Hello all, I attended my second NAMI support group meeting on Thursday. The first one I attended was somewhat disturbing although I did feel proud of myself that I finally attended one. I took my brother along for support but the leader of the group kindly asked him to leave the room as the meeting was only for people diagnosed with a mental illness.

There was a big table in the room with members sitting around and a few chairs in the back occupied by a couple of other members as well. One guy in the back caught my eye because he had a cowboy hat on, his eyes were closed and he was fanning himself with a piece of paper. He looked kind of intimidating. We were instructed to introduce ourselves and to also talk for a minute about how our week went.

We had a one minute hourglass and we had to stop once all the sand fell through. Each member talked about his/her week and what their diagnosis was. When it came to the guy with the cowboy hat, he simply said his diagnosis "paranoid schizophrenia with depression" and that was it.  He passed the hourglass on to the next member. 

This is the first time that I have ever been in a room with a person with schizophrenia, at least that I was aware of and it immediately made me think about the posts I read on here about stigma.  I was thinking, my goodness, is this why people shy away from people with mental illness?  I was very concerned and started thinking about helping this gentleman.  What meds was he taking, was he going to therapy, etc.   

During my weekly one-on-one meeting with my boss, I told him about my experience.  He asked me if seeing that made me feel proud about what I have been able to accomplish despite schizo-affective diagnosis.  I told him it never crossed my mind.  I was more concerned about the gentleman and how and if I could help him. 

Well needless to say, he wasn't at the second meeting I attended.  I don't know, I am going to make it a point to attend these NAMI meetings every week now.  Hopefully I see him again and that I have the courage to go up and introduce myself.   

I have a hard copy of their Principles of Support and the one principle that I am having a hard time with is #7 "We won't judge anyone's pain as less than our own", especially after losing my brother from his addiction to meth on May 4, 2010 and then my mom last month.  It was rough spending Thanksgiving without her and him and will be even rougher come Christmas. 

We talked about this principle during the second meeting and I had to come to terms that I was just angry.  I have to instill in my mind that we all feel pain, not just me, even though it is very rough right now.  I will work on this very hard.

And to end this on a positive note, on December 14th I celebrated my sixth year of sobriety free from meth and alcohol.

Everybody have a safe holiday and I will post again soon.  I need all the support I can get right now.