To: cnmhc@yahoogroups.com

From: Andrew Phelps <dis_course@yahoo.com>

Date: Sat, 3 May 2008 10:14:31 -0700 (PDT)

Subject: Re: [cnmhc] Re: Local Boards and Commissions

 

Ddd:

I don't think so. When I became Chair of the Berkeley M.H. (then: Advisory Board, now: Commission) I went to an OMHAB meeting in Santa Rosa. [OMHAB was the precedecessor to CALMHB/C.]

The HORROR was that I was a 'client' and I was representing [!] the City of Berkeley. There were 3-4 'clients' there out of about 80 people.

A founder of National NAMI who represented Alameda Co. came up to me and grabbed my collar. He yelled at me about the behavior of a 'client' whom NAMI had brought to the meeting, WHY CAN'T HE BEHAVE? It's your fault, you [worthless being], you can't advocate for "our children" (viz. the adult children of the NAMI advocates! He was an attorney. I felt humiliated and abused. I wish[ed] I was well-to-do and able to sue him. But I was a '2nd class" person and discrimination against me was NOT ON THE TABLE.

I've known many statewide CAMI [NAMI] leaders and even visited the homes of 2-3, over time. But the soul and spirit of their advocacy has not altered. The questions are always, how do we pull together the client culture well enough so that the truth of our being is part of civil society? And NAMI has always stood four square against that, I'm sorry to say.

Ddd wrote:

Excuse me. With regards to the prevalence of NAMI members sitting on boards and commissions. Maybe we're the only ones with enough interest to serve on the boards.

Maybe NAMI diverts the oversight role of the Boards and Commissions to "compliance is ethics" and "take your meds."

Shame. You should meet people and try to deal with them in a respectful way. If you got to know the client leaders of Sonoma County, you'd find you have misjudged the whys and wherefores of their behavior.

 

Andrew Phelps

who organized the 1994 Consumer Speak-Up in Santa Rosa, in collaboration with the non-client (and non-NAMI) Chair of the M.H.B. [140 people attended, and the next year based on that work Interlink was started.]