Celebrating May as Mental Health Month on Campus

From 10:00 am to 1:40 pm I sat at a little white table in the free speech area of my University to celebrate "May is Mental Health Awareness Month."

I used the following to raise awareness:

~Fliers from www.mentalhealthamerica.net

~A brochure I made myself using campus computers with Microsoft Publisher installed. The brochure highlighted a part of the Americans With Disabilities Act and its impact on those with a mental illness who are attending a federally funded post-secondary school. It also listed good memoirs to read which were written by people with a mental health disorder. I threw in a trivia question about Pulitzer Prize Winner/paranoid schizophrenic/A Beautiful Mind inspiration John Nash for fun, as he is my hero.

~4 books from my personal library:

    "Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide," by Kay Redfield Jamison.
    "Wasted," by Marya Hornbacher.
    "An Unquiet Mind," by Kay Redfield Jamison
    "The Collected Artwork of Martin Ramirez," with drawings by Martin Ramirez.
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Number of people who came up to ask me what I was doing:    2

Number of people who passed by the booth without asking:      100+

Number of friends who stopped by to find out why I ditched class today:   6

All in all I would say that those 2 people who came up to me without knowing me made the day worth it. :)

If you would like to hold a booth at your campus, I would suggest the following:

1)  get in touch with services for students with disabilities office and work the plan out with them (I did and they sponsored me and paid for the booth).
2)  bring peppermints or something to hand out to people. I wish I had had the money to buy peppermints.
3) do not get a table next to a for-profit company that plays dubstep for 4 hours straight and dances around enticing people to look at them and not at the lonely, non-profit, mental health information booth. I like dubstep, but four hours was too long.
4) get in touch with your local NAMI at least two months in advance. My local NAMI chapter did not respond to my emails (I sent two emails), but that is probably because they are preparing for NAMI walks, so I am not hurt.
5) bring a lot of visual aids and always, always, smile!

Thanks for reading and happy may is mental health awareness month!

Preparing to Celebrate May is Mental Health Awareness Month 2012

Dear reader,

I am so happy right now! Thanks to support from a mental health organization, as well as support from my campus Office of Services for Students with Disabilities, I am preparing to hold an event at my University in honor of Mental Health Awareness Month this May! I am thrilled! Ordinarily, I would be apprehensive about talking about my mental illness to my peers on campus, but it is for a larger purpose; equality for the mentally ill! Though I may own up only to my mood disorder and not my accompanying schizophrenia (I am schizo-affective which is bipolar disorder mingled with (paranoid) schizophrenia), I think this is a great opportunity to finally be honest about having a mental illness. I have struggled a lot with this living in compartments, with my mental illness hidden in a corner of my soul and my student persona the only thing visible.

My plan for "May is Mental Health Month" is to have a few tables out in the quad area on campus. The tables will hold brochures with information about major mental illnesses, resources for those who live with them, brochures on the legal rights of people with a mental illness, information on the Americans With Disabilities Act (the ADA), and hopefully, a video that shows famous people with mental illnesses, such as my personal hero, John Nash (inventor of Game Theory and Nobel Prize Winner who lives with paranoid schizophrenia). I already made a 6 minute video using my macbook's iMovie and iDVD programs. Still, I need to show it to my University sponsor, who will need to approve the contents. I would like to just loop the movie and play it over and over on my laptop for anybody interested in stopping by and watching it.

The plan is at its minimal operation. My grandiose plan (yes, I can get grandiose, I still battle with over the top, implausible goals and aspirations) is to reserve a room where we can have a big event. The big event would start with a presenter explaining the history of the treatment of the mentally ill, accompanied by a slideshow. Then, maybe we can play the video I put together of famous people with a mental illness. Next, maybe a few people can talk about living with a mental illness in a society that stigmatizes mental patients. Finally, we can have a series of tables set up and free time for the audience to walk around and see all the tables. One table will be an information and resource table. Another table will have artwork done by local artists with a mental illness. Another table will be a "hall of fame" table where we provide information on successful people who live with a mental illness.

What do you think? I know I can go over the top---but that's the way my mind is built. If we only get approval for a small table with a few pamphlets I will be happy. If we get my grandiose plan approved I will faint from euphoria!

The important thing is that I get this event approved and completed. This means I have to spend the month of April getting things approved, running around getting fliers printed, requesting informational materials, and spending finals week promoting this event. I think I can do it, so long as I spend all day in the library with my textbooks and laptop. 2 hours of studying, 2 hours of promoting, 2 hours of more studying, 2 hours of organizing....good thing I am hypomanic, lol (hypomanic=mild state of mania including feelings of increased energy, ambition, lofty goals, and near hyperactivity)!