Letter to President Obama

I messaged this to Van Jones on Facebook.  I consider him my inside the Administration man. At least, a person with Obama's ear and email address. I forward him relevant materials. Preserving Medicaid was the most recent issue that I asked for his help prior to the debt ceiling increase and the threats to funding.  

I kept him abreast of situations in different states with examples of individuals affected by State cuts already.  I asked Facebook and Twitter friends to message me their stories.  It is devastating in many cases.  Since Van is a civil/human rights attorney and advocate, I am hoping to elicit his support for our cause. We are denied our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness if we do not receive the accommodations as outlined by Federal law under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
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The massive mental health service sector cutbacks (most always the first thing to be cut when governmental budgetary problems arise) jeopardize not just our rights but our lives.  Many of the most vulnerable are already dying in the streets without needed help or medications.  Those of us with mental health disorders, especially the more serious disorders, are the American version of the East Indian, untouchable caste. Isolated, unwanted, underfunded, considered to hold no value to society.     

I asked Van to email this to President Obama.  That's audacity and hope, right?  

President Obama,

Aloha from Hawaii!! 

I have been an avid supporter since the start.  You showed the world that oppression is an option.  By becoming the first African-American President of the United States of America, with your message of audacity and hope, you proved that anything is possible.  

It is my belief that your influence and willingness to go around the globe delivering powerful speeches to different nations lead to an explosion that resulted in the global upheaval we have seen from oppressed people in Arab nations bonding together to seek freedom from tyranny so they, too, could be set free and rise up as you did.  I gain great inspiration from you.  Thank you. 

I have lived a surreal life. I am completely convinced that it was for a specific reason. My higher destiny is calling me loud and clear.

Socrates had obviously observed and identified people that seemed possessed or acted differently than others, yet did great things or had special gifts and talents beyond the norm.  He said, "In reality, our greatest blessings come to us by way of madness, which indeed is a divine gift." He also separated divine madness from diseased madness. In my case, it appears God gave me both.  I have also been able to turn my own madness from diseased into a more divine, or productive and functional, type madness.  I was considered hopeless in my 20's.  

Our Judeo-Christian tradition throughout the entire Western world is based on these brilliant observations from the Ancient Greek philosopher's finding as they identified the mysteries of their, not yet explained, new-found world.

Aristotle was the greatest and most prolific. From him we received the concept of "politic" or community and "ethics". He believed that they should be linked. He writes of it in the Nichomachean Creed.  Right now we are far away from what he thought should be the appropriate connection between the two.

In Washington D.C., ignorant and under-educated Tea Party congressional members have invaded the Republican party as you know only too well.  For purely selfish and political reasons they are intent on destroying the link that has always existed between the two concepts of the political and the ethical.  Those with mental health disorders, stand to lose the most because we have the least. It is a mass genocide that is proposed, with cuts in entitlements, rent subsidies and Medicaid that are all essential, for many people. 

I envision a movement of people with mental health disorders that rise up and show their value to society. It is possible for us to channel the gift of madness from the diseased to the divine as identified by Socrates long ago  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates   We can and will contribute more to the world while living more fulfilling lives simultaneous.  

My story has been written for me already by simply living a Master planned life. I have been a vehicle. Now, I am ready to tell my story with as much genuine authenticity as I can command.  To tell the world that there is a better way and we need help.

The last advocate for the mental health movement to impact social consciousness about mental health was in 1908. He witnessed a great deal of abuse while he was hospitalized multiple times for depression. He nearly committed suicide after graduating from Yale. Clifford Beers told the world when he wrote about it in A Mind that Found Itself. His legacy was great. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Whittingham_Beers

We need a new champion for our cause with an expansive reach to change fear that causes stigma and poor policy decisions into hope for outrageous possibility. We are your creatives. We are mad and possessed to serve a higher purpose. Our energy must me channeled.

New medications are needed with less restraint. I have some ideas on that as well. It will change the way the brain is understood thereby creating new research on the chemistry of the brain. Current medications hit receptor sites that suppress creativity, productivity and gifts.  

When you put it all together it is clear that a mental health revolution is about to take place. Of this I am certain. I have been to the mountaintop.  I have seen the dream. 

Best regards and Aloha,

Chrys Rosen, M.A.