Collecting on my inheritance

NAMI claims that mental illnesses are biological brain diseases. Just recently my mother said that my sister had inherited her mental illness from mom. Mom had also passed along lupus to her two daughters. Which leads me to speculate what I inherited and from whom. But there is the statement promulgated by the women’s movement that biology is not destiny.

1. I inherited my dark complexion.

2. I inherited my height.

3. I inherited my drinking although I did not become an alcoholic.

4. I probably inherited some of my intelligence.

5. I inherited my eyesight (all of us wear glasses.)

6. I inherited my looks.

The question is, what did I do with them and how did they become me?

1. I probably inherited my hair from my father.

2. He might have been a drinker, according to mom.

Oops, I slipped back into the inheritance mode.

I believe that the time that I grew up and the things I saw my mother do going out to work often in hospital settings had a profound influence. I was not fated to be hospitalized but to be a helper for others.

My intelligence seems to be related to problem solving. When I was at my worst I could not sit down and think how I got into a problem and how I would be able to escape. The solutions that developed surprised me. I certainly had no idea about being a peer support specialist. The only mental health workers I knew about were social workers years ago.

My general health probably came from my mother, since I have lived far longer than my father.

But what did I do with those years? I don’t know where my writing originated. As a child, I wrote poetry, using pen and paper. Later I graduated to typewriters. But who would have thought I would be sharing my ideas over something called the Internet?

The scientists are hard at work trying to find the genes linked to various diseases, including mental illness. But I would not want to change even if I found out about the strange factors affecting my personality. I am better talking with people in the community than I was behind a library desk.

I am assured that every day will be different and the people I assist will respond in new ways. My co-workers will display new quirks. I will look at people’s strengths differently.  The next 30 years  and the last many years are all on me. Let’s see how good a poker player I can be. It’s not all in the genes.

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Bp Magazine

Every time I see a copy of  Bp I feel like they are writing about my life but I should be wary. It’s a very handsomely produced magazine with the kind of stories I would like to read. They write about the importance getting rid of clutter, finding your right job and financial stability. All of these are thing I have struggled with. The cover price is $7 . The magazine is a partnership with several mainstream mental health groups including NAMI, DBSA and Bring Change to Mind. I found a very discreet drug company ad at the back of one issue.

So committing to buy an issue or subscribe means that you have faith in the organizations that produce it. You feel that they are credible and the information, while it reflects their bias, will lead you to a positive recovery. I receive a lot of information from these groups and I also check out Mind Freedom, Beyond Meds and I used to listen to Madness Radio. To be honest I am working in the mainstream mental health field and I am a consumer of their services. Although I have a history of skepticism about medications and publish articles about the abuses of the drug companies I have tied my recovery to using their medications.

I think some of these mainstream mental health groups are also behind a magazine about schizophrenia that I picked up at the NAMI Wisconsin conference a few weeks ago. And I am planning to join a professional association for those who are assisting consumers working on employment. Especially since so much of my work is focused on this area.

This sounds like I am listening to a reggae song “Coming in from the Cold” which has a line “it’s you I’m talking to.” And an even more memorable line “Would you let the man take your sister? No, man, no. ” I am coming in from the cold and gradually letting go of my old fears because it’s me the mainstream mental health groups are talking to.

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Oh boy my case manager is here!

Yeah, right. I have been thinking about what a hard to find resistant consumer I was.Years ago when I received services from a veterans center I wanted as little to do with case managers as possible. I wanted to set up my standards for recovery. I found the job that eventually led me to my current position. But at the same time I resisted the duties that were assigned to me and was eventually dismissed from the center. In retrospect it was one of the best things that could have happened.

I think back to Bob Dylan’s religious song, Serve Somebody. There was a line that went “It may be the devil or it may be the lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” I was focusing on a girl friend I had in Boston. But instead I should have focused on trust. I should have told myself, “You’re gonna have to trust somebody.” As my life fell apart I was distrustful and tried to manipulate people.  When I became a peer specialist I saw people who were behaving just the way that I did. They had suspicions about their case managers and tried to hide away and develop their own recovery plans.

If their plans included drinking beer all day, so be it. Who were they serving? Themselves or some inner demons? I think back to a friend who participated in groups like NAMI and developed a warm and trusting relationship with a companion. But ultimately he died in the winter snow Who was he serving?

Ultimately my recovery has been based upon developing layers of trust. With consumers, the case managers and the upper management at our agency. I try to tread lightly when necessary as I intrude upon people’s lives because I realize that not too long ago, I was one of those hard to reach people. I have reached a critical mass of people who are getting positive results. It may be relapse or it may be recovery but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.

Going to the conference soon

I took care of errands including checking on my money and now I will be packing a few things to go to the NAMI Wisconsin conference. I reminded the people I normally assist on Friday that I will be out of town. I had been concerned that my pay on my second job might be late but instead it was on time.

One of my co-workers will be at the conference with me. I was interested in the conference because of the list of workshops and breakout sessions. I saw quite a few that I will be checking out. so if there is internet access I may post a message or two from the conference. Happy Days.

Summer internship time will soon be here

Students at Harvard, Butler, Syracuse and elsewhere will soon be flooding the inbox for A Little Local Color attempting to sign on with a prestigious blog. Their internship for this blog could be the game changer for the rest of their life. I still get emails from our former interns thanking me for allowing them to get in on the ground floor of one of the biggest blogs in America. Just write a 250 word essay on the topic Why I Should be the next A Little Local Color intern. Deadline for entries is April 31st.

 

A record number of likes today

Way to go, staff, from the waste management crew, to the director of customer service. Thee associate producer who comes up with all of those wonderful ideas and marketing. Oh my gosh, where would I be without you guys? Just another oddball with internet, that’s what. The whole team brought in all those likes.  Everyone wants a little local color in their lives. We just have to find them. Our blog is going places! Woo! Woo!

Spam, spam, spam!

I have received almost 7600 comments labeled as spam on my wordpress blog. I only published one of these comments because it seemed legitimate. Most of the others are pretty obviously junk. I notice certain email addresses pop up like “sexdate.” Some messages scrambled, in some weird foreign language or written in a very stilted language that I swear I’ve seen on previous messages. Some of these messages praise me while others say I am missing out on vaoluable traff I would be generating if I only clicked “here.” I figure that only a fool would click through so I trash the messages.

I’m very cautious because friends tell me about viruses that capture their computers and send out weird messages using their email addresses. I had to delete a facebook account that had been captured by spammers.  So, with the protection from wordpress and my common sense I feel pretty safe. No junk with get passed along on this site.

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Followers, followers everywhere

My followers include 123 subscribers, 112 twitter followers and 21 likes on Facebook. Some people make comments regularly and there is a steady stream of loyal fans who like certain blog posts. For some reason my message about my former boss Joan Lawrence, who died last year seems to generate a lot of interest. Joan was a positive figure in mental health and I will miss her but it was a struggle to work with her. That may be a reason why people check on that story.

I write about being African-American but but being into “all black everything.” For instance, I would rather listen to a white radical than a black conservative. Or a black fundamentalist preacher.

As for my religion, you could call me a secular humorist.

Politically I am firmly on the left and I suspect many of my readers are, too.

All of this feeds my passion which is mental health recovery That is the main subject I follow so I am glad that others are sharing my interest. Thank you.

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Does work really take all my energy?

I was looking at the statistics for my blog and noticed that my writing has fallen off fairly dramatically since I changed jobs last year. I would have thought that  the excitement would have generated more ideas. You struggle to get out of poverty and begin earning a living wage and then somehow the added stress from work shuts down your brain after 5:00. I’ve got less juice than those ion batteries they talk about in the news.

I get several blog posts per day from several bloggers but I rarely write more than two. Yesterday’s readership zoomed and I think I was attempting to pump up the volume.  Write more, read more. Pretty basic stuff. Today I decided to follow the advice column for wordpress and publish in a different medium.

I saw a video about blacks don’t do atheism and decided to to see whether I could publish a video. Whoa, I am really venturing out here. Maybe in 2015 I will actually do a video and publish it. Or maybe I will find a way to download some pictures from my phone. Creating a facebook page for A Little Local Color was great, as was the idea of publicizing more. I used to hit most of those sites like facebook and twitter but now, it’s simply easier. My writing is automatically sent to those sites.

I have reached a milestone because the number of people who are liking my blog entries has increased, I now have over 10,000 views and I am reaching more people. So the next thing will be getting out of this little apartment to experience more things to stimulate my fertile imagination. Be still, my heart. How will I be able to stand all the excitement?

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Thanks for all the new readers!

I have been publicizing my blog and writing more often but I did not realize until tonight that I have been gaining followers. I talk about my writing with people I meet through the mental health community in Milwaukee but I now have a lot more people who had never read and it’s amazing.

I’ve always enjoyed writing and I remember that it was way I dealt with school and integration. It was a way to feel smart. Writing poems to protest all the wars: Vietnam, Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe, Panama and wherever else our country was bombing, strafing or otherwise occupying. I spoke at rallies, read poems in classes and admired the poetry shared in coffeehouses. I admired poets like Amiri Baraka, Maya Angelou, June Jordan, Sonia Sanchez and Nikki Giovanni. And I longed to be like them.

Many of the best writers use as many different forms of expression as possible. I remember how revolutionary it seemed to have some musicians behind you as you shouted, chanted and let it all out. I remember dazzling light shows and marching and hoping and caring for peace. Yet I don’t wish this to be misconstrued as reminiscing. For if you do not evolve you run the risk of stagnating and that is most definitely not the Kenyatt5a way.

Many of you who see these words on the screen may smile for a moment and think yes I was there too. I had those days in my writing and I see even more surprises, riffs, raffs and talent to be. And it will be. Get off the internet and get back in the fight. Kudos to the readers of my writing. Til the next step.

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