NAMI Greater Boston

PSAN Recovery Speaker Series - Rob Macdonald
2023-10-19 18:30 - 19:30 (America/New_York)
Description of Talk
Rob’s Talk will explore his experience overcoming psychosis, substance-use disorder, and hallucinations among other recovery topics. Rob will talk about how different recovery tools worked for him, some conventional, others learned through direct experience, and how the mental health recovery field is rapidly changing often with new treatments and coping skills emerging. Some of the recovery tools talked about will be spirituality, Dual Recovery Anonymous, peer support, service to others, and resilience. Rob will also talk about how creativity, through writing and performing music, lowers stigma and encourages self-expression.
Bio
Rob Macdonald has been working as a peer specialist for the Metro Boston Recovery Learning Community for the past two years, and was previously a volunteer for the MBRLC for the prior two years. Having lived experience with depression, substance-use disorder, and schizoaffective condition Rob has learned to navigate his conditions with a holistic approach of psychiatry, independent research, peer support, spirituality & self-advocacy. After being exposed to the power of peer support at a treatment program, service to others became a cornerstone of Rob’s recovery as he learned that helping others not only gave back but also helped his own recovery. Rob studied philosophy at Portland State University for several years before graduating with a Bachelor’s in Arts & Letters. Learning that creativity and self expression are part of self-care, Rob co-founded two music venues and went on to a music tour through the Pacific Northwest.
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DMR Bi-Monthly meeting
2023-10-20 08:00 - 18:00, 2023-12-15 08:00 - 18:00

PSAN Peer Support Group
2023-10-24 11:00 - 12:45, 2023-10-31 11:00 - 12:45, 2023-11-07 19:00 - 20:45, 2023-11-14 11:00 - 12:45, 2023-11-21 19:00 - 20:45, 2023-11-28 11:00 - 12:45, 2023-12-05 19:00 - 20:45, 2023-12-12 11:00 - 12:45 and 2 more dates

DMR SAN Family-to-Family Class #7
2023-10-24 18:00 - 20:30

DMR SAN Family-to-Family Class #8
2023-10-31 18:00 - 20:30

DMR SAN Family Support Group
2023-11-01 18:00 - 19:30, 2023-12-07 18:00 - 19:30

Latinx SAN - Grupo de Apoyo Familiar
2023-11-15 18:30 - 20:00, 2023-12-20 18:30 - 20:00

PSAN Recovery Speaker Series - Clarence Jordan
2023-11-16 18:30 - 19:30
Clarence Jordan’s talk presentation is designed to level set our understanding of stigma. The Evidence of Stigma Change examines stigma and its many forms and suggests appropriate strategies to minimize each.
About Clarence Jordan

Clarence Jordan is Vice President of Wellness & Recovery for Beacon Health Options. In this role, he provides strategic direction and leadership for the company’s national Wellness & Recovery program. He is responsible for various initiatives to operationalize Beacon Health Options’ commitment to recovery-based principles in the delivery of behavioral health services.
Jordan is a former naval officer and his recovery journey is chronicled in National Council Magazine’s “50 Years, 50 Stories of Recovery” special issue to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Community Mental Health Act.
Clarence Jordan has deep roots in the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and has served multiple terms on its National Board of Directors. Prior to that, as the NAMI Tennessee state office Director of Multicultural Outreach Initiative, he developed and wrote “A Family Guide to Mental Health: What You Need to Know.”
Clarence Jordan received the Consumer Leadership Award at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration (SAMHSA) 2010 National Voice Awards, as well as its 2012 VOICE Awards Fellowship. In 2014, the National Council for Behavioral Health named him its Peer Specialist of the Year.
In 2015 Clarence was selected to serve on the Committee on the Science of Changing Behavioral Health Social Norms, Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. The findings of the Committee were released in a 2017 report “Ending Discrimination Against People with Mental and Substance Use Disorders, The Evidence for Stigma Change.”
In 2022, The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) selected Clarence as a member of the Subject Matter Expert Panel. The Panel was put in place to advise SAMHSA on the development of National Standard Guidance for the certification of Peer Specialist. In 2023, the National Practice Guidelines was released to all stakeholders and the public on peer specialist certification.
Talk Description

Would you be surprised to know that “stigma,” as we know it is unique to this country. For the lack of a better description, stigma or better yet the recovery movement is an outgrowth of the civil rights movement. Why this is important to understand is that many of the remedies to minimize the negative effects have followed the strategies to affect other issues of prejudice and discrimination. The remedies have for the most part been directed toward individuals’ rights, equality in the treatment of individuals with mental illness to those with physical health conditions for example. This presentation was designed to level set our understanding of stigma. The Evidence of Stigma Change examines stigma and its many forms and suggest appropriate strategies to minimize each.

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Spanish Support Group for Caregivers
2023-12-20 18:30 - 20:00, 2024-01-17 18:30 - 20:00
Caregivers can send an email to latinx@namiboston.org or call 781-819-3282 for them to leave a message.

PSAN Recovery Speaker Series - Sabine Mautner
2024-02-01 18:30 - 19:30
“Peer Support in Clinical versus Peer Led Settings”
What are the strengths and challenges of both?
Peer Support has become an acknowledged and valued addition to traditional mental health services. On the other handF
peer-led programs (like Recover Learning Communities) have been around for almost 20 years now and offer peer support
without the add-on of traditional clinical services. How do those two settings compare, what are their strengths and their challenges.
About Sabine Mautner
Sabine Mautner is Service Director of Recovery and Clubhouse Services at Bay Cove Human Services. She has been sharing her lived experience for the past 20 years. Sabine is a WRAP trainer, COAPS trainer, and Alternatives to Suicide trainer. She is trained in Intention Peer Support and has been supervising peer specialists since 2016 and recovery coaches since 2018. At Bay Cove, Sabine supervises Adult Clinical Community Services Peer Specialist, as well as managing the Peer Support Network, part of the Metro Boston Recovery Learning Community. and the Recovery Education and Learning (REAL) program that prepares people for the Certified Peer Specialist Training.

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PSAN Recovery Speaker Series - Major General Gregg F. Martin, PhD, US Army (Ret.)
2024-03-07 18:30 - 19:30
About
Major General Gregg F. Martin, PhD, US Army (Ret.), aka the BIPOLAR GENERAL, is a 36-year Army combat veteran, bipolar survivor, thriver, and warrior, and a retired two-star general. He commanded an engineer company and battalion, and the 130th Engineer Brigade during the first year of the Iraq War. A former president of the National Defense University, commandant of the Army War College, and commander of Fort Leonard Wood, he is a qualified Airborne-Ranger-Engineer and strategist, who holds degrees from West Point, MIT (two master’s and a PhD), and both the Army and Naval war colleges. He unknowingly lived most of his life on the bipolar spectrum, which largely enhanced his performance as a leader, until it went too high and ended his career, threw him into crisis, and led to his hospitalization. Now in his eighth year of bipolar recovery, he is an author, speaker, and ardent mental health advocate, who lives with his wife in Cocoa Beach, Florida. He has three sons, two of whom live with bipolar disorder – an artist and a poet/Special Forces veteran – while the third son is an Army Special Forces officer. Gregg’s life mission now is sharing his bipolar story to help stop the stigma, promote recovery, and save lives. His new book, “Bipolar General: My Forever War with Mental Illness”, is available on Amazon, and co-published by the Naval Institute Press (Jack Clancy’s first publisher), and the Association of the US Army. For more information, visit www.bipolargeneral.com .

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PSAN Recovery Speaker Series - MJ Griego
2024-04-04 18:30 - 19:30
About

MJ Griego is a certified peer specialist and director of The Hope Center recovery learning center in Boston, which offers mental health recovery and community groups online and in person, as well as 1 on 1 support. They have been interested in mental health and human connection from a young age, as well as the arts. They went to school for Sociology and Chinese and then had experience working at a Boston shelter, as well as community experience with offering peer support, mediation, and event organization. During COVID lockdown they focused on digital community building, and in 2021 they started at The Hope Center as a peer group facilitator, then taking over to direct the program in 2022. Since then the program has added new training and more groups than before COVID, offering both online and in-person groups and activities as well as starting 1 on 1 support offerings.
Outside of peer support, MJ has a passion for painting, having vended their art many times and having hundreds of paintings as well as over 40 filled sketchbooks of work. They also love gardening, and live with their chosen family of 7 in a big communal house. They are invested in mutual aid, subversive crisis care, and using trauma recovery as a tool to support people’s ability to work towards our collective healing and liberation.
Talk
I have struggled with mental health since a young age, one of my first memories being of concerning intrusive thoughts that led to my family getting me therapy at age 8. My experience with clinical therapists and psychiatrists has been mostly negative, and unfortunately my first therapy was exploiting my mental health issues for money without providing me support. After this experience my family didn’t try to get me a different therapist, so I went untreated for the rest of my youth. I felt like an alien, being judged for being quiet and not smiling enough. I had a few angry outbursts in elementary school towards others, but quickly learned to turn that anger towards myself and keep my emotional outbursts for when I was alone where no one could see. I kept to myself and made art my passion, and continued to struggle with painful intrusive thoughts and depression as well as fatigue.
I never had the experience of being a child full of energy, I would sit with the adults at parties listening to their conversation or drawing. I craved human connection but struggled finding people who understood me. Unfortunately my mom struggled with untreated mental illness also, going from idolizing me to angry outbursts and then later acting as if nothing had happened and offered no apology or promise for change. I also was pressured heavily by my family to go to college and become a financial provider for them, as we struggled with finances consistently. At one point I broke a tooth and my dental care was expensive so my mom didn’t try to get me help, and I was in pain every day for years.
In senior year I had the opportunity to get a full scholarship to study in Shanghai china. I loved learning Mandarin and being there but unfortunately the program isolated us from the rest of the students, and being on my own away from home gave me the opportunity to see how hard my home life was back in Vermont. When I returned, I could no longer keep my emotional meltdowns and depression hidden away. I found myself anxious and sad almost constantly. Through all this I was still able to apply to college and scholarship programs, and was offered a full ride to Tufts University in boston.
When I started college I continued to struggle severely with mental health. My whole life I experienced violent self loathing thoughts and thoughts of suicide and self harm. What was especially hard were the violent thoughts towards others, which are very stigmatized. Violent thoughts towards ourselves seem to be more socially acceptable to talk about, but it’s rare to hear people validate that violent intrusive thoughts towards others doesn’t mean we will act on them. Anyone who knows me will attest that I am a compassionate person who is able to deal with conflict well and treat people with kindness. Yet every day even crossing the street or being crowded at the grocery store, I would have very upsetting thoughts that took over my life and made me feel unsafe.
I couldn’t hide or pretend I was okay any longer, and my grades suffered enough that I was at risk of losing my scholarship. For this reason, I ended up taking a year off of school to focus on my health. During that time I got a job and my own housing, because I knew living with my family would make me unable to truly heal. I raised my own money to finally get my damaged tooth removed, and get a therapist. That year was incredibly important and I’m very proud that I prioritized my health.
Returning to school I still struggled due to mental illness and chronic pain and fatigue, but I was able to make it through classes. This was when I got gender affirming top surgery, as well as medication that was helpful for my mental health. I really learned to advocate for myself, and unfortunately when I tried to do so with my mom she didn’t validate or believe my mental health problems. I tried to stand up for myself and get her to take some responsibility for her own anger challenges, and she decided to disown me as she picked me up from my surgery and was supposed to be there helping me recover. She simply left and went back to our home state.
This experience destroyed my sense of self which I had built around being a good child to her, and eventually a financial provider. Family was everything to me, and suddenly I didn’t have that. I was forced to be distanced from my brother for years due to this estrangement, and I had PTSD from the experience with chronic nightmares and severe safety concerns for myself.
That was 7 years ago, and it has taken so much time to recover. Now, I have found my own chosen family who respects and loves me, reconnected with my brother, and I almost never have intrusive negative thoughts. I never thought I could feel this good being alive, but it is possible. Perhaps the most important piece of my recovery journey was not just getting therapy and medication and learning about self-help, but taking a lot of time for myself and self acceptance. I had a lot of time where I specifically didn’t say yes to any responsibilities or projects that weren’t necessary, and focused on joy and seeing my life as good enough as is. I was so fixated on helping others that I was putting myself last, and so obsessed with “fixing” myself that I was actually feeling like I would always be broken because of it. Peer support as a framework was especially helpful in focusing on my autonomy and not trying to “fix” anyone, including myself. It also empowered me to value my experience and expertise in my own life. Me and my perspective have value even if we are not helping others or being “productive” to the world. I hope you all get to feel that self love and self value no matter if you still have symptoms sometimes, or if you can’t always be productive or helping others. We are allowed to prioritize ourselves sometimes, especially if we have to make up for love we didn’t get from our childhoods.

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PSAN Recovery Speaker Series - Laura Kaponer
2024-05-02 18:30 - 19:30
About
Laura Kaponer is originally from New York State. She relocated to South Carolina for the second time in 2015 after a difficult bout of depression.
Walking into her first NAMI Connections meeting was truly a turning point in her recovery. For the next three years, her involvement waxed and waned based on where she was in her
recovery.
In 2018 she was inspired at the NAMI SC State Conference to
pursue public advocacy. She began writing monthly articles for two publications local to her, the online publication Thought Catalog, participated in podcast series with PSYCHU, became a Certified Peer Support Specialist, and established her own social media presence.
At the 2019 NAMI SC State Conference she was one of the recipients of the “Stigma Buster of the Year” award. In August 2021 she was appointed the NAMI SC PLC Rep, officially elected into the position at the end of
2022. For her state, she has helped reestablish the NAMI SC Peer Leadership Council with the generous support of the SC state affiliates.
On the national level she was appointed the NAMI PLC Advocacy Subcommittee Chair.
She is a trained connections facilitator, In Our Own Voice Presenter, and three-time NAMI Walks Team Captain.
Advocacy is truly what keeps her heart pumping. Her main passion is to help expand access to mental health services for her peers from healthcare to conferences.

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**Announcement: No Zooming Speaker Series in July due to holiday**
2024-06-17

PSAN Recovery Speaker Series - Mary Phillips
2024-08-01 18:30 - 19:30
[Click on PSAN Recovery Speaker Series – Mary Phillips for details and Zoom info]
About
My name is Mary Phillips and I currently work at the BMC as a peer specialist. We have support groups that people can come in person or join on zoom. I am trained in three NAMI programs; NAMI IOOV, NAMI connections and NAMI peer to peer. I began my journey to become a peer specialist about ten years ago. I started volunteering at the NAMI office in the Schraftt building. This led to me sharing my recovery story at NAMI’s advocacy day at the statehouse.
I currently attend a NAMI support group for myself called NAMIpsan for my own support and to seek out wisdom from its leader. The BMC where I currently work is staffed by people in recovery from mental health struggles as well as addictions. We work together to support members in the community who struggle in these areas. I help facilitate a NAMI connections group there. It is a very positive community and I am really enjoying my work there.
My talk will share who I am, what happened in my mental health journey, what helps me and what’s next for me.

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PSAN Recovery Speaker Series - Priestess Ziona
2024-09-05 18:30 - 19:30
Biography
Priestess Ziona is the CEO of AMRON International Organization and current Outreach Coordinator for Brockton RCC of South East Recovery Learning Community. She is considered a peer in the Mental Health Recovery community and volunteers throughout the peer recovery movement in various organizations. Ziona holds the Howard Trachtman Award, an Honorary Doctorate, amongst other accolades. She used her creative writing talent to express her trauma experiences and became a self-published author. She has shared her story and taught suicide prevention in over 30 schools in Massachusetts. For Ziona, this is the beginning of her making big strides for her career in the recovery field.
About the presentation
In her presentation, she will share part of her story of surviving trauma, surviving multiple suicide attempts, and her road to recovery. Ziona will share information about her project, “Dating With a Diagnosis” © which was started to break the stigma on recovery and relationships. DWAD is about better advocating for our needs and building healthy relationships around us with our spouses/partners, friends, and family. The series merges various recovery-based tools and skills to accomplish the effort of having healthier social connections. Ziona will talk about her chapter in the America Psychiatric Association textbook of Hospital Psychiatry, “From within: A consumer perspective of Psychiatric Hospitals”. She looks forward to answering any questions that may arise during the presentation.
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Meeting ID: 969 8487 4345
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**Announcement: No Zooming Speaker Series in October due to holiday**
2024-10-03
