Toughest IOOV Audience Question

I love "giving back." Through the IOOV program, I am finally able to do that. My main goals, through telling my story, are to put a face on mental illness, and give hope for recovery from it.

Too many people are still afraid of those of us with a mental illness. One of the ways NAMI fights this is through education. I look at my IOOV presentations as a way of educating people, so that they can see that yes, I have a mental illness, but that I am in recovery, and have the disorder managed very well with treatment.

It's important to me that the audience sees me first as a real person, and then with a person with mental illness.

I always arrive early at my IOOV presentations, so I can meet and greet some of the attendees. They shake my hand, talk awhile, and then most of them are surprised to find that I'm actually the speaker! I've had many people tell me that if they hadn't heard me speak, they wouldn't have even known that I have bipolar disorder.

During the presentation, when we ask for questions, there is usually that inevitably hard question to answer: "What is the best medication for me?" (or for whatever illness they have). I always answer it this way:

"Everybody is different, and what works for one person might not work for another person. The best medication for each person is the one that works the best for them. Working with my psychiatrist, it took me awhile to find the right combination of medication to give me the greatest stability."

I find that after that, other questions are easier to answer. The hardest part is keeping "you statements" out of the answers I give. But I just remember that I'm there to tell my story and to promote NAMI and IOOV, and not to give the audience advice. If they ask for an opinion, I usually start with, "In my experience..." And I have found that those three key words keep me in "I statements" only.

I love doing IOOV presentations, and helping the general public gain knowledge of mental illness that they didn't have before, and encouragement for recovery to those consumers who might be in the audience.

I am so grateful today to be stable and to be a good example of recovery. If I can give hope to just one person, then it is worth it.

God bless,
Michele