles go to the Emergency Room or at least call in sick from work tomorrow,” I said vehemently, knowing that bold action was needed. Charles responded quietly but in his equally steely, resolved voice, “There are people depending on me.”
Charles was killed by his mental illness. This does not negate the fact that Charles was a valiant warrior, a solder in the war against mental illness and stigma. Charles touched untold lives by his example. Like any valiant warrior cut down in battle, let us remember his life, heroism, and achievements in our common struggle. After Charles death as well as an allergic reaction to a very new antipsychotic drug, I landed back in the hospital myself. After I got out I coined this poem:
The Life Preserver
I am a life preserver.
I remember standing on the edge to the abyss alone.
As my feet carefully slide along the edge, I see one.
When this one agrees, I reach out with my emotional arm, grasp their elbow, and we lock arms.
Together we inch our way back and down.
Once on safe ground, I take inventory.
My tool is simple, a mirror.
“A red velvet, weighted mantle of shame appeared on your shoulders as you walked off the psych ward,” I explain.
I shine the mirror to show the mantel.
They see on it in black letters all the words for crazy, nuts, psycho, loony, etc.
They see the silver clasp engraved with the word “CRAZY”.
“This is what has been weighing you down,” I explain.
I build a fire using the mantle when they take it off.
As we watch it burn, I tell this one, “you got this”.
I shine the mirror to show their true beauty.
I watch them fly.
I smile.
Mental Health Warrior 