PROJECT DREAM AGAIN

 SPEAKING from my SOUL

　by ed cooper

July 21, 2010

Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter has a new book out.  I have not read it so this is not a review of the book, but rather a reaction to an article in the July 2, 2010 issue of Psychiatric News about the book.  In that article Mrs. Carter is quoted as saying, “our real problem is not a lack of enough money.”

Everyone is certainly aware that there are problems in how mental health dollars get utilized, but to suggest that there are enough dollars if they were just spent wisely is more than irresponsible.  In fact, I would suggest that she did great harm because now the folks who want to justify cutting mental health budgets can quote her as their expert.

What is the real truth?  Before deinstitutionalization we did not spend the money needed to provide proper care and at no time since deinstitutionalization have we spent the money it takes to properly support persons with severe and persistent mental illness in the community.

People speak as if everyone can reach the same point of recovery on the same timetable.  They speak of being recovered or well.  I am happy for them, but there are many of us that are on a recovery journey that will last our entire lives.  Some of us will need more help than others.  It can’t be done on the cheap.

One thing I have learned in my 61 years on this earth is I can’t speak for anyone but myself.  One should be careful of making generalized statements about persons with the disabling pain of a broken brain.  Each one of us is different.  Each one of us is on our own journey with its hills, valleys, twists, and turns peculiar to the individual road he or she is traveling.  If you want to walk it with a person, they have to lead you because only they know what their next step will be.

This may sound harsh to some, but simply wanting to help is not enough.  Asking the experts is not enough.  Your own experiences is not enough.  If you want to help, ask the person.

THE STAFF

We are all unpaid staff here at Project  Dream Again so we are a very small operation, but we have big dreams.  We dream someday we will not be needed.

Project Dream Again

1) We respect the reality of others and believe that is the starting point for any relationship if one intends to be helpful in the facilitation of healing and recovery even when the other person's reality appears not to be based on one's own understanding of reality or in the larger community's collective understanding of reality.

2) We believe that all human beings are of equal value even while recognizing the apparent inequity in the distribution of abilities and resources found within the human race.

3) We consider the recovery journey to be a path that can be supported by others, but that only the individual can determine the direction, pace, and destination of the recovery journey.

4) We know that authentic recovery is possible and that it should be the goal rather than reform or rehabilitation.

Quote for the Week

July 18, 2010

"Every gun that is made,every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.  This world in arms is not spending money alone.  It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. this is not a way of life at all in any true sense.  Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

Dwight D. Eisenhower

[1890-1969]

34th American president, from a speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1953

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