 |  |
     |
| |
| |
November MIM Meeting
Note: The monthly Mental Illness Ministry meetings often feature a guest speaker who shares on an aspect of mental illness. Mary Paridis, MIM co-chair, offered the following writeup of a previous meeting(November 2005) to provide a sample of the types of speakers invited. The MIM meetings are held the second Monday of the month from 7-9 pm in Hospitality Hall. The next month's meeting is listed in greater detail in the Sunday Bulletin. Everyone is welcome.
Maureen Maureen Marrin, Executive Director of Consumer Survivor Network, was the first presenter invited to speak at our Mental Illness Ministry meetings. She spoke of her own story and explained a little about CSN. She shared challenges along her journey, especially the hope that someday she would have a challenging, satisfying job. She works for CSN because of its philosophy; it is the only completely consumer run mental health organization in Minnesota. There are other consumer run organizations throughout the country, but CSN has no national affiliates. Maureen and CSN have adopted the phrase others use, “Nothing about us without us.” Some people think that CSN doesn’t believe in medication, but that is false. Consumers want to be invited to the table where mental health resources, professionals and politicians make the decisions about treatment and laws; they want to be respected enough to be included, to be colleagues. The consumer’s voice is an important voice, a necessary voice. Consumers are the ones with an intimate knowledge of mental illness. They can learn and they can teach. They can and want to be a partner in the mental health system.
Maureen emphasized that people with a mental illness are more than the mental illness; they are complete human beings and deserve all the dignity owed to any person. The challenges of a serious and chronic mental illness, sometime do not allow consumers to develop necessary social and work skills. When recovery begins, consumers need the opportunity and the support to learn skills along the way, and to be allowed the mistakes other people make when they enter work or social settings. She said the system lets consumers get comfortable being ill and become afraid to explore, “What can I do and what do I like and what can I expect and what’s my normal?” The system often leaves consumers after the first misstep and consumers don’t get to explore, “What’s my normal?”
Maureen’s energy, humor and experiences brought us some rich insights and challenged us to rethink some attitudes about mental illness and people with mental illness.
|
The Clown
The walls all fell down |