mind is mushy

Do you ever have one of those days where your mind is mush? Okay. How MANY days do you have when your mind is mushy? Mine is today. Not much sleep. Too much stress. Here I am trying to pull together something profound to say.

That's when I started thinking about our conference call last week. The best part of it was remembering the faces of the people who were on the call. I'm not lying when I say that I remember everyone I have ever trained in this state and we have trained 112! I hear your voices over the phone and I remember your faces and your smiles and parts of your story. That is almost as good as seeing you. Even as mushy as my mind is today, I remember your face, your voice and your smile. Why? Because you matter. You had an impact on my life. Our lives intersected for a brief period of time and you now have a place reserved just for you in my mind. This makes me very happy.

Why does it make me happy? Because the spot that you occupy in my brain could have gotten filled up with so many other things that are less important or less interesting or less life-changing. I only have so much real estate up there! (Michael says that all the time!) So, my goal is to meet enough life-changing people who take up grooves in my brain that there is no more room for stuff I don't need!

Thank you! For who you are and for what you have done for me.

Lisa

Our Next Conference Call

I hope everyone had a happy and safe 4th of July! It's Monday, time for another blog post!

I wanted to let everyone know that our next IOOV presenters conference call will be taking place next Monday, July 13 starting at 7:30 Eastern/6:30 Central. You all will be receiving an e-mail with instructions on how to get on the call.

Thanks for all that you do for NAMI!

-Logan

New ning site to join!

Dear all,

Happy Monday! Oh, okay. It's just Monday. But I have a great ning site that everyone should sign up with.

http://hopeworkscommunity.ning.com

Larry Drain who lives in Knoxville contacted me through Facebook. Don't know how he found me, but I'm glad he did. He has this wonderful site that has a lot about bipolar disorder and more specifically, hope.

Another site that I strongly urge you to check out (because it is my husband, Michael's site) is www.everyminute.org. It is named that because every minute in this country a suicide is attempted. Go onto the website and check out the Declaration page. This isn't a petition but more a declaration that more and better mental health research is important to you. You can actually sign the page using your mouse. Also check out the videos. They are powerful and great.

These are just additional helps to us. If you haven't signed up for Twitter, do so and follow me! My i.d. is littlebit923. (Don't ask.)

Each one of you is special and gifted. Since I trained each of you, I want you to know that you are dear to my heart, integral to my recovery and in my thoughts and prayers.

Love to all!

Lisa

Urgent message!!!

Hey everyone! We just got this information from our lobbyist. This requires immediate action!! See below:

The House has included in their budget $5,000,000 for restoration of mental health/substance abuse community contracts. The Senate does not have this item in their budget. Please email your legislators TODAY to ask them to SUPPORT AND CONCUR WITH THE MENTAL HEALTH IMPROVEMENTS RECOMMENDED IN THE HOUSE VERSION OF THE BUDGET. We will need to send this email today to both your Senators and Representatives. We are in the final few days of the legislative session. It is very important that we contact our legislators NOW and ask for support of the mental health improvements in the House version of the budget.

If anyone needs to know who your legislator is, contact me (800) 367-4589 or go onto the website http://www.legislature.state.tn.us/.


Thanks in advance for your help in this. This affects all of us, folks!

Lisa

Hello! Is anybody out there?

Hey all! It's Monday and I'm a-bloggin'! I want to share with you my experience presenting lasat Thursday night. I was the keynote speaker at an open house at Skyline Medical Center in Madison, TN (not far from Nashville). Skyline has developed a new "treatment mall" concept for treating their psych patients. It is a great concept. The patients don't spend much time on the floor. They get out and have a selections of the different kinds of groups that they want to attend. Kind of like a college setting. Anyway, they had called Fox 17 TV to the event. They wanted to interview me. So I sat down and did a television interview that played on the 10:00 news. When it was time to speak, I was prepared with notes and had timed it out in my mind so that I wouldn't speak too long. I was sitting up on the stage with a couple of big wigs in Skyline who spoke before me. As I was sitting there, I noticed a man walked into the room. It was my first psychiatrist. He was the one who sent me to Skyline when I was very sick. I saw him for 8 years.

At first, I was very nervous. My heart started to race and I wasn't sure if I could speak. But since I got into recovery, I had always wanted him to see me well. This was my chance. So I swallowed my fear and gave the best speech I could. People were crying and smiling. Y'all know, that means it touched people and was effective. My dr. didn't say anything about knowing me, but I recognized him in the speech. You see, my stay at Skyline was my last hospitalization. It was in large part because of the care that they gave me.

I left the stage and went to Dr. Mathews. He had a big smile on his face and said "I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud you are giving back." We hugged big and I felt like I had truly closed a chapter in my life. I finally was able to let him see what his hard work with me had produced.

Yeah, I got on TV. Yeah, everyone came up to me afterward and hugged me and all of that stuff. But the best part of the night was getting that smile from my dr.

Lisa

Welcome!

Hey everybody and welcome to the most innovative addition to In Our Own Voice in history!!!! Well, maybe not that. But it's darned innovative for us. Big thanks to Logan Black and Teresa Godsey for helping make the conference calls and social networking a reality.

We will be posting blog issues twice a week, usually on Monday and Friday. The issues posted could be questions, topics for you to weigh in on or just general stuff to talk about. I want to encourage each of you to invite other presenters whose email addresses you know to be friends with NAMI TN IOOV. This is a terrific way to keep in touch and to share ideas.

So today's query: What is one message from your own experiences that you feel can lift someone up and give them hope?

Please respond and let's talk!

Lisa

Conference Call

Our conference call last Thursday night hosted by Lisa Corbin with help from Sita went very well. Thanks to all those who called in!