 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. Welcome to Shrink Rap Hawaii. My name is Steven Phillip Katz. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist right here in Hawaii and I am really tickled because I've got a really great friend and great all-around person with me today and her name is Dana Anderson. Welcome Dana to the show. My pleasure. I'm so glad to be here, Steve. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Thank you. So we were talking just before the show open. We were trying to track where, how we met and we came to the conclusion I think it was through Nami. Basically through Nami Hawaii, yes. So for those of you that don't know, Nami is the National Alliance on Mental Illness and we're both members of the board there and I get tired of hearing myself talk. So why don't you talk a little bit about what Nami is about, what it's for? What Nami is about is it's a nationwide program for families and people who are living with people who are suffering mental illness and it's a resource area for referrals for therapists and people like you but it's also to help people cope with the strains of caretaking of a son, a daughter, a husband, a wife on a daily basis and we all know mental illness is a daily opportunity for difficulty for everyone. So Nami Hawaii has become I think very important to the Honolulu community and to the community on all the islands. We have chapters now, affiliates on almost all of the islands where programs like family to family help people be trained to anticipate problems with a son or a daughter, husband, wife, whatever and how to deal with that on a daily basis. That's the educational program? That's the educational program, yes. And it's free? It's free. It is necessary. It's open to anyone who is living with someone challenged with mental illness or I can not take the course. I want to take the course as a board member but I'm not allowed to take the course because I don't live with anyone who is struggling. Well I think I don't know about the living with. I'm not sure. We could double check. Probably check. Like if you have a son or a daughter who is out on the street, certainly you could use Nami services. Oh absolutely. No it doesn't need to be that immediate but it does need to be... Or even if they're in some sort of a program. Exactly. But there must be the impact on that kind of mother, son, mother, daughter, father, daughter, you know all of that sort of thing where everyone is taken prisoner by the illness. No one ever raised their hand to say oh I think I'd like to be a mentally ill person please. Right. Any more than addiction. I'm in recovery from alcoholism. I didn't come out of the womb with my arm in the air saying I'd like to grow up to be an alcoholic please. And so fortunately I've been in recovery for 28 years but I am sensitive to that sort of same kind of atmosphere or landscape that affects everyone who deals with some form of mental illness. And as you know I run a support group. Yes. There are what five support groups on Oahu now? I believe so, yes. Right. They happen once a month and my experience personally in the support group when I was just a member not the facilitator was it's emotionally overwhelming the first time you come to one of these support groups because it's the first time that you're in front of people that really get it. Yes. So somebody has not been through that first hand there's just no way to I mean training as a therapist really doesn't cut it of course because it's but that's what's so wonderful about it being a peer group. It's the miracle that finally tells you you are not alone. You don't have to go through this all by yourself. There are people like you who are who have their stories that are very much like yours or mine or you know and suddenly that wasteland that you found yourself in coping with a difficult situation doesn't have to be empty anymore and that's the miracle that's what Nami does is to educate public hopefully bring better understanding to what mental illness is and all of its various guises but also to let people know that it's kind of a new normal in a very odd way of putting things and that you don't have to do it by yourself. You know you have help you have people in it with you. I know many people come away from the support group meetings. It's funny. It's I guess it's physically impossible but everybody comes away thinking oh my problems aren't as bad as those there's some comfort in that I guess so because I guess it's like a new normal like you get used to whatever your situation exactly right and but when you hear someone else's and it's a little bit different and new it's like oh that's way worse. I know it's kind of but the new normal as a phrase is really kind of a stunning phrase you know that you it's almost like the exception to the rule is some sort of father knows best family somewhere that I don't think really exists and everyone is affected in some way by mental disturbance of some kind a diagnosable illness one in four is the is the figure that we use one in four people deals with someone themselves or someone in their families with depression or it's so effective disorders or bipolar or all of these things which don't need to carry the stigma that they used to carry yeah and that's part of NAMI's mission also is to eliminate the stigma about mental illness and say wait you know if you have diabetes you treat it with insulin or whatever it is that you have if you have a stroke you do what you need to do to deal with those if you have mental illness you also seek the kind of therapies that you need to help you you know put all of that in a kind of perspective and obviously it doesn't always work it's a very slippery slope as you're very well aware of but hopefully we're bringing more people to understand that they're not alone in this it's not it's not an odd thing it's a it's a normal thing oddly enough so yeah and it's it's really strange how when it's a disease of the brain because that's the most acceptable model right now is it mental illness is a disease right the same as diabetes or anything else but people don't think of it that way no they don't they think oh why is that person acting like that yeah you know off they would just realize like those voices are just in their head yeah right why don't you just tell them you know that he's not the queen of France right right it's as if that's gonna work yeah right or if he had enough willpower it's like the same with alcoholism or substance addiction exactly right it's all like willpower it's like well guess what no it's not it's not right yeah and I don't know maybe people like to think that because if they think that then they think it couldn't happen to them maybe so maybe it's that right it's the randomness of it I suppose or the apparent right randomness of it right it's not totally random we know that it runs in families exactly but still you know somebody can be fine that you hear these we hear these stories somebody's fine and then they're not and then they're not and the adjustment as a parent like for me that has been I wanted to say was but I can't say was because it's an ongoing adjustment every time things are good you you start having all kinds of hopes and dreams again but there's a little voice inside that says be careful you know take it one day at a time yes yes yeah hope is so important yeah so important yeah so it's a balance yeah I mean yeah without hope you fall into depression and that's another major problem sure right if that isn't already a problem yeah but if you begin to I mean the other side of the spectrum is like yeah you have hope but then you you know you start to fantasize like oh it's gone forever I know you know it's a nightmare that went away and now everything's gonna be fine and you know now he or she is gonna have a full-time job and be fine and have a family and everything's gonna be hunky-dory yeah I think that's why support groups are so important because we are reminded to you whether it's a a or whether it's support group for families living with mental illness we're reminded that there is nothing absolutely safe in the world and there's not something absolutely sure that we can depend upon right but we can on a daily basis save our lives minute by minute and in some cases turn that life around on a dime other times no when the diseases are are deeper and more difficult and more complicated as you mentioned with the brain which is such an amazing and mysterious place yeah so how do we how do we do this thing life you know how do we get through this with all of these challenges with family and with people we love and people we want to believe are going to be better forever and ever on men and there's a there's a insecurity about that obviously there's a we can't trust the way we used to trust in other people we can't we can't quite love without wondering oh is that rug going to be pulled out from under us and it makes me sad there's a sort of sorrow for me attached to to the lives we can have but it's there's also a lot of joy for me in the lives that we can make for ourselves with I say a greater you know a higher power because I need to recognize that I didn't I didn't get sober all by myself and the same thing with mental illness with proper treatment and and and people who understand conditions and whether it's pharmaceuticals or whether it's talk therapy or whatever it is that there are our ways for all of us to to hope again and keep the hope alive that this wellness is going to happen so whatever that means you know you made me think I was listening to a interview on the radio with a director of this internet netflix tv series called godless and he used a poem written by a medieval jewish poet and jihuda halevi i think he said the name was and the first line and i'm paraphrasing was something like it takes incredible courage to love that which is touched by death and when you were talking about the sadness you know that anxiety that you're going to love something with the knowledge that the rug could be pulled out from under you that's you got to be brave you have to be brave and you have to trust and you have to risk everything yeah you have to risk everything there's nothing nobody said it's all gonna be good for you you know what why not well i hope this is good for you please hang in there we're going to take a little break and we'll be back in 60 seconds don't touch the mouse hello everyone i'm desoto brown the co-host of human humane architecture which is seen on think tech hawaii every other tuesday at four p.m and with the show's host martin disbang we discuss architecture here in the lion islands and how it not only affects the way we live but other aspects of our life not only here in hawaii but internationally as well so join us for human humane architecture every other tuesday at four p.m on think tech hawaii good afternoon my name is howard wig i am the proud host of cold green a program on think tech hawaii we show at three o'clock in the afternoon every other monday my guests are specialists both from here and the mainland on energy efficiency which means you do more for less electricity and you're generally safer and more comfortable while you're keeping dollars in your pocket welcome back i'm with dana anderson and we're going to switch organizations for a minute or 15 minutes and talk about an organization called osher osher osher yeah osher so what is osher about osher is uh osher is an institute at the university of hawaii where it also appears in other places of higher learning lots of colleges and universities have it and it's an institute for lifelong learning that was established by a man named osher years ago primarily for people who are older in this case 50 years plus older which now makes them children so you can join AARP you can join osher yes exactly exactly and here in hawaii it's a wonderful opportunity for people to take courses kind of in things they've always wanted to take courses in but never wanted to get caught up in a university system i have to take tests or write papers or any of those things that used to scare them you don't get grades you don't get grades oh hallelujah you know and you sit and you have at least in my case in my course that i've just finished giving we had 19 people staying right on through from the very beginning uh the course was called the breathless moment and i had us all looking at art and reading poetry especially mary oliver's poetry um t.s elliott and others for those moments in art or music or or language that catch your breath and exactly that and oh my god you know or suddenly you see something you feel something you your curiosity is is peaked your passion is suddenly wetted and it's just a very very exciting opportunity for for people of who have basically done there done a lot of their lives already and careers and family and all that kind of stuff and then then there's the question what do i do now you know and it's like we're all following this path together of discovery and involvement in and you know whatever it is that peaks our interest so i'm offering a new course in the spring that i'm now immediately going to change the title of i had the title was a dilettante's guide to lots of really good stuff yeah i think i put that i think it was there someplace yeah and um i don't want to call it dilettante because the original meaning of dilettante was lover of the arts but it has over the years degenerated it's taken on almost a pejorative pejorative thing and it makes you if you call your if you're i call you a dilettante i mean you're a a dabbler right someone really good at something not really good at anything basically how did you know i wouldn't want that you know to to cast a kind of negative paul over this whole thing uh but i've chosen some really wonderful things to look at with whoever takes this course uh one being a wrinkle in time by madeline lingo which always was considered a young people's reader but it's not it's a it involves tesseract it involves folding space and time and traveling through it and things that i think we probably missed the first time around if we read it at all before along with that i'm going to have people read the book of joy with by desmond tutu and his holiness the dalai lama and it's a wonderful wonderful compendium of they spent five days together um they laughed they cried they talked love and life and faith and all sorts of stuff and uh particularly in investigating buddhism as a post christianity but there was always this mutuality of love and and respect and and kindness towards one another what struck me is how silly they both could be and could be i know they giggled they giggled they were they were they called each other naughty and rascals and yeah it's hilarious exactly exactly it's like 12 year olds i know i love that and and that kind of joy is what it was all about the book is about cultivating joy in our lives visa visa sorrow that we were just talking about earlier and it's possible to have both you know we do have sorrow in our lives because that's our basic condition as the buddhist would say and we have to cultivate joy in order to kind of give ourselves reason for being so that book is particularly good for that um there's another book we're going to use called lincoln in the bardo and it's a new novel about abraham lincoln having just lost his son his 11 year old son willy to typhoid fever and the president grieved just tremendously just deeply and the the author george saunders uh imagines lincoln in going to the cemetery where willy has been buried and being with him and somehow in the world of fiction he could hold his body and rock with him and uh there is this terrible sorrow that that pervades a lot of that a lot of the president's presence in the cemetery then though comes the joy and some laughter because the ghosts are set afoot at night and can be and they're visited by the goofiest people you want to meet and um so there's a kind of a lovely balance in lincoln in the bardo and the book of joy a bardo is the bardo is that space in buddhism that is between things between this life and the next uh it's like the thin time the christians sometimes refer to where or at halloween all hellos eve we you know that's when the spirits walk in in uh japan there's a whole whole period of hungry artists that are are set afoot for a period of time 24 hours or more to kind of go looking for things that they missed when they were alive so it's a it's a lovely anticipation of of another realm of being of another ether of consciousness and another place to to kind of become a complete spirit so i like that i don't want to think that this is all there is um and i don't you don't have to be a christian to do it or a buddhist or whatever uh but it but it helps to recognize that our ego is not the the the biggest thing in in the universe um one only has to look at the the Hubble photos that have come back from outer space where we see that there are billions and billions of universes beyond ours and billions and billions of years of time since the big bang or whatever and um where do we fit in all that you know where does the spec where does this little person that is steve and dana where do we what do we do with this you know we have this we have this breath we have it for literally a nanosecond in some perspectives cosmic in cosmic time and how do we live it how do we not live with it but how do we live it is is kind of the major question so um i love this stuff and i'm very excited to to be looking at it with a group of very intelligent and uh interesting people most of whom who have had careers of many many many different kinds who have been students who continue to be students or who haven't been a student for for ages so uh it's lovely to to to discover together i have no illusion about being a teacher of any of this it's it's a kind of a mutual discovery uh period um so i'm really looking forward to that i i can the conversations that will happen i'm sure it'll be absolute so if how do how does a person like get there yeah how do you sign up you sign up you you go online they now have online registration and you find uh the osher lifelong learning institute i think you put the get it up on the screen there maybe the thing the other the uh website there it is yeah osher social sciences dot hawaii dot edu and click on that and you will be the new uh i don't think the new catalog is we're quite ready so it's not even online it's not even online yet but this this current catalog is online so it can give you a sense of of who to call what to do as a 50 plus year old human being you can pay 60 dollars and take any three courses that osher offers and they're hugely different some are in film some are in uh the queen how many times does your class meet my class i'm probably going to meet eight times and each time hello two hours wow other courses meet so you get your class basically like for 20 right because you can get three classes for 60 is that what you said or is it just well mine is only one of two other classes you can take right yeah and it's 60 for the whole ball of x it's 60 for three courses it's it's amazing it's it's fabulous yeah yeah and um and the time goes like that and we have a great time and lots of laughter do you know like yet when it's going to be i believe it's going to be on monday's uh morning noon afternoon probably one two four what would that be the four hours two to four there'll be two hours yeah two to four two to four on monday's probably on monday's two to four so just look everybody for the osher website and then find dana anderson's class yes and uh it'll be a great time i'm sure it should be fun it really is i love that description of the bardo time but the bardo time yes i think that's why one of the things that makes hawaii special and particularly for me that i run kailua beach every morning yes yes it's the boundary it is the between the land and the ocean it is exactly that that's what makes it amazing it is you to imagine and it's all spirit all spirit it's all spirit and it's where we really live and and and are able to manage the lives that we have and i think that's a wonderful place to tell you to tune in next time for shrink wrap hawaii and thank you so much dana for coming on the show i loved it thank you wasn't i right it goes by like