Coordinator's Report

What the Network means to me:

Firstly, as the coordinator, it's my job - my bread and butter. It's been really wonderful for me to have a job I care about and where I'm decently paid. For years I had jobs where either I was bored to tears or else I was on welfare and struggling to make it to the next month.

I remember going to my Credit Union and taking $5 out at a time. So financially it's been incredible to have opportunities to live in a decent place, buy a nice bike, go back to Scotland, go to the dentist etc, etc.
The Network has also been the place where I get to express my creativity and visions for the future. Some of these are:

• peer-led support groups
• a small but growing library
• an intelligent, well-written news letter
• contacts with the consumer survivor' groups who have similar aims - both nationally and internationally
• work done on establishing a Safe House
• a work space where work gets done in a cooperative and relaxed atmosphere, where accommodations are made if needed

Lastly, the Network is a place where I get validated - not first as the coordinator but as a "fellow" consumer survivor, where I can explore my internalized oppression and stigma and explore that oppression as a political issue.

I also get to feel that I'm part of a community, a distinct group in society. This has reduced if not completely eliminated my long-standing alienation and separation from others.

Another gift the Network has given me is the incredible empowerment of realizing that through the pain, despair and suffering I went through in the mental health system I learned so much about what others can benefit from. I have been able to encourage members of the Network and larger mental health community to start their journey of recovery so that they in turn (if they so want) can reach out and help others.

The bottom line for me is that although we don't always get on with each other, the level of intimacy we share is so rich and comforting that up till now the squabbles have all been on the surface. But on the ocean floor is calmness and tranquillity.

Helen Turbett,
Coordinator