I have learned so much in my short life of almost forty years.

I am looking forward to being able to have a good experience doing jury duty in February 2020 and wear my new faux fur. I want to be able to just enjoy an experience that I have never had before at The Trenton Court House. I really feel like even if my life is far from perfect it would be a good choice to make to just appreciate my life and the things I have. I want to be able to help others too and even just being able to make a positive difference in the life of a friend or a family member who has a mental illness too and anyone like a peer who has a mental illness and can also use some help from NAMI. I had a really great experience over the years just being a part of NAMI both as a consumer of the social group and later as a volunteer. NAMI gave me quality of life and their programs and team of staff and volunteers do such good work. Most of the people there are very kind and helpful and just wonderful with a number of supports for people out there struggling with mental illness. I think because I was able to make peace with an illness as difficult as schizophrenia I can try to help others who are affected by mental illness reaching out as a peer who has herself experienced some of the most difficult symptoms among them mean voices before I was fifteen years old. I was scared of my own shadow. I could barely sleep. I know if I have lived experience that are more difficult to describe. I feared so many things. In the past maybe eight or nine years I have had a number of successes that have built up my confidence including being nominated for four blogger awards and thinking of that just being something I can say that is beyond cool that I was able to do. I appreciate both Miss Michelle and Mister Stuart for reaching out to me and caring enough to nominate me and I also appreciate the other bloggers that like the content on my blog even in other countries like France. That is so cool!