Royal Hawaiian

This was written 2 years ago when I first got the idea to use my blog to introduce myself, gain exposure and try to interest people on social media in my story. I originally intended to write the book  myself. I have many friends on Facebook from Beverly Hills High School, my alma mater, most of whom I did not know back then and still do not know well. Since many are in and/or around the entertainment industry, I hoped to find interest, guidance and after my realization of my limitations, an investor.  On both, Facebook and Twitter I have a number of friends and followers, who requested my friendship or followed me from various creative agencies, publishing houses and studios like Disney and Warner Brothers.  Some of my entertainment friends I sought out and they have readily accepted my requests, or followed me back on Twitter. Given, the vast majority have stuck around, even through two manic episodes and some, very off the wall posting, and they have been tolerant (or appreciative) of my passion for politics and frequent posting done to educate and inform those who don't go out of their way to stay abreast. Presumably, at least, a few came aboard my network, to follow my progress with this project.  

This piece was also my first attempt at dialogue and the reason I stopped deluding myself that I was capable of the this type of writing. My story, or my purpose and goal, of exposing my unusual life in great depth, with no shame, is bigger and better than my writing skills. After I realized that, I decided I would try to find interested writers to help me and an investor to finance the project. I am that bad at it. Consider yourselves warned. But, it does provide another context rich and colorful snippet from my life. 

I stopped working on this 6 months ago when I went into a deep depression, following an lengthy manic episode, I recently returned to the project (5/13). Hope to resume, where I left off. I was asked to offer a more complete picture of my mother, a difficult to write post that is taking some time. It is also taking my willingness to revisit more pain and discomfort than I like. Plus, I must attempt to present her in the most fair and balanced fashion even though, we had very few periods when we got along. Even fewer that were quality mother daughter time. So, it is difficult. She is briefly introduced here and as soon as possible I will post what I am now working on. 

Characters are a hugely important aspect of any story. She was complex and through her is a clear, albeit, embedded message I want to work with the writers to develop. Primarily, the importance of parenting responsibly and the damage inflicted when it is not done right. 

Beloved Psychiatrist, my term of endearment when I write about Dr. Denis Mee-Lee, for my Facebook friends engaged in my life story, came into my life nearly 30 years ago. He has re-parented me in many ways and shown me through his actions and kindness, as well as, by incorporating me into his family, what good parenting looks like. 

I also have a Master's Degree from a Marriage and Family Therapy, doctoral program, which I was not able to complete to PhD degree. I also worked for 5 years as a specialized Multisystemic Therapist with adolescents, their families and their systems surrounding, like school, courts, etc. in an intensive, structured and highly supervised program, where part of my job was teaching parents skills required to parent difficult children. I know how important good parenting is. I know how results of poor parent. To many children are brought into the world by clueless parents and do not receive adequate care, much less, parenting to help them thrive and excel. Because their parents don't know the job description or realize the importance of doing well. Poor parents contribute enormously to societal problems. Lack of monitoring for adolescents is one of the most important.  We could do better with more awareness.  This is a topic of real importance for me to pass on. 

Royal Hawaiian

“It looks like Pepto-Bismol.”  The Charley’s cab driver lowered his head into the collar of his orange and yellow, aloha shirt in an attempt to muffle a laugh. He had overheard my spontaneous reaction after seeing the hotel for the first time.  “There have been a lot of ideas about why it was painted pink"  explained the driver, "one story was that during WWII it was used as a landmark for planes, the pink stands out so it is very visible from the sky.  But I know the real reason because a friend of my friend is related to the family that built it.” 

The driver obviously enjoyed telling us a little of Hawaii’s history and goes on, “This dates back a century ago, at least that is when some of the first families and businesses in Hawaii first got together and started to build the state into a tourist destination. The story involves one medical missionary’s family, the Judd’s and a shipping tycoon’s family, the Wilders.  Also the family of a coal barge captain from San Francisco named Matson and the country of Portugal.” 

“The hotel was built by the Matson’s as a destination for shipboard passengers traveling to Hawaii from the West Coast aboard one of Matson’s passenger liners that were in operation from 1927-1978."  I wondered if all of the cab drivers had to learn this kind of history or did Gerry’s curious mind just innately migrate to this well-informed cabbie. 

“My mom traveled on the Matson Lurline ship from California to Hawaii and stayed here at the Royal Hawaiian hotel in the 50’s sometime,” I offered.   I had heard her tell the story frequently and she shed her typical jaded attitude and showed some excitement when she talked about it. “My mom spoke of how great it was when the locals would swim out to the ship with flower leis to greet passengers as they disembarked on the dock.”    She said that she had especially enjoyed the hotel that I had just equated to a liquid, diarrhea medication. 

I had my reservations about shipboard travel, “I don’t know, I’m not sure I could be on the water that long, the plane takes long enough.”   I was a complete neophyte to traveling. The only trips I had taken were through states on the way to Boeing plants in Colorado, Washington and California when we moved for granddad’s job.  I was 15 years old, with 11 of those years spent with my lower-middle income, working class grandparents. Travel had not been a part of my life.  It was a luxury that didn’t fit their budget or their hard working life style. Mother did take me to San Francisco once when I was 8 years old and we stayed at the Mark Hopkins and dined at the Top of the Mark. That was all my travel experience.  In contrast,  Gerry had taken his kids all over Europe, Hawaii a few times Mexico and they went skiing a lot at different resorts when the kids were younger and he was still with their mom.   Our worlds could not have been farther a part.

The driver continued his story, I tried to tune in to listen, but my mind kept wandering.  I was thinking about my first stepfather, Warren who took mom to Hawaii on the Lurline.  I had seen the picture of the two of them dining aboard the ship.  Mom was picture, perfect beautiful in the photo she looked like Marilyn Monroe in her low cut dress and pearls.   Warren looked a little creepy and he wore a couple very large rings that the picture seemed to accentuate.  He was different than the men in my world in Kansas like my uncles or grandfather and his bridge friends who came with their wives to play every Saturday night with my grandparents.  

Warren and mother went to Las Vegas a lot and he was a high roller in Vegas, mom had once explained.  I had been to his drive-in theater in Junction City, Kansas.   We stayed at his very comfortable, tastefully furnished home on the few occasions that my grandparents would drive the 400 miles from our home in Wichita.  There was a gorgeous handyman at the theater that I had a 10 year old girl, crush on.  I loved to drive through the theater in his open air jeep, in the daytime when the stalls were all empty.  He was really nice to me and I liked to be with him when I visited mom.   I never connected with my first stepfather in any meaningful way.  He was very indifferent towards me as was my mom who showed far more attention to Warren even though I rarely saw her, his needs came first and foremost.  I was just there, so to speak, more of an obligation than a child to love.   I spent much of my time, when in Junction City, with the animals. A great dog and cat that slept curled up next to each other.  There was some warmth with them while it was chilly everywhere else on those rare visits to mom.  I did like to have a little time alone with her , even if it was only helping to make popcorn at the concession stand or serve sodas to the theater customers. 

Warren had a beautiful house in Junction City and owned other properties there and a few other cities.  I lived with my grandparents in Wichita in a yellow house with white trim that mom had purchased for us. She gave grandfather a yellow, Cadillac convertible with pointy fins on the tail end. It was an exact color match with the house.  On grandfather’s salary at Boeing aircraft nothing like that would ever have been possible.  It was an odd dichotomy, we never really did fit into the upper-middle class neighborhood where the house was located. That was when I first started to feel very alone and foreign within my own life. Grandma made my clothes and my bike was really old.  Other kids couldn’t quite understand when I tried to explain my mother to them.  And explain I always did.  I wanted to fit in so badly.  But, I just didn’t with the privileged kids at my new school after we moved to the upscale neighborhood.     

The driver’s voice caught my wandering attention momentarily.  He was still explaining the pink color choice for the hotel’s exterior and the early families of Hawaii, “The Wilder’s boy, Kimo and Kinau, his wife were both unconventional, artist types, on a trip to Europe, they fell in love with Portugal, where he painted for many years.  Pink houses with blue shutters were common there.”  Gerry listened attentively especially after hearing the description of the couple as Bohemian artists with a passion for Portugal. He was in his element and enjoyed this type of in-depth explanation about cultures and people.  He prided himself on not vacationing like an American tourist but immersing himself into the culture of the places where he traveled.  It had been my idea not his, to stay in the Pink Palace of the Pacific since mother had.  And although I was in Hawaii with the 45 year old man that I married when I was only 15, in part, to get far away from her and our chaotic relationship, I still had a fascination with the woman that was now my mother full-time or more accurately tried to be.

We were next in line to pull up to the bellman.  The driver still had not reached his story’s conclusion, assertively Gerry asks, “Okay, why pink? Which family built it, the Wilder’s?”   With few breaths between sentences the driver continued,  “Long story short, Kimo and his wife returned to Hawaii from Portugal and instead of living in the respectable Nu’uanu area, where their families resided, they chose a beachcomber’s life-style on Waikiki beach at Kinau Hale, the Judd’s beach residence, a royal canoe shed of sorts. There was one other part to the inter-family relationships.  Lurline Matson, the youngest daughter fell in love with Billy Roth in San Francisco.  Her family did not accept him because he was Jewish.  However, Kimo and Kinau Wilder had befriended him.  Since the families were all friends and respected one another, when Kimo and Kinau stood up for Billy Roth, the Matsons opened up to him and let Lurline marry him with no objections from them.” 

The hotel doorman was nearing the handle of the cab to open my door when the driver quickly wrapped up his story, “Billy Roth, now Matson's son-in-law was given the job of developing the hotel.  He had seen the pink color of the Wilder’s place down the beach and perhaps even as an homage because the Wilder's had helped Billy to gain acceptance into the Matson family, Billy went to Wilder and said he wanted to use the same color on the hotel.  Wilder agreed and Matson went to Sherwin-Williams.”   One chuckle of acknowledgement between us all and the door opened with the bellman grabbing my hand to help me out.   

I heard only some of the story of pink as my mind drifted to early years.  I was trying to keep up with the life I was now leading.  Rarely did I speak to people in California of my life growing up in Kansas.  I was ashamed of it.  My life was less than others I had met in California.  If it was possible to rewrite my history, I would not have hesitated for a second.   Synthesizing my present life and those earlier times was beyond me, all I could do was deny it and try to forget.  I needed to smoke a joint. It had been hours since the last one at home in California.  A glass of wine or four also quieted my inadequacies and tempered the confusion caused by my strangely juxtaposed life.  The two together guaranteed some internal comfort, at least for a short time.  But keeping the demons away was becoming a full time job.

A synopsis for interested investors

I am convinced that it has ALL been for a reason; this bazaar, off the wall, outside the box, life that I have lead. It had to be just exactly as it has been. Every single struggle, trial and tribulation, missed opportunity, pain and often alone by choice, took place so that I could use my story for this important purpose. To make a difference, by aiming a spotlight, at maximum wattage, on the last minority group to remain silent and still in the closet. Afraid to enter and engage fully with mainstream society, for fear their secret will get out and be met with disapproval and rejection.  As a group, we are feared.  Reality and myth about mental illness has been blurred.  Are mentally ill people more violent than others?  The commonly held belief is yes.  The answer is absolutely not.  The evidence shows, the group responsible for the highest rate of violence are those with access to firearms, in combination with alcohol and drugs.  A rare situation for most mentally ill people, as well it is illegal to sell guns to anyone that has a recorded history.   Not that it doesn't happen anyway occasionally.  But, extensive research contradicts this myth. 

Irrational fear is at the foundation of attitudes, policy making, funding decisions, hiring practices, housing access, relationship status and so much more.  The biggest reason for the unsubstantiated fear is lack of exposure and contact.  Silence has been the unwritten code of conduct when interacting with the general public. Don't freak people out.  Only share the weird stuff among ourselves.  But wouldn't it be cool to hear people say, "I have a mentally ill friend" as a badge of honor.  This project can contribute to making that a reality.  

The timing could not be more perfect. A mass genocide is taking place. Government cutbacks to mental health services have been devastating.  It is always the first cut in budgets when lean times come. We are seen as an expendable underclass. Nevada has made the worst cut backs of any state and not surprisingly their suicide rate has increased significantly. Ninety percent of all people who die by suicide (approximately 40,000 annually) have a diagnosable and treatable psychiatric disorder at the time of their death.  With good services available, insurance to cover it and freedom from the fear of being stigmatized if help is sought, fewer would find it necessary to resort to such a final solution.

Some states have cut many people from Medicaid rolls that no longer even have access to medication. This is a major societal problem with worse-case scenario themes of devastating proportion that affect us all. 

We are an oppressed minority and this is a serious civil/human rights issue. Mental health services are required for us just like ramps for wheel chairs are essential for physically disabled to have access to their pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.  But, many people with typically, invisible mental health disorders, are not getting adequately served.  As a group, we are akin to a Western version of India's untouchable caste.  We are the American Untouchables. 

Other minorities had help from the entertainment industry to come out to the public. With the additional benefit of making it more okay to be African-American or gay, for example.  Please allow me to illustrate just a few examples. 

The television miniseries in 1977, Roots, follows a young African man in 1750, who is captured right after a warrior, coming of age, tribal ritual in his homeland.  We are shown many of the trials endured on the voyage and as slaves suffering horrible abuses.  After gaining freedom from enslavement, one character’s family is victimized by KKK harassment as hate and discrimination didn’t end when slavery did. Eventually, a safe state is found where the family moves and the ending is a grandfather telling the story of the brave, African warrior who was the child’s father, as he explains the rich heritage from whence he came.  Roots was a huge success and very memorable.  The depth of the struggles endured was well illustrated and created a greater compassion and understanding.  For African-Americans, a visual representation of their heritage was empowering. 

La Cage aux Folles introduces the audience to a fun and highly likable gay couple faced with serious discrimination when their son plans to marry the daughter of the head of the Traditions, Family and Morality party. It appears hopeless that consent and approval would ever come, until needing the gay couple's help for a speedy get away from the club, a humorous departure is planned by the couple and a bargain made with the parent's to agree to the marriage.  

Boys Don't Cry, although tragic and true, brought attention to the plight of transgender people. According to Wikipedia, "The film has been cited as one of the most controversial and talked-about films of 1999, initially being assigned an NC-17 rating, later modified to an R rating." And it earned Hillary Swank an Oscar. We need this same type of help coming out of the closet, from the entertainment industry. 

I have an excellent vehicle with my story, Hollywood could not have written a better one, I am certain.  The greatest writer and director ever produced my film (see a Master Planned Life post).  Since I know the story well, I lived the script already; it merely needs to be successfully transferred to words on a page in the most impactful way possible. 

The project unfolded itself before me.  I had hoped for this experience, after hearing Richard Bach talk about Jonathon Livingston Seagull.  He said that, it wrote itself.  He just sat at the typewriter.   I can't claim the full experience, because I recognized my limitations.  Dialogue mostly.  Plus experience.  This project and the important purpose it serves commands professional writers.  But, I can describe and narrate even inject motivation and psychological dynamics at play. '

I have unfolded my story on Facebook and Twitter. My current network is around 4000 friends and followers and growing daily.  I post links to the blog on the social media sites.  Some find it through Google. In the last 6 months, I have had 7600 hits.  For a topic like mine, so feared and discriminated against, that's not to shabby.

I have been told by people in the entertainment industry that many of the stories that I have shared on my sites and the blog are made for the screen. One documentary film maker suggested I stop posting them even because he was fearful for me that some of the more unique scenes would end up in the fictional book or film of someone else.  So, I deleted many. 

My story is told with surprising authenticity and self-insight, thanks to over a million dollars of therapy and making a decision to come out of the closet and not worry about what I am wearing or how I look. Unusual and intriguing people, sets and settings provide a range capable of generating mass appeal. Most books and films about mental illness focus on the pathology, depicting symptoms and treatments, like Sybil. Or maladaptive behaviors, like Girl Interrupted.  Also, abuses within institutions a focus highlighted in Snake Pit and Cuckoo's Nest. Black Swan is, perhaps the only one that portrayed mental illness in conjunction with a somewhat functional and normal life. But, what a tragic conclusion it has. No hope to be found within that story.  More attention has been on portraying differences than similarities to the rest of the population.  Humanizing and commonality with others has been de-emphasized.  Voyeuristic appeals chosen instead, like an auto accident, passersby are compelled to stop and view.   

My story goes from tragic to triumphant in many ways. Perhaps, the most important glory for me now, is that I have fully mainstreamed and maintained my authenticity without needing to hide or shy away.  My personal story and the people in it, humanize the mentally ill, unlike ever before seen in books or films that have targeted a mass audience.

The contexts become characters of sorts, adding dimension with common interests beyond mental illness. For example, the historical period of a few chapters (the 60's-70's, I lived them to the hilt, I want to take the boomers back there through colorful, memorable imagery and sounds with classic rock music).

The geographic areas have intrigue for most anyone, like Beverly Hills High, a tree house camp in Kauai, all the Hawaiian islands except Lanai and Niihau. Both country club and snake pit mental institutions, a real country club in Brentwood.  Plus, many famous and infamous, talented and brilliant, characters.

Most importantly HOPE is offered. My true story of mental illness, actually better stated as psychotic insanity and madness, addiction issues that plagued me throughout much of my journey, multiple hospitalizations and rehab recoveries, and ultimately coming through it all and getting to fulfill what many deemed a delusional pipe dream at one point, to go to college and become a therapist with clients of my own.     

One crucial message I offer is the value of education.  Education was a huge turning point for me as it is for many people.  It was during the Clinton years and educational financial assistance was readily available and I was mentally sound enough with a great deal of assistance from Beloved Psychiatrist (post upcoming...a 28 year relationship).  I got to go to a wonderful, private 4-year college under special student status.  That was the only way to avoid community college because I only had a GED and no SAT score.  I was in my 30's when I finally got a Master’s degree.  I was ready and desirous.  I maintained top notch status on the Dean's List and Honor rolls most all, of the 7 consecutive years. 

I found, much to my surprise that I had a mind filled with curiosity and I became sponge-like soaking in much more knowledge than offered.  Meaning, extensive independent research for papers far exceeding what was expected in both length and depth.  I challenged myself hard.  Over compensation to the nth degree because in the eyes of my earlier world and my own, I was a third class citizen at best.  Plus, I was just so hungry to learn.   I studied the great thinkers and theorists with a gusto that I had never really known. I wrote extensively.  Accolades, praise and awards followed.  My personal feelings of self-value were far below the level of acknowledgement I was getting.  Suffice to say think Amy Winehouse for now.  

To illustrate why I am certain that mass appeal is possible and entertainment value is inherent in my saga, I offer a few samples. I dropped out of Beverly Hills High School (more accurately, they expelled me but I had already dropped out, I rarely went to class) in my Junior year.  The first two years at Beverly High, an active social life and dating the coolest guys kept me showing up. I was a lower-middle class kid in Wichita, Kansas living with my humble grandparents until mother came for me at 11 years old. Beverly Hills was a dream life for me for five years during that time.  But, I heard a different drummer and danced accordingly.  Mother nearly made me award of the court for incorrigibility.  Most likely, along with the many drugs that I was often taking that affected my actions and attitudes, my bipolar disorder symptoms were emerging.  Plus, it was the 60's and antidisestablishmenttarianism, or non-conformity was the ethos of the time. 

My initial preference to class, was the beach during school hours, it was my location of choice. BHHS had it's own beach next to the private Sand and Sea Club. It was called Tee's Beach. I loved the ocean and always stayed in until major pruny, using rubber rafts (pre-boogie board) rented from the concession, to catch waves. 

Later, anti-war activism captures my interest and the UCLA campus radicals are my best buds.  I was introduced to the Yippie movement and found a perfect fit (see "Bye, Bye Carnaby Street. Hello Abbie" post). I help organize demonstrations with HENAC the university's radical group.  They help a small group of us to plan a walk out at Beverly Hills High school.  I had to lead it singlehandedly (the others chickened out and I had to give all the speeches). Hundreds walked off campus at Beverly, as a show of support for Hispanic students during what became a historic multi-school, walk-out of grand proportion that lead to improved conditions in education for students receiving much less than other districts, in the predominantly Hispanic part of LA. Edward James Olmos starred in a film for HBO about the walk-out that included many high schools. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkout_(film) 

At 15, I marry my classmate's, activist dad. He was a Stanford University alumni, a criminal attorney when we met. He had been with O'Melveny and Meyers, the largest entertainment firm in LA, until the civil rights movement compelled him to Selma for the walk with Martin Luther King. At that point, he left his privileged life style and took cases of political prisoners (often for free) or drug related (for barter).  Activism at UCLA is replaced with hitchhiking to the downtown courthouse to be mesmerized by his trial skills, in a high profile case that results in our getting bomb threats at home.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Karenga

 ('Going to Extremes'' - December, 2011 "Royal Hawaiian" - May, 2011 posts are about my marriage)

My genetic predispositions to pathology were propelled into the cosmos, with easy availability of drug quantity and quality befitting a rock star. From Bohemian, artist-filled Venice, CA to a tree house camp in Kauai on Liz Taylor's brother's land during the 60's and early 70's, our few years together provided me wonderful, colorful and unusual scenes and stories. It was also when my symptoms of Bipolar disorder started.

Then the journey begins through many mental hospitals.  They provide interest and intrigue from country club-like settings to snake pits. Also fabulously, interesting and novel therapies. Some are no longer used like psychodrama and it was a very helpful therapy that worked well on an abundance of mommie dearest issues.  I lived with my last Beverly Hills, stepfather and mom, for long stretches of time, during my 20's when I wasn't well enough for my own place.  I would have months and months of lucid time, function reasonably okay and then be overcome by psychotic experiences landing in the various institutions.  

Hawaii is home now and has been for over thirty years.  On Maui, I started AA and got clean and sober the first time for 5 years.  The 12 steps changed me.  I worked them like my life depended on it.  My first 4th step was over 60 pages long.  I did with a priest.  I was afraid that even my AA sponsor couldn't handle the information of my strange world.  

My life changed dramatically. I returned to college and made my first dream a reality.  I found the world’s greatest therapist. Fall in love and let him help remold me in a more functional fashion. Degrees and a perfect job as a family therapist, or Multisystemic therapist (family therapy plus more) for a social service agency here. 

When I foolishly revealed my mental disorder, while making a point to my supervisor, a pink slip followed within days.  A major relapse with extreme mania for many months followed as my mainstream identity and hidden secret gets exposed.  All my education appeared wasted at that point.  It is a small island. No attorney would take my discrimination firing law suit because this type of case is too hard to prove and after all I was crazy, right?  

Since I could not work under an agency license and I do not have my own, I had to get creative.  I designed a workshop program for mental health clients based on both my education and revelations of personal experience and what worked to help me along the way in my recovery. 

I got financing from the State Department of Vocational Rehabilitation.  My new website with be up in coming months (postponed until after this is released/in bookstores).  It is called REACH Growth Workshops.  I have given them locally to excellent reception.  They are quite a novel addition to the limited resources for people with mental health disorders. The 5-part workshop series will be available on DVD with accompanying manuals this year.  

That is small sample.  This project is my passion now. The stories are unfolded in more depth in other posts.  Hopefully, you are inclined to explore my blog a bit more.  If so, enjoy.  I have tried to make my stories interesting and show how I can tie the mental health and other messages (one particular one is on the importance of good parenting) into the stories.  

Embedding the messages while entertaining, amusing, disturbing, and satisfying an audience.  A book and film designed with an entertainment value quotient instead of an educational documentary, is where the mass appeal comes in.   I consider it a platform and podium from which education and enlightenment can be comfortably served up.  Personal appearances to promote the project will extend it even further. 

Basically, my intent to humanize people with mental illness to the general population.  Also, it provides the opportunity to highlight the extreme deficiencies in the system.  As well, the aspects of therapeutic interventions that were valuable.  My story is also is also a teaching instrument.  I could see it being used in college and grad school psychology programs too.  

The bottom line of it all is that with greater understanding and familiarity to de-mystify mental illness, it becomes more socially acceptable and people affected, less feared.  It will be cool to say, "my best friend is mentally ill." At the same time, the closet door is opened wider for the silent minority to find and have a greater voice. Might I add, many quite creative voices for sure.

At the core, my story is triumph over tragedy.  A reality that the LA professionals (Beverly Hill's finest shrinks included) thought could never happen. I proved them wrong.

My vision and motto are a book to movie to change in social consciousness to enduring paradigm shift in treatment, funding and policy decisions. My method is enlightenment and education via entertainment to de-mystify and demonstrate that fear and stigma about people with mental illness is unwarranted.

It is not just those in the lower socio-economic groups that are negatively affected by the current status quo. Many people with good insurance who could seek help, do not. They continue to suffer needlessly.  The primary reason people do not seek help is known. It is stigma.  Stigma is based on fear and ignorance.  Fear of being labeled for life as defective in some way.  Ignorance due to lack of exposure and contact.  

One can only imagine the thwarted dreams, creative contributions, novel solution and problem solving yet unrealized from the mentally ill population, with many, out of the box thinkers.  Research has shown that people with mental illness use divergent or a creative type, thinking mode, predominantly.  Multiplicity of thought in problem solving versus the convergent mode, which is in essence, a deductive type reasoning to a single conclusion, that is used predominantly by most people (more on this in my post REACH Growth Workshops).

It is my absolute, sincerely observed belief, that an untapped resource of talent, creative problem solving skills and many other valuable, societal contributions are forthcoming.  REACH workshops were design and based on this premise.

As a group, we have been disempowered by stigma.  Oftentimes, under-educated (most disorders onset is in the 18-20 range-college age).   Many are insecure in basic needs.  Myself included.  This is my full time job now, as yet unpaid.  Also, we have been marginalized and disenfranchised by a society that would rather not bother.  

I was lucky.  

I have been blessed with marvelous intangible gifts.  I can now say I accept myself exactly as I am, as being perfectly okay. I have learned non-attachment and it is so freeing.  I have learned how to work with and around my moods. I no longer abuse myself with substances or abusive relationships with the wrong people.   I am fully out in my community as someone with a serious mental illness and okay about it. I am comfortable being honest with people in the mainstream.  I have developed self-assurance that allows me to be my authentic self, open and uncensored. I no longer have to hide.   

For someone like me, who spent much of my life without these somewhat basic, common considerations, these are very big deals and not easy to come by.  It has lead to a wonderful peace within.  I am compelled to my core, that I must pass on what I have seen and learned on the road of destruction and recovery.  Pay it forward so others won't have it as hard.  

Reality and myth about mental illness needs to be discerned and separated. Enlightenment and education is the answer. With entertainment value added to the mix, the SKY IS THE LIMIT.

The important social contribution that is the overarching goal of the whole project, combine to make this an excellent investment opportunity. I can be reached directly 808.457-9541 if you are compelled to stop and find out more. Or email chrysrosen@yahoo.com 

So please, if I have piqued a sparkle of interest from any potential investor or writer, don't hesitate to contact me for further information. This could just be the opportunity of a lifetime. The next big thing. Let's start a trend! Entertainment that Makes a Difference with a vital message about possibility, triumph; it is filled with hope for many and ideas for change; the  story demystifies the unknown, makes a valuable social contribution and makes for an excellent enduring legacy of import. ENOUGH DYSTOPIC futures/Smurfs and mindless inanity. We can do better than creative entertainment 2013, my incredibly special 60's into 70's decade that I will recreate for audiences we had psychedelics and great drugs to help. Big Sur chemists Orange Sunshine, anybody? Albert Hoffman, not Leary's recipe.  I sent a tweet out to that effect for chemists of days gone by or new initiates, when I heard Hollywood was remaking The Munsters. It was funny at the time and got RTed a lot. HA. 

The return on investment will be above industry standard, including points. We are thinking 25-30% for any investment that assists me get through until next November 2014, after the mid term elections which I have daily obligations to make a Democrat housekeeping to sweep out ALL Tea Party/anger RINO heartless Republicans. Plus, my Twin Flame (see A Forever Thing) has one remaining child at home and she will finish high school about the same time. Our agreement is not to break up his current nuclear family until diploma is in hand and daddy's girl secure & supported through their last full daily year together. 

The creative team will assemble as a group for an intensive 6-8 month (work residence with separate living properties or one large spread out. Issac investment, which CANNOT even be on his accountants radar but guaranteed $3,000,000 million (can you believe it? 2 mil more than I was asking for or thinking necessary but REALLY good writers for my REALLY EXCELLENT story, in his view, commands the additional 2 mill) 

The development phase and produce one book and one screenplay. We will hire an agent to find the best publishing house and studio. Plus, many people with whom I am now in contact are in positions that can be helpful in finding the right publisher and studio once we have the properties in hand. 

A triumph over tragedy story of mental illness has not been done on this scale. There are a number of self-published stories but they don't have the same reach to a mass audience. 

It is time!! 

For further information: 

808.457.9541  

chrysrosen@yahoo.com

A Master planned life

I have lived a surreal life. It is one so far outside of anyone's typical frame of reference save for those few fully initiated into the bizarre world of the mentally ill. 

Although, I spent many years bemoaning my unfortunate fate; with self-pity a common companion, I am now completely convinced that it all was for a specific reason. A reason so far beyond what I ever imagined. And that my life was designed precisely as it has been by the Master himself for reasons that have become increasingly clear.

My higher destiny purpose is to be used to create positive change for others. I am finding that as I release more of my authentic self without holding back, I discover in my saga what I learned from each incident, the various systemic dynamics, meaning family dysfunctions and environmental circumstances that were far from ideal. My clarity in respect to my own story is flowing through me with heightened, self-insight like I have never before experienced. It is a divine inspired madness as described by Socrates.

I am sane and rational; but possessed. I am a vehicle of transmission. A channel, if you will, to help an oppressed group of people without a voice or a champion; a group still in the proverbial “closet” and very afraid to come out.  If this all sounds strange, I wish upon you a spiritual experience some day.  

Personally, if I written my script it would have been less painful, fewer trials and tribulations, more pleasures and joys. But, that is not how it works and in retrospect maybe this one was just fine because it seems my destiny. As well it seems to be getting better all the time. Most importantly, today I realize that my life is not about me. It is about what I can do to be of service to a larger purpose. I have something to benefit others.  Something that is especially important now as a type of genocide is taking place with cut backs in mental health services at an alarming high.  The time has come and I am ready to tell my story.

A few times it seemed as if a big camera, somewhere in the sky was filming it all. Stage and equipment set just right for me. For example, consider...how does one psychotic woman steal a red, Alfa Romeo convertible 2 times, 2 different cars off from the Otto Zipper Alfa Romeo sales lot in Santa Monica? Then I kept one of them for a month.

The stage was set. The first time I went in asked to test drive, "that red one out there" as if I was a potential buyer. The salesperson handed me the keys and I did not take it back.

I took the car to my apartment. Took the license plate from my roommates car for the brand new Alfa with no plates. I packed a bag with clothes. Stopped at a gas station filled the tank and had no money but gave them jewelry as payment and headed up the Pacific Coast Highway in California.

Along the way I picked up two hitchhikers and after drinking Tequila from a bota bag with them got pulled over. When I stepped out of the Alfa there were 10 rifles pointed at me.

Why did I do that? I thought I was my step-sister Sue. I wanted to be like her. She was everything that I was not but hoped to be. In my troubled mind, with thought disordered thinking from Bipolar I disorder and alcohol/drug abuse, I simply believed, that if I had a car just like the one she bought in Italy, travelled through Europe in then shipped home, that magically I would become her.

The second time, the car was right in front me as I approached the lot again months later. The same model, red, convertible Alfa Romeo Spider, with the top down this time sat right in the service area, keys in the ignition, service slip under the windshield wipers.  My command voices telling me to get in, start the ignition, back up and drive away. I did.

I am convinced, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that my life was Master planned to tell my story.  It all seems so evident now.  

The shame felt when you have a mental health disorder is silencing. I intend to speak. Again, there has never been a more perfect time.  I am ready.