Upcoming Education Meeting Speakers:

A Focus on Skills Development 

Join us for our free Education Meetings the third Thursday of the month at 7:00 PM.  Meetings are held at the Mental Health Board office located at 5963 Boymel Drive in Fairfield.  All are welcome! 

May 15th:  

Scott Rasmus, PhD, LPCC-S, IMFT,  Executive Director, Butler County Mental Health Board  

Counseling Active Listening Skills & Reflecting Team Presentation 

June 19th:   NO EDUCATION MEETING   

Faith Leaders Half Day Conference at LCOH 

Stigma and Schizophrenia 

By Vickie Cheng

The following is an article written by a Miami University Nursing student after attending a NAMI Butler County Education Meeting. It is a powerful account of how one meeting changed her perception of people struggling with mental health disorders, and the importance of NAMI's continuing efforts to educate the public. Thank you, Vicki, for sharing. 

Paul has lived alone for 14 years, tending his animals and his organic garden. He is fond of the prisms he hangs in his windows: When the light hits them a certain way, he knows it's time to take his medication, or to feed the cat. His thoughts, like the light, are fractured, but no less beautiful for being broken. He has schizophrenia, and on this Thursday evening, about 30 people gathered to hear his story. Paul tells a story about living - not about disease.

Paul is one of the narrators in the Schizophrenia Oral History Project, a collaboration between Dr. Lynda Crane and Dr. Tracy McDonough, professors at the College of Mount St. Joseph. They spoke for about an hour to attendees at a NAMI Butler County education meeting held monthly at their offices at 5963 Boymel Dr. in Fairfield, OH. the third Thursday of almost every month. The education meetings are open to the public and are meant to teach participants more about mental illness and community resources. There is a different topic every month.

In the group were counselors, social workers and other healthcare professionals who could receive continuing education credits for attending, as well as Miami Nursing students. Members of NAMI and others living with mental illness and their families were also present.

The purpose of this meeting was for attendees to learn more about people living with schizophrenia and to reduce stigma associated with the disease. Dr. Crane, a psychologist, said her son had schizophrenia before he took his own life at age 25. She knows first-hand the struggle and pain experienced by clients and their families when schizophrenia overshadows their lives and identities. Dr. McDonough, also a psychologist, was drawn to Dr. Crane's idea of using oral history as a way of helping to make the voices of these clients heard. "We asked people with schizophrenia to speak with us and share their stories with people as a way to help folks really see the people behind the disease," McDonough said. "All we see out there are the stereotypes."

The professors shared with the audience a presentation that included the stories of three narrators: Alice, Paul and Derrick. They provided written transcripts of the oral histories, presented their interpretation of what was said, and answered questions. They requested attendees to provide written feedback on the presentation.

The group first heard Alice's recorded audio and saw pictures of her and her artwork, including brightly colored paintings of hands with "World Peace" and "I love you" etched on the palms. "I'm a good person," Alice tells us in her gentle, hesitant way. "I'm not... I'm not dangerous. I'm just... a human being... with a problem."

Paul talks about his spring planting, his compost, and how his crops sustain him when money for food runs low. He also talks directly about stigma, and how it makes him feel. "You have to overcome the beatings, the, the prejudice, the put-down. You're, you're worthless, you're, you're on entitlements.... A second-class citizen stigma. A stigma of being a second-class citizen."

Derrick, a survivor of brutal domestic violence who was homeless for three years, shares his gratitude for small things. "I'm able to ... keep my body clean, clean change of clothes, uh, have somewhere to lay my head at night," he says in recorded audio. McDonough told the audience that he remained optimistic and grateful, despite being beaten by extension cords by his mother, and witnessing a horrific scene in which his mother nearly cut his sister's thumb off with a butcher knife. Crane said that when they returned to visit Derrick a year later, he had died of alcohol poisoning. "If he leaves a legacy, it's about saying who he really is," she said.

Before attending this meeting, I had an image of a "schizophrenic" as someone who talked to himself or had other bizarre behaviors. I imagined someone dangerous, like Aaron Alexis, who claimed he was being controlled by low frequency radio waves before killing 12 people in a Navy Yard. I pictured the disease, not the person; the Schizophrenia Oral History project helped me see what I was missing.

Alice, for example, has a primitive style of painting that seems so innocent, cheerful and optimistic - a stark contrast to the daily tortures she describes when it comes to facing stigma. She is afraid to leave her house because people make fun of her. "What do you do when they make fun of you?" McDonough asks in the recorded audio. "I go home and cry," Alice says. We've all felt this way sometimes, but the recording helped me understand that Alice and other people who are stigmatized feel this way every day.

I felt enormous respect for Paul and the ingenious ways he's managed to achieve stability on his own, despite severe, persistent delusions. Dr. Crane helped me reframe my perception of who's "crazy" and who's not when she showed a picture of the dream catcher Paul placed in his yard; it was surrounded by plastic bottles and other litter strewn about by others. "Is it crazy to go around and hear a voice or wear a flower pot on your head?" she said. "Or is it crazy to pollute the environment you live in and trash your surroundings?"

I felt shock and horror when I heard Derrick narrate events from his childhood involving his abusive mother, her drug abuse, and the way she treated him and his sister. I never expected to encounter someone who endured so much but still had the grace to keep gratitude in his heart.

And I felt enormous respect for Dr. Crane, who was able to transform her grief over the loss of her son into a project that would help others with schizophrenia. Both she and Dr. Crane shared their key insights after each segment. This affective style of learning really appealed to me. Now, nearly two months after the meeting, I still feel empathy for Alice, Paul and Derrick. The atmosphere in the room was one of gratitude for what the narrators and the professors gave of themselves. Personally, I was surprised at how much I learned about my own biases.

Drs. Crane and McDonough taught us about schizophrenia and stigma. Health care professionals in the room, as well as students, and the other attendees, walked away from the meeting with a new understanding of the disease from the human perspective, and a feeling of empathy that is likely to carry over into our interactions with people struggling with this illness.  

The group learned about the universality of our shared human experience, regardless of our cognitive issues. Yes, some of these people hear voices. But they also wake up in the morning, feed the cat, tend their gardens and help their neighbors. Like all human beings, they are both ordinary and extraordinary, with hopes, dreams and talents. Like us, they yearn to contribute to the world. These stories showed us what we have in common with people living with schizophrenia, not what we have to fear.

This NAMI meeting provided support for individuals struggling with an illness and for their families. First, they may be inspired by the narrators' examples of resilience. Second, they can find hope in the project - hope that if more people speak out, and if more of their stories are heard, the unrelenting, daily stigma faced every day by people with schizophrenia may one day be a thing of the past.

Although they weren't present, Alice and Paul would receive our written feedback about their stories. "The feedback is almost always positive," McDonough said. "The narrators are very touched by the feedback. They have said things like 'I feel like I matter for the first time.'" Indeed, one of the goals of the Schizophrenia Oral History Project is to provide a forum for the narrators' voices, she said. The professors invited anyone who wanted to tell their story to become a part of the project, and they distributed contact information at the end of the meeting

This experience is already having an impact on my budding nursing practice. After the meeting, I was so inspired by the professors' work that I contacted them and offered my help in getting more publicity for their website. I thought my previous career as journalist and my knowledge about mass media would be helpful in spreading the word about their web site.

I'm optimistic that my advocacy efforts will mean increased publicity, at least locally and regionally, for the Schizophrenia Oral History Project. This experience has shown me that nurses can think creatively about using all their skills, talents and connections to help vulnerable populations such as the mentally ill. It has given me the courage to be resourceful, pick up the phone and take action when I see a need - just as Drs. Crane and McDonough did. An idea and a desire to help might be all that's needed to start something that can make a difference in the life of a mentally ill person. I feel empowered.

The bigger impact on my practice, though, is that I am really seeing mentally ill clients as three-dimensional human beings. Although I did not meet Alice, Paul and Derrick in person, I feel as though I know them not as patients, but as ordinary people. I thought back to this group meeting while I was working with clients at Pinecrest. One client I met

To find out more about the Schizophrenia Oral History Project, please visit the website at www.schizophreniaoralhistories.com     

2014 NAMIWalk Registration NOW OPEN! 

  

Though it may seem like we just finished the 2013 Walk, here at NAMI Butler County we are already gearing up for this year's walk!  NAMI National has officially opened the registration and information site for the 2014 Butler County NAMIWalk.  Please visit www.namiwalks.org/butlercounty and register yourself as a Team Captain or individual walker for this year!

You CAN use the same username and password from last year's walk site to register for this year.  If you have ANY difficulties, please don't hesitate to contact Alyssa Louagie at (513) 860-8387 or alouagie@nami-bc.org - she would be happy to help you through the registration process or troubleshoot for you!

If this is your first exposure to our annual event, you can view the 2013 NAMIWalk video here to find out what to expect!

Book Review

Membership Update 

 We currently have 93 members as of March 27, 2014 and 1,129 people who receive our email communications. Remember, however, that your NAMI membership is a one-year membership, and therefore needs to be renewed each year. Please don't forget to renew your membership before it expires!  

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Annual Membership Dues:

Individual ...........................................................................$35.00

Each Additional Household Member....................................$10.00

Open Door (Hardship cases).................................................$3.00