August – 2024 – Don’t Walk Alone

I just spent some time alone with myself and Covid, so I have a renewed sense of how isolation can aggravate mental health. It’s hard to struggle with your mental health and even harder to actually talk about it.

When you notice there are changes in the way you are thinking, feeling or behaving and you are feeling distress or trouble functioning in your world, it could be that you are swimming in some lonely waters.

Don’t walk alone when you’re struggling. Alone in your mind can be a dangerous place. Therapy reduces alienation. Online support groups remind you that you’re not alone. Biographies offer hope. Music brings comfort. Nature invigorates. Creating feels good. Movies inspire. And also, there is NAMI.

NAMI is an organization that was created for fellow strugglers of mental illness. Forty five years ago, the National Alliance of Mental Illness was founded by a few people who had family members struggling with mental illness. Sitting around a kitchen table, they realized they were better together. It is hard to know what to do about mental illness. NAMI is trying to change that. They now provide support and education to those in need all over the country. Here are two upcoming NAMI opportunities I want to tell you about:

PATHWAYS TO HOPE is a Free Conference at the Tobin Center for Performing Arts happening Friday and Saturday, August 23 and 24. The conference is about reducing the stigma of mental illness while cultivating support and education for those struggling with or caring for those suffering with mental illness. Register now at https://www.pathwaystohope.net/.

I hope to see you there!

ART FOR ALL is a NAMI and UTSA sponsored project whose mission is to create a safe, compassionate space for people impacted by mental illness through expressive art. We hope to offer one workshop a month with artist directed guidance and demonstration, with a specific focus to encourage playful, non-judgmental expressive creativity. Watch for more information to come about our upcoming first workshop happening in September.

I am with you trying to keep hope alive. These opportunities are just two things to consider on our journey together. I look forward to sharing more opportunities in these next months so we don’t have to walk alone. We just do better together.