Thanks, Don. It is powerful to hear the details of your story

Thank you Mary, it is so good to receive your comment. God bless that soft heart. What a spiritual and loving response, thank you.

I was being followed, had drugs snuck into my food, and heard whispers of negativity about me. Did my dentist implant a radio with a filling?

They say that paranoia is a heightened state of awareness. There is always some grain of truth within the paranoia. It took me eight years and five hospitalizations to finally understand what was going on via an excellent therapist that I had to wait two years to see.

She explained to me that I was creating these scenarios to feel more important. My life had been one of low self-esteem.

This is a profound account, God bless you xx you are close to the heart of real Love. Whatever happens, pray to your guardian angel for protection and you will be ok. I am a survivor of psychiatric abuse and at the moment, my only long-term support is from my constant and ever-loving husband (xx Jim) i can only imagine what it must be like to be a war-veteran. I cried for Aleppo ,”( and i didn’t know any of the people there, i live in relative safety in Ireland but my heart is soft and i can actually feel other peoples’ pain. Lord have mercy on the dead, their heartbroken relatives and also be lenient on wrongdoers who often don’t see any other way forward. Mary xx

Thank you so much Dr. Fisher for reading my story. We recently hosted a Emotional CPR training on our unit and it had real impact.

Just like when agencies fight over resources we consumers need inter-agency collaboration, so is true of different modalities in my opinion. I believe they all have their place and when they work together, resources don’t get wasted.

I was one of the casualties of the Alameda COunty Choices program and am a real believer in the need for grassroot local responses to complex problems. We in Oakland had Arizona come in and tell us that in recovery race doesn’t matter. I objected to this openly having done a lot of growing up in the ghetto. I also tried to promote the recovery ethic of risk sharing. The result was that both sides gutted and burned me. This is an example of what happens when modalities and agencies go to war over funding. Consumers don’t get help and money gets wasted and then people say recovery can’t happen. There is little trickle down.

Just like we do in ECPR listening and being genuine is so important. Telling East Oakland that European therapies are the solution because of research conducted in a different social service system can cause objection. It hasn’t worked for me. But bringing people together and learning about shared experiences that is really powerful.

But it’s hard to get anyone to listen to you when politically you are a burned course.

Our ECPR trainer told me, “Wow, your crows was really responsive to this training.”

“Yes,” I said we have really great people down here.”

Many now are taking my suggestions to socially integrate more now with the peer movement now, thanks to your work.