This speech was given October 20, 1998 to Commissioner Sudders (DMH), Deputy Commissioner Laurie Ansorge (DMA), Richard Sheola (the Partnership MBHP) as an overview of the long range goal consumers/survivors have for themselves in Massachusetts. M-POWER recently was awarded two federal grants: 1) to design and carry out a statewide leadership training project modeled after the Idaho Leadership Academy and 2) to help establish a network such as Jim describes here. M-POWER (617) 929-4111; Web under construction: www.m-power.org
For a long time consumers/survivors in the state have dreamed about having a statewide network in which we are connected to each other. Consumers/survivors believe in having some ongoing presence that is in the state that influences and informs DMA, DMH and the Partnership because these are the agencies in the state that affect our lives so critically.
Our leadership training and statewide network, whatever we decide to name it, would be vital in producing information for DMA, DMH, and the Partnership. It would help to shape the services that come back to us from you.
We want to be partners in our treatment. We feel we deserve this. We feel we have the expertise and the knowledge to do it. With a little bit of help in training, we can deliver consumer/survivor services that only we can offer - because we are the experts of our own experience.
Eleven years ago I used to joke that I needed four things for recovery: A car, a job, an apartment and a girlfriend. I found out that you don't necessarily need SOME of them, but you DO need more than a good psychiatrist, good psychiatric care and a good therapist.
So many of us witness oppression and stigma and make a mental note of it. We see it everywhere in the world once we are labeled with a mental illness. Then we end up with no voice to express the pain and the anger.
When people don't believe what we say time after time, we learn not to speak up. We say, "What good does it do to give voice to my experience?"
But empowerment turns this around. I found out that empowerment involves more than a personal dimension. It involves identifying with a group of people that you feel good about. A group like yourself (in my case people with psychiatric labels.)
With a group, everyone's own personal sense of empowerment increases the intensity of the other people's sense of empowerment.
In a Peer Support Recovery and Outreach Network we become more connected. We share information and we teach each other skills we can 't get anywhere else. The stigma doesn't go away. Stigma is as deep in our culture as racism. But something changes inside a person, and we are no longer crushed by it.
A psychologist once told me "to carry my burden lightly," and I believe this is what he meant by it. Still it IS a burden, but it is a burden that we look forward to removing from each others' shoulders some day.