What Advice Would You Give? What Advice Do You Wish Someone Would Have Given You?

  A family friend stopped by unexpectedly and began to cry the moment she entered our house. She explained that her son had been diagnosed with a serious mental illness.

She asked me for advice.

It’s easy for those of us who have been dealing with mental disorders for many years to forget how we felt the first time we learned that someone we loved had a brain disorder. But seeing my friend in distress instantly reminded me of how confused, angry and hopeless I had felt when Mike first became ill.

What advice could I share with her? What advice do I wish someone had given me?

A Never Ending Debate

Mental Health America asked me to moderate a thought-provoking panel that featured four nationally-known activists during its annual convention in Washington D.C.

Kay Redfield Jamison doesn’t need an introduction.  Her memoir,  An Unquiet Mind, was the first book I read after my son, Mike, became ill, and it spent five months on the New York Times bestseller list.  She is not only brilliant and well-spoken, but also unassuming.

The other three panelists were new to me.

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