After Thanksgiving I can truly say that I am thankful I got to have the opportunity along with 5 other members of NAMI@Emma to attend the NAMI NYS Educational Conference this month. I also would like to express my sincerest gratitude for the scholarships NAMI NYS provided us, which allowed us to partake in the Young Adult Track of the conference on Saturday. I think we all had a great time, although I may be biased considering the fact that I get giddy just talking about the DSM-V. Here's an outline of the day and some highlights:
Photos courtesy of my dad, Bill Wallace, and Marc Dudley.
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For Mental Illness Awareness Week (MIAW) in early October, NAMI@Emma put together a book exhibit in the library called "Walk in Someone Else's Shoes", complete with actual pairs of shoes. This exhibit featured a wide array of fiction and non-fiction accounts of the lives of people living with mental illnesses. When trying to increase empathy between two people, we are often told to step into their shoes, so what better way to decrease stigma than to have people read from the point of view of a person with a mental illness? Here is the link to the NAMI NYS newsletter's feature on the exhibit: http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?ca=3f6c17fa-3466-42a5-ae95-3768c27a4f63&c=a19b00b0-b2f1-11e4-a81e-d4ae527536d1&ch=a1a0a600-b2f1-11e4-a81e-d4ae527536d1 Since I am getting started a little late in the game with my Signature project, some catching up is necessary. For the past 5 meetings of NAMI@Emma, we have worked a lot on defining the terms we will be working with throughout the year. At our first meeting, we discussed the difference between mental illness and mental health, both equally important topics. The easiest way to explain this is through an example using physical health; while a couch potato may be less healthy than an olympic athlete, neither of them are necessarily ill. That being said, if there were a spectrum of general health, the athlete would be more towards the top, while the couch potato would be placed further down. At the very bottom of the spectrum would be actual illness. Such is the case with mental illness, which can generally be defined as an illness that affects mood, behavior, and thoughts, and may interfere with daily life and functioning. And while not everyone is mentally ill, everyone has a mental health that most likely is not in peak condition.
We also had a great discussion the past two meetings about the definition of stigma, why there is stigma, etc. We agreed that stigma can generally be described as a set of negative feelings or stereotypes people have against a certain group of people. Furthermore, we talked about how there are two sides to the stigma surrounding mental illness; at one extreme, the public views the mentally ill as violent and dangerous, and at the other end simply dismisses them as being made up illnesses. I think these discussion should definitely be included in recommended topics of discussion for future NAMI high school clubs, since it is impotent to have a thorough understanding of the basics of mental illness. I think discussions like this are a majority of what we will be doing this semester in the club, because the first step to educating the community and decreasing stigma is to educate ourselves. That being said, we are in the process of planning a Friday night activity for Mental Wellness Month in January, and have decided to collaborate with the Feminism club for National Eating Disorders Awareness Week in February. We are also trying to put together a mental wellness activity for managing stress to be presented to advisor groups That just about encompasses the work we've been doing so. Along with 5 other girls from the club, I will be attending the NAMI NYS Educational Conference this Saturday the 14th, and will certainly write about this. |
Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, but stigma and bias shame us all. -Bill Clinton
Katherine WallaceEmma Willard Class of 2017. Archives
May 2017
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