“If I make a difference in one life today, I have done my job,” I remind myself as I turn on the mike to speak. I am the executive director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Northern Kentucky affiliate, and I welcomed my NAMI tribe to our annual NAMI walk held at Pioneer Park on a gorgeous fall day in Northern Kentucky a week ago now. I have to be honest: I never wanted to be here. My name is Danei Edelen. My life story has been impacted by the tornado of mental illness. I have been hospitalized five times. Daily, I must manage my fear of being hospitalized again.
Due to COVID, we all have had a taste of the loneliness and depression that taints the lives of the severely mentally ill. To date, I have lost four people who have lost the battle with severe mental illness. Against the backdrop of another death in September, my lived experience has taught me that the love of your true friends, your faith in God, and the beauty of the natural world provide true meaning and connection.
Seth Godin describes a tribe as, “A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea. For millions of years, human beings have been part of one tribe or another. A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate.” in his book, We Need You to Lead Us.
NAMI was founded by two mothers who had children who were schizophrenics, and they were told that is was due to bad parenting. Obviously, today we know that was not true. But that was conventional thinking at that time. NAMI provides research-backed, evidence-based free training for both people like me and their caregivers. NAMI is the nation’s largest grass-roots organization, located in all 50 states and 80 counties in Ohio. NAMI is the fast food of mental health education. You get the same training regardless of where you live.
Mental Health Warrior 