The first time I experienced signs of mental health issues
was when I was 18.
I was a student at CAL Berkeley
working on the Free Speeck Movement to end discrimination
in housing for ethnic minorities.
I went without sleep for about 6 days
and had a nervous breakdown and that was the start of my experience.
[Music]
Over the 10-year time I was in mental health treatment,
I was diagnosed or labeled with 5 different diseases
by 4 different doctors.
I've been diagnosed or labeled
with psychothymic personality disorder,
I've been labeled manic-depressive.
I've been diagnosed as having paranoid schizophrenia.
At age 20 I was diagnosed as chronic schizophrenia undifferentiated.
The only label that made sense to me
was adjustment reaction to adulthood starting Cal Berkeley.
Going berzerkly in Berkeley mamde sense to me.
Adjustment reaction to adulthood.
In the '60s, the system did not believe
that those of us with major mental health issues
could recover and it was very much an authoritarian
kind of medical model approach so when I was hospitalized
I didn't have any rights to have friends,
make telephone calls, have visitors.
I was given shock treatments against my will,
given medications against my will.
There was a period in shock treatments
that I was completely without memory.
I didn't know who I was, what my name was.
I didn't know where I was.
Perceptions were bad.
It was very terrifying to not know, to not have
any memory.
I actually remember being, going through that
just before I lost my memory loss, I was actually
literally tackled by the doctors and forced to get
the shock treatments I really didn't want.
I could tell I was going into this confusion state
so yeah, by far the shock treatment
was the worst thing for me.
The last time I got out of the hospital in '66,
I had gone from being Jay Mahler a person
to being Jay Mahler a mental patient.
A lot of it had to do with my sense of self, my self image.
When I got home, I slept about 20 hours a day for over a year.
But I do think there was something about time being a healing.
Actually that time when I was alone there was some healing
going on.
But the things that really got me going,
there was a funding cut in Alameda County, where the psychiatrist
where I was going just every 3 months
to pick up a big bottle of pills, he lost his job.
So thank goodness there was this funding cut,
because then I got into a group with other people
who had mental health issues, and I had a very good psychologist
named Dr. Moore.
It was Dr. Moore that encouraged me to go
major in psychology so studying other approaches,
going back to school was very important, getting a job.
My mother had passed away, but a good friend of hers
worked for Kelly Girls.
So I actually got, she got me a job
through Kelly Girls working at a drug store,
and that was very significant to my recovery.
So there were a number of things over a several-year period,
including going to church.
It was very important for me to go to church
and kind of get in touch with my spiritual side
that was totally denied and devaluated by the public mental health system.
Today, across the country, started by the
National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, Prayer Days,
National Day of Prayer Days are happening for those of us
with serious mental health issues.
And we know that 80 percent of those
with serious mental health issues are unemployed.
So today, I hope we'll pray that people get jobs.
We know that people with mental health issues are dying
25 years earlier than the general public.
They die at 52 instead of 77.
We recently lost DeWitt, Darnell, Michael Bell.
We pray that we live longer, that we get the
physical health needs that we need.
When I first got involved with the consumer/survivor movement
it was very much anti-public mental health system.
Most consumer/survivors would have nothing to do
with the public mental health system.
So I was the person
who was willing to develop relationships with providers
that shared our approach and to try and work with the system
to listen to us and to do things that would support us.
To me, most importantly the consumer movement is a civil rights movement.
It really started by many of us who have been mistreated and
poorly treated in state hospitals and hospitals, and came together
to try and call attention to what was wrong with the system
and for us to support each other and validate what we had been through.
Currently I work for Alameda County Behavioral Health Care Services
as the Consumer Relations Manager.
We're responsible to make sure
that the consumer voice is reflected in the transforming
of the public mental health system.
Literally what I'm doing now, I'm actually kind of phasing out.
I'm going through a process of retiring and figuring out
what I am going to do.
But you never retire from a cause,
so what I'm really hoping to do is to work on spirituality
and on this 10x10 Campaign which an effort to try and improve
the life expectancy of people with mental health issues.
It is a tragedy that people with serious mental health issues die
on an average 25 years earlier than the general public.
So people with mental health issues are dying at 52 instead of 77.
I think before I had my nervous breakdowns, I didn't have
very much sensitivity to people that were going through
difficult times.
I think that what I have been through personally
has helped me try and be sensitive to other people
who are going through difficult times no matter what kind of situation it is.
And, also I think that being involved in the consumer/survivor movement
has given me a purpose in life.
It gives me something meaningful
and I feel I'm making a contribution.