August 6

Today was the first session of the NAMI Family to Family class I am co-facilitating. It’s my third time teaching it. I forget how vulnerable these family members are, how raw and new it all is for them, how deep in crisis they had to be to get here. It’s been more than a decade since I was in a similar situation, and the pain of love is very real in that room. I don’t know if I do this program justice. I hope it helps. I feel very self-aware in that room, that anything I say could make or ruin someone’s day, week, year. I just go and do my best and hope I say something worth hearing. I wanted very much to do this and even now, almost ten years after my mom died, it’s still very hard to do. I’m beaten and battered and still facing a storm. But then I guess we’re all weathering this thing together. If nothing else, in that room, for those few hours, we are not alone.