We Are Stronger Than We Think.

Since I started my blog two and a half month ago.

I shared with the community, two or three times my deepest feelings when I wasn’t at my best (still are), being down and full of doubts and pain.

Every single time I received loads of words of encouragement, support and motivation.

As far as I know this is the best support system that I have encountered in my life. Responsive, quick, efficient full of compassion and empathy, these are the terms that comes to mind when I try to define it.

Eighteen years ago my first diagnosed was rendered to me. I was told that I was suffering from a severe anxiety disorder. It is still, unfortunately, very much part of my makeup (see I Haven’t Been The Same). I would have dreamt to have such support back then in 1992. My diagnose came as a surprise and a shock, suddenly I had a mental illness, it destabilized me. I couldn’t and wouldn’t it share with anyone, except a few close friends as I was, retrospectively ashame of it. My only option was to deal with it with my doctor who happened to be a remarkable psychiatrist. He became my support system. I am still in contact with him on a friendship basis, nothing professional.

I am mentioning this anecdote for the benefit of the younger generation and to make them realize how precious this “virtual” support system is. I put virtual in between quotation marks because it is not really virtual since you have another person on the other side typing, expressing hers or his feelings or support.

I believe it is safe to say that the majority of bloggers within our community suffer from some kind of mental illness and yet are able to produce the most well written pertinent articles being on a specific issues or sharing feelings. I have witness a tremendous amount of creativity by the way of poems, paintings, drawings. We are capable of all this and more.

We are a strong, brilliant and creative community which is totally ignored by society.

I don’t think it is a coeincidence that we are kept in the dark, away from the corporate world. We are a serious threat to them, we were born outside the box therefore it is only natural for us to function outside the box. The rest of them are locked inside this box and wish to think outside of it but are unable to. I speak from experience as I worked most of my life with these people in finance.

Even though I am not feeling at my best the past week or so, I still managed to have another meeting with our lawyer regarding our legal entity. We have come to an agreement that we will set up our Non-Profit NGO under a Genevan Foundation as it is the most sensible setup from a legal point of view. It isn’t difficult to create such an entity, the Foundation will ruled by committee, the challenge will be to find the right people to join the committee. I already have few solid candidates whom I will not contact until the funds are raised, I will preside and be the founder of our NGO, it is crucial that I solidify this position as I don’t want to find myself fired by the rest of the committee once the NGO is known and successful (I personnaly know two cases like this). The staff, if and when will need it will be constituted by mentally handicap people. The only major obstacle is the funding, we need about USD 100,000.00.

The head quarter would be in Geneva Switzerland, next door to the UN and WHO, to name a few, it can be done with half of the amount of money but we run the risk to face a cash crunch very quickly and kill the entire project.

The vast majority of the fund will go to legal and administration fees, the rest will be for an office and to give us time to link with the major international organizations and find sustainable sources of funding for our NGO in order to achieve what we desperately need which is a legal international status with specific laws serving our cause. Once the general public will see the work being achieved by mentally ill individuals, it should take care of breaking already some stigmas.

We represent forty four percent of the world population on a rotating basis, most illness can be cured unlike us the SMDs which count for four percent of the world population.

I firmly believe that we have enough of a critical mass to make things change. It’s going to be very hard as we are a threat to them but we will prevail.

We will only lose if we give up.

 

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