The Value of Community: Peer Mental Health and Painted Brain (Ep. 39)

If you have a mental illness, how does isolation add to the challenges you face?

Guest (and self-described schizophrenic) David "Eli" Israelian talks about his story, and two incredible projects:
Painted Brain | Putting Brains To Work! We're building community-based solutions to mental health challenges and the impact of social injustice through arts, advocacy, and enterprise. - 

Painted Brain creates lasting community-based solutions to mental health challenges and the impact of social injustice through arts, advocacy, and enterprise.

and Peer Mental Health:
Community wellness meetings 

 Social and Emotional Support Groups  

 Faith- based support groups 

 Workforce development 

 Stipend & job opportunities

links:
https://www.facebook.com/PeerMentalHealth/
https://www.peermentalhealth.com/
https://paintedbrain.org/ 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_05 0:01

Welcome to our podcast, Schizophrenia, Three Moms in the Trenches. From the place where schizophrenia and real life collide. East Coast, West Coast, Middle America. With Miriam Feldman, Mindy Gryling, and Randy Kay. We are at episode 39. And if you have listened to us before, welcome back to Schizophrenia Three Moms in the Trenches. If it's your first time, we are three moms in the trenches of having a family member with schizophrenia. We've each written books about it. We advocate for it and about it. And we love to bring on guests and learn from them since we are moms and not degreed experts, although we each have our areas of expertise. Today we're going to be talking about the value of community in peer mental health. And Mimi has been talking about our guest, David Eli Israelian, for weeks. And we probably said, bring him on the show. So we I thought it was months.

SPEAKER_03 1:03

She's been talking about him for years.

SPEAKER_05 1:08

Or years. Who knows? So we are pretty much, we just, David Eli, we're going to be calling you Eli, but you may know him as David Israelian. So hence you can see if you're watching on YouTube the two possible first names. But Eli, we usually just start off with a brief hello and who we are, an update of where we are, like a minute each. So let's start with that. I'm Randy. I'm the author of Ben Behind His Voices. My son's name in the book is Ben, not his real name, but that's what he wants to be called. And uh we're having a good week. I gotta say, he's knockwood. So many people have written to us to say, thank you guys are giving me hope. I'm just at the beginning of this journey, and it's good to know that there's a chance for hope. And I will say that community is everything to my son right now. He's had his ups and downs. He's currently in a group home setting where he gets along with everybody. They play taboo, they play, you know, sometimes their groups are just playing charades. It's really wonderful. I really feel like he's thriving right now. And part of that is because he's not living alone and he's getting, he's going to group support and it's making a huge difference. And for us as his family, when we see him on Sunday, he has something to talk about. And it's the first time since he had a job that he is he just is proud of his life and he's just proud of his community. And he has a buddy that he goes to Trader Joe's with. And so it's a it's a nice time for us. The other shoe is always up there waiting to fall, but I'm not looking at it right now. I'm just enjoying the beauty of some ordinary moments, and it's a good thing. It's a good thing. So we're really, really appreciating it. So that's a bit of me. Uh Mindy, you go next because he knows Mimi, but one minute update.

SPEAKER_03 3:01

All right. Hi, Eli. So our son is Jim, and he has schizophrenia since he was 21. He's now 44. And he's we he's been in the emergency room all day today. And we celebrate that because it's for something physical and it's not in the brain. And the reason he's there is because he's lost all over 70 pounds while he's working with a new psychiatrist. He was originally, you know, had that hunger, but no meds or help to get him to not just eat and eat. So he got a hair follicle infected with his skin, you know, kind of folding over as he's lost all this weight. So he had to take antibiotics, and that threw off his blood pressure combined with his psych meds. So he's there dealing with it with a very low blood pressure, and that is so different than most of our other emergency room visits. So we celebrate mere physical problems. He is working too part-time, and that I think I want to talk to, I want to hear more about your work with employment because for our son and for so many, that means so much to their help.

SPEAKER_05 4:17

Thank you. And Mimi, even if Eli knows you briefly for our listeners.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Well, just briefly, I'm Mimi Feldman, and my book is called He Came In With It, and it's about my son Nick, who's 36 now. He was diagnosed when he was about 20. And he's doing fine, he's doing quite well. And um, the he switched to clozapine, as you all know, almost two years. It'll be two years in June, and it's been phenomenal. But where I was talking with Eli about this just recently on the phone, is we're at this point where he's improved so much and he's so much more connected, but I'm trying to build that bridge to get him to just kind of step out of his apartment into the world. And um, Eli is going to be up in our area in Washington in the near future, and I'm gonna try and put together a way for the two of them to meet because I think that would be really great for me. So I'm looking forward to that. But all in all, things are going well.

SPEAKER_05 5:18

Awesome. And you know, the value of community keeps proving itself over and over. And if you're a first-time listener and you think, oh, these women haven't been through anything, read our books. Mindy didn't mention hers, but it's called Fix What You Can. And thank you, Randy. You're welcome. Don't I? I would put it up on YouTube, but you know, in the show notes, it's it's all there.

SPEAKER_03 5:38

But we're not I never remember that or even the title half the time.

unknown 5:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 5:42

You know, we're here to help. And as evidenced by a lovely email I got this week, uh, I out of the blue, and I love this. I mean, I always feel for people who are going through what we've been through because I don't want anyone to go through it. But if you are and we're helping you, that means the world to us. And so I'm not going to say the first name, but somebody wrote and said, I'm not really a support group person, but I found you three to act as the support, a de facto support group. And I can tell you what a support and education it has been. The knowledge, experience, and the sheer strength you all convey lifted me out of a sense of despair. What you were doing is so important. So you have, I sent it to my two cohorts here in within the subject line. I said, get out your tissues. So I think we all did. Thank you so much. That means the world to us. Uh, you can follow us on Facebook. Our page is growing on its own accord. It's got a thousand and thirty-four followers right now. So we try to post on there and we will be posting on there about our first live Ask the Moms episode, which is happening next week, yes, on the evening of St. Patrick's Day, not the eve of, not the night before, but it's 17th of March, because that's when we were all free. And if you go on our Facebook page, you can just go on Facebook, put Schizophrenia Three Moms, and we'll pop up. And we'll put the Zoom link there. It's going to be a Zoom meeting, and you'll be able to ask us questions in the chat. I will keep my eyes on the chat. That's how I think we're going to do it. Later, we'll think about Facebook Live and things like that. But that's coming up next week. YouTube, thank you for subscribing. We're up to 332. And um, we're for this podcast, we're getting close now to 30,000 downloads. We're at 29,374, about 5,000 per month are listening to what we do. So I'm very excited. We've got some shows coming up uh about religion and serious mental illness and how congregations can help their people. We uh definitely have a rabbi and I believe a minister. A past pastor, yeah, minister and pastor. If anybody knows somebody who perhaps could represent uh maybe a priest or a uh someone who could represent Muslim, we would love to have you contact me at randy at randyk.com or put a give us a Facebook message. And we'd like to just talk to religious leaders about how you help your congregants through serious mental illness. And that's an upcoming show. We don't have a date yet. Anyway, that's that's our update. And I want to bring on our guest. So I'm gonna turn it over to Mimi, who brought him on. All I know is what I looked, which is about painted brain, putting brains to work. We're building community-based solutions to mental health challenges and the impact of social injustice through the arts, advocacy, and enterprise. So I'm already impressed, and I will pass it on to Mimi to really introduce our guests and then we'll talk.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Okay, so Eli David or David Eli Israelian. He's the leader of two pretty extraordinary organizations. One is the Painted Brain, which Randy just told you about, and the other is he was the co-founder of that, and he's the founder of Pure Mental Health, which is taking off like a big giant rocket ship, and he has lots to tell us about that, and it's pretty exciting. I met David several years ago when I was preparing for my book to be published, and I was uh dipping my toe into social media, and I ran across the painted brain, and I realized that it was literally down the street from where Nick had lived all those years in LA, and I hadn't known about it, and I was crazy with this would have been the place for Nick to go to, you know, because it's all about the arts and all of that. And so I reached out to David on Instagram, I think. I sent him a message, and we were talking on the phone that night, and um, the rest is history. We've just been throwing ideas around and working on things together ever since. And um I find Eli very inspiring, um, of course, for what he's doing, but really more for who he is and his passion and compassion for other people. Uh, Eli is somebody who deals with schizophrenia and is doing, you know, a hundred times better than most people ever can dream of. And um, when I meet somebody like that, it makes me feel horrible because I always think, why not Nick? But Eli's inclusiveness and his work to answer that question, why not Nick, is why we have him here. So I will shut up now and ask him a couple questions. One thing I'd like to know just briefly, because you know, I see you as this dashing man around town, you know, running your organizations and meeting with people and doing all your tech stuff. And it's hard for me to reconcile that person with my image of somebody with schizophrenia. So, can you give us just a brief little bit of history of like when things started for you and what you went through to get to where you are now?

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Sure. And thank you, Randy, Mindy, and Mimi. I call you Mimi. I see Miriam. Um, thank you so much for having me here to express uh and share my story. Um so mine started in early childhood. I had, I mean, for me it was a slow growth process into understanding even the label, like what is schizophrenia, right? The word, even the root word schiz, is like the split of reality, right? And so I grew up with that. I had no clue that I was being conditioned to accept the fact that what imagination held was also perceived as reality. So I had no clue. It's kind of like the kid with a purple crayon, Harold with a purple crayon. Yeah, and he would draw on the wall, and I actually did that, and my drawings did come to life. My mother would later purchase that book for me. I was obsessed with that book. And at a later, the latter years of my life, not that I'm you know, I'm still here, but in my youth, I would look at that and I would read it, I would watch some of those shows, and I would say, Wow, that was me. I was that kid with the purple crayon. Why wasn't I feeling stigmatized? I was oblivious, I had yet to endure what internalized stigma had to hold or what other people would precede me. And so when I would walk out into the world, you know, of course I was quirky, I had this weird personality, but I didn't understand that what schizophrenia meant for me. And so all I knew was I'm living it, you know, it's kind of like how old were you at this time? I experienced uh my first uh onset of hallucinations, visual hallucinations at the age of four or five. That was during that time, like you know, they'll a therapist once told me, and I don't know if this is completely true, but this is called schizophreniform, early on, like childhood schizophrenia. And so for me, um the first experience that I have where I remember, and it's interesting because I always tell this story where it's tied in with a few sensories. One was the olfactory, right? And the other was the visual, the second was my auditory, and so I would first smell it, and then I would see it, and then I would hear it.

SPEAKER_05 13:52

Can I ask you a question about because I I think childhood, what we now think of as childhood onset schizophrenia, is a little more rare than the mid-teens to later. It sounds like that was simply your reality. A child accepts his reality as reality, but were you exhibiting outer behaviors that made other other people think, oh, something's wrong with my kid? Or oh, you were okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

This was later though. This was by the between the ages of 10 and 15. I would experience, first of all, I'd experience the the time of like the bullying was like normal for me. I would get bullied like left and right, and not because of schizophrenia only, and it wasn't because the kids don't understand that. It's not like I wore a label on my head saying, hey, I'm schizophrenic, make fun of me, right? Um, but it was I was pigeon-toed flat footed, right? So I would, I really had a difficult time walking. And because of the way that my thought process was working, I wasn't always making coherent, like create, you know, composing coherent sentences. And so I also had a stutter. So I went to speech therapy, uh, a speech a speech pathologist, and they would work through that with seven years, and I had struggled just trying to exist, coexist with other students, right? My peers, and I suffered from just my walk to my speech, to then having to deal with my anger that, and also having to deal with divorced parents, and then having schizophrenia like layered. I felt like a cake, several layers of challenges, and like you know, they say you like lick the lick the roll to the tits, lick how many licks does it take to get to the center of the titsu roll? I felt like I was like already there at the first lick. I'm like, wow, I am really struggling.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

So at what point do you remember having an awareness that you have schizophrenia?

SPEAKER_01 15:55

I didn't even know what that honestly, I never the first time it was so funny. I was watching The Beautiful Mind, and I remember thinking, that's so sad.

SPEAKER_02 16:05

This guy sorry.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

How old were you when you watched it? I I don't I honestly I would have to do the math. I would I was uh probably my early teens. Okay, and I remember thinking to myself, wow, this this guy is really struggling, he's got all these you know creative imaginations and the movie came out in 2001. Thank you. So I was in middle school and I remember thinking, it's so sad, you know, he has he doesn't have social etiquette, he doesn't understand how to so I had that awareness, right? And so I did relate, but I related on a different level. I said I too have things that I experience that other people can't see, but I kept interpreting it differently than he did. See where most schizophrenics will try to internalize that and say my ideology or what I experience is real. I kept interpreting it, it's okay that others don't interact with this or collide with it. I am gifted on a spiritual realm, so I kept interpreting them spiritual fourth-dimensional beings that I only engage with and no other could really interact with that unless somehow they also had the the gift, right?

SPEAKER_03 17:27

So it wasn't did your parents know that you had schizophrenia and they just told you, or how were they? Was it what was their level of awareness and when they plug in?

SPEAKER_01 17:39

I come from an old Armenian and Jewish heritage, right? Culture. So a lot of their old beliefs, ideologies kind of impeded in the fact that like if there was any sort of evidence, they didn't know the signs. So they would just bean that as like, oh, he's so imaginative, he's so creative, right? But it wasn't until later that I would, you know, I'll and I'll get to that part so I I won't spoil it. Okay, that they would say, Oh, that's a diagnosis, that's an actual medical condition. Like, we didn't realize that, we just kept writing it off like he's gifted, he's spiritual, he's a shaman to be. But no, it was an actual like he's crazy, you know.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

Like, but see, that's how people were regarded in other times and other places, is they were regarded as shameful.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

They were, yeah. And and cultures that still hold to that have less stigma upon their actual, like the people of their, you know, so it's like it's the chicken or the egg or the the double-edged sword, you know, damn if you're not, damn if you are, but if you're ignorant, less stigma, less stigmatized. But if you're aware, my god, you're watched like a hawk. Oh, was that is he about to step into a psychosis? You better not give him any coffee. Or if has he been sleeping for the last uh few days, or my god, what's gonna happen? You know, and it becomes like you're just a specimen under the microscope being monitored, and that also impedes in your freedom to be. So, yes, absolutely.

unknown 19:12

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 19:13

I imagine that that it must feel that way. And I'm listening to you, and obviously you're very bright and very coherent and very aware, and I think we're all aware that part of look, schizophrenia as a diagnosis has been around forever for centuries. And in I I always I think I say somewhere in my book, if we lived in a tribe, my son could be the medicine man and revered, but we don't live in a tribe. And you know, and what my son's been in the hospital 10 times and does things that frighten people and does things that could be harmful. And so it isn't it isn't just stigma that's his problem. You know, his problem is not functioning in the world as we have it right now, and it not functioning in the way he wants to function. He wants to have a job, he wants to have those things. So I totally get what you're saying. My son was very into Shangri-La and these these books, and uh, and I think it's a one. We just had these incredibly deep discussions about God and not God and and the universe, and we still do at times, but I could tell he was very, very deep into his own, to me, it seemed like a drug-induced state all the time, and it was really his inner thoughts just taking over his outer life little by little. Was there a turning point for you where all of this internal life that it seems like you were keeping to yourself, bullied for, and yet, but somehow it was working for you? Was there a point where suddenly you became unable to function in a way that made sense to you in the outside world and you had to go to the hospital and you got a diagnosis? And because I want to make sure in our 45 minutes we get to where you are now. But you know, was there a point where this inner spiritual life, and we all have that, it's just it goes a little haywire, that things got out of control and you fell and and it turned into a diagnosis that you became aware of?

SPEAKER_01 21:20

Absolutely. I had a rude awakening, I was incarcerated, so that was like my spiritual realization that schizophrenia is actually your worst enemy, right? So it's like it could be your friend, it could be a gift, but so far it's now the outcome of that has become a hindrance for you to move ahead in life, and all the aspirations that I had have gone blunt. And so, what did I do? I well, first of all, I woke up to the smell of urine. I had a blue sheet over my head and I heard the voice of Oprah, and I'm like, whoa, what the hell? What the hell is happening? And I saw this light of like this blue, because the light, you know, this interrogation-looking light is shining against that sheet. And I took it off with the smell of urine still. You know, like, wow, this is like the freshest I've woken up to. What is this? What's this foreign smell? Um, and it's the sound of Oprah, and the TV is playing out, and I'm looking over at it. I'm like, what the hell is that? Why am I here? Where am I? And I have been incarcerated. And I interviewed, uh, not interviewed by Oprah, but Oprah is interviewing somebody and they were playing this, and I was in this transit transitioning glasshouse where they're gonna now take me into county and book me. And so, you know, I had no clue as to okay, and that moment, what am I doing there? Why am I there? And my mind was racing with all of the possibilities. I'm like, I don't drink alcohol, I don't do drugs, I am all organic, free range. Everything about me is pretty or you know, pretty clean.

SPEAKER_05 23:06

So what you were incarcerated and you didn't know why at this point.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

I had no clue, I had no idea. So not yet, at least. Not yet. So then I got transferred over to an interrogation room and I was being interrogated by the FBI. And at that point, I was like, this is like this has to be set up. I am living a script, someone wrote it, I'm I'm being pranked, something's going on, this isn't real, you know. And in that moment, I as I was being interrogated, I asked, I said, Well, you know, what's going on? And they're like, Well, we know what you did. And at that point, I was pretty out of it. So I was coming in and out of like this level of like being lucid and coming back and forth between, you know, being cognitive of the of what I was saying and not saying. And it felt kind of like being on the passenger side of the seat while somebody was driving the car. It was just a weird dichotomy of am I really here right now or am I somewhere sleeping and I'm about to wake up and say, wow, that was a stupid dream.

SPEAKER_03 24:16

Well, how old were you? You know, the description the deep the criminalizing of mental illness is one of my big high horses. My son also has been in jail a few times. And so I'm wondering if you got, whatever you did when you found out what it was, if you got diverted into um help rather than being charged with a crime.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

Well, thank God. Somehow, honestly, it was like by miracle, they did transfer me over to a state hospital. And I did go in and out from the state hospital, and I was transferred over eventually to an outpatient program. Um, and from there I was uh diagnosed where I mean I had an early diagnosis, but I was reaffirmed, yes, you are you know schizophrenic. And by the way, when I say you are schizophrenic, a lot of people will try to correct my language, specifically social workers or advocates.

SPEAKER_03 25:16

Or NAMI. NAMI is done that.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

I think they stop it. The more you run away from the word schizophrenia and you try to coddle people and make them feel really gooey and soft inside, the less they'll take responsibility over what condition they've been born with or what is what what cards they've been dealt with now. So I'm against that whole culture around like, don't trigger people. Oh, be careful, oh be politically correct, oh you're gonna mess it up. Oh my god. Because what you do is you weaken the gen the next generation and the next generation, and they don't want to take responsibility. They're like, it just happened to me, so deal with me. But in reality, it's a lot of my mindset that changes the outcome of my schizophrenia. Honestly, I wish I could like run an entire course, I don't do this yet, on just people living with that condition and just like tempering them to accept it rather than fighting against that current. And so when I say I'm an individual, I'm a schizophrenic, I'm taking the power back of that word and redefining its meaning by what I contribute to society.

SPEAKER_05 26:21

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

Right? When you escape the word, you're giving a lot of power to that word and you're giving meaning and your inferiority, it thrives within society and that fabric where it continues to marginalize those people. Whereas if you said I'm schizophrenic, you're building that value and asset, human capital. And people almost, and I'm not trying to sensationalize this because by no means is it something that is it fun? But when you start to put the value and the gift forward, people understand that this is something that can transform society, it could do a lot of good, or it could do a lot of bad. So let's choose intentionally to do a lot of good with it, and that's you can do that.

SPEAKER_03 27:08

But if we started talking about our sons are schizophrenic, we probably offended.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

I wouldn't want to I wouldn't be offended because you know why? You have the guts, you have the nerves, you have the hood spot to say he's a schizophrenic. And if someone judges you for that and puts you down and says, How dare you call him a schizophrenic by his diagnosis? I would stand there saying, Oh my god, I'm honored. Why? Because look at Nikola Tesla. I'm not gonna like it, it's so typical. People always go to Nikola Tesla, sure. Nikola Tesla changed. He he innovated, he invented, and then he innovated the way that we received power. And that individual lived with schizophrenia and OCD. If we didn't have people that were in this neurodiverse spectrum, we might still be working with rocks, pebbles, and stones and sticks and wood and fire. Like this would never have transitioned. So who cares? Call me schizophrenic, I'll be proud of it. If I need to correct you, I'll correct you. But this whole political correctness culture, cancel culture that I've been experiencing with everybody, I'm against it.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

It's not against David, I'm so with you on that. And you know, my my coming in that is kind of how I am anyway. But in the beginning, all this chippy toeing around, and you can't say this, and you have to say a person with schizophrenia. You can, it was just like I was too busy trying to keep Nick alive.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

Right.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

We're worrying about how I was describing that process.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

Semantics, who cares?

SPEAKER_00 28:39

And and I still get it when I've been when I was on book tour and things like that. I still get please don't say these triggering words, but I agree with you. I mean, it's just like we we have to learn to just say it and then we can move on and try and fix it.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

Yeah, yeah. And it's okay, like all of us are on some diverse neurospectrum that we're not maybe we're not even aware of, we haven't been diagnosed. Who cares? So I was diagnosed because I was on a little bit of the radical, like extreme, you know, right side of that. And then I ended up, you know, getting caught up in the system, you know, and I'm very thankful for those officers that you know caught me up. I'm thankful for the FBI, they did their job. Um, and if anyone's wondering what I did, stay tuned. I'll I'll disclose that in my memoir unless you find it somewhere else on okay.

SPEAKER_05 29:31

But FYI, we're about halfway through our podcast and we haven't gotten to pure mental health. So we want to hear about employment and what you think. You could probably, you know, I mean, you are brought up so many amazing topics, and then we'll I think we'll have to bring you back again to talk about specifically stigma because this has a lot to do with that. And what you've said is very empowering. We only have about 15 or 20 minutes left. So I want to make sure that we also get to, and if you're not gonna say what you did, that's okay. Save it for the memoir. But I want to hear about jumping a bit ahead. I'm assuming you've been hospitalized, or at least you were incarcerated. So you've been through some of the things that many of our listeners' families have been through. I unless I mean, I hate to jump ahead, but I do, I'm gonna say that again because I think I hit my microphone. I hate to jump ahead, but I want to make sure we get to talk about painted brain and pure mental health.

SPEAKER_02 30:29

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 30:29

So if you can uh kind of focus on those things, I I think community is so important and so overlooked, and not just community. Okay, we all have a diagnosis, let's do, you know. You tell me. So let can we bring it to those these things, these wonderful things that you've created, why you created them and how they work and what you want us to know about them.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

Thank you. Thank you so much for re reorienting that. So what does community mean to me? You know, I've I've avoided socializing with people during those during that time, I was avoidant of socializing and going to different gatherings and events and making friends. But I've noticed that when I came into the FSP, the full service partnership uh program that I was in, I won't give them credit for that because I I won't give them their name, not yet. I ended up with um, you know, understanding the meaning, the deeper meaning behind what does it mean to have a community or to lean against that community or to be account held accountable with that community because there's different roles and how you define community, and it depends on how introspective you are as an individual.

SPEAKER_05 31:47

So when you say community, are you saying a community of other people dealing with mental health issues like you?

SPEAKER_01 31:53

Yeah, peers. So people that have shared experience, lived experience with mental illness, that when you speak, they understand, and it's known, it's unspoken, it's not you have to keep reiterating it, like, well, you wouldn't understand because no, you would understand because you also were, you know, hospitalized. So community in the sense of like as a as one of the co-founders of Painted Brain, I reflected a lot of my own recovery path. Like, okay, what is what worked for me should also work for others that might be somewhat similar. Now I am artistic, but I'm very technical. And so I need something that stimulates that part of my mind, although I can still see it as an artist group. And so what I would do is I would hold a workshop with individuals that also had a knack for programming in uh like software programming, and I would put those groups together and individuals come through. I also held digital literacy programs so that individuals that were in the digital divide but didn't have access to devices or understanding how to navigate the UI of smart devices or computers, I would train them on it, and I would take it as far as like, hey, not only did I train you on how to use this device, but why don't you program to create applications or websites with it too? And so we did that.

SPEAKER_03 33:12

How did you gather the people? How did you get a get find like-minded people to candy?

SPEAKER_01 33:17

I just use candy. No, I'm kidding. No, so we we used uh no, we I used um, I basically would put together like a flyer. Unfortunately, I'm really gifted with designing graphics, which I honestly arrogantly tell you that, but I I really don't like it. I don't like the fact that I do graphics well um because it's just too much, it's in the weeds and you get lost in it. But I would take that beautifully designed flyer and I would share it amongst agencies and they would receive it and they would share it with their peers and they would say, Hey, you got are you interested? And then eventually they would show up to the community center at Painted Brain, and we would hold these workshops, and I would train them. Eventually, they would become trainers. So it's using a peer-to-peer model, the train-to-trainer model.

SPEAKER_05 34:05

Was it all software coding? We use or was it were there other clients? Like, what did the flyer say?

SPEAKER_01 34:10

It said how to build a website, how to build a web application, how to build come and learn how to do this, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:17

We also did art stuff too, right? There were people basically doing things there.

SPEAKER_01 34:23

I did some of that, but I didn't like that.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

But I mean, that was happening at Party.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

Yeah, that was happening there, but we I personally didn't, you know, I didn't like, you know, getting I I mean, I love art, but it's I was just so focused on tech. So um with now with Painted Brain, we're now um the leading agency for training peers, uh, a reflection of the SB 803, the Senate bill that was passed recently that provides um peer sports or peers with training to become a peer sports specialist, but then they go and they get uh you know hired by an agency and get reimbursed through Medi-Cal equivalent to the Medicaid system.

SPEAKER_03 35:06

So for people who don't know, you're in California. So did you work on legislation? Did you go to the Capitol?

SPEAKER_01 35:12

I'm a former legislator, so I'm interested in how that I technically would I I visited a few times, but I wouldn't say that I spoke in terms, I think our my organization indirectly impacted, you know, like we were in the coalition letter for Governor Newsom to sign off on that bill. We were as one of the organizations representing that, and we got it passed through. Now we're one of the leading agencies for that training. And so, you know, congratulations. Thank you, thank you. That was a big game changer because we're thinking about in terms of like, you know, we have a peer support model, we have we're peer run, so everybody for the most part identifies as a peer with lived experience, right?

SPEAKER_04 35:55

And it's like number one peer you got it, run mental health organization.

SPEAKER_01 36:03

We got it, and so from from that end, we know we wanted to, you know, how do we? I don't want to say this like in a funny stuff, but pure purify, not purify, but purify. Purify, I can uh I'll coin that one, but but that's the point, right? How do you empower the peers so that you can scale? And then how do you keep it sustained? How is it sustainable? Right? So when you're working through Medicaid, our equivalent is Medical. Now peers can provide not only get the training, but then provide an hour to another peer and get reimbursed for that rather than putting the burden on an agency, like, hey, go look for a grant, go look for other funding sources so that you can pay so-and-so to provide that hour.

SPEAKER_05 36:48

So this is this is a because I don't live in California. So I where in California did this originate? What city? Los Angeles?

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Across all the counties. You're uh this this Senate bill that you know, everybody was well aware of the city.

SPEAKER_05 37:02

Right, but I mean Painted Brain, this center.

SPEAKER_01 37:04

Oh, yeah, was right out of LA County, right in Koreatown, was where it was birthed.

SPEAKER_05 37:12

Okay, so you drew from the local area, and is this center still functioning?

SPEAKER_01 37:18

Absolutely. We have a center off of Pico and Robertson area.

SPEAKER_05 37:22

Okay, I used to live there, so I know it. Okay. Um, so this is, I'm just trying to understand as an outsider who doesn't know. So this is a center and also a website, and has this spread to other areas like the clubhouse movement that has you know spawned sort of copycat organizations. And I want to because you have so that website is painted brain dot something.org, you got it.

SPEAKER_01 37:51

So it's we're definitely in the paradigm of a clubhouse model. However, we do emphasize on workforce. So the clubhouse has a volunteership model. Got it. Where we don't, I mean, we have volunteers, but if you take the ratio between volunteers and people that are paid to operate the center, it's definitely, you know, 80% I would say are getting paid, 20% are volunteering, but even that has reduced since COVID. And so for us, because you know, it's expensive to live in LA. And so this whole idea around volunteership, it's not always, you know, one may not be privileged to have that opportunity to say, you know, I want to give back or pay forward. So we have that model where you know the peer workforce is a is a huge emphasis, and so we look for different ways now with this SB803, it's going to be more sustainable.

SPEAKER_03 38:48

That's amazing. Do people go from working for painted brain to other jobs? Is that part of your mission? Or is it just they get the jobs there?

SPEAKER_01 38:57

Yeah, job referral agency. Now we we have done that in the past, and it's usually when we don't have a position available, but for the most part, when individuals apply, it's because we intentionally put out a position as a peer job, a peer trainer to come on board with the organization. Otherwise, you know, we have done some referrals, um, but we try to we're we're really attempting to scale the organization so that we don't lose anybody to another organization. And not to say that there isn't enough room for competition, but definitely we're you know in the leading. Um, but I want to also share about peer mental health, and that's yeah, that was the next question.

SPEAKER_05 39:38

Uh because I wanted to ask uh about peer mental health and and the websites associated with these. Uh the programs sound amazing. I am curious about what happened emotionally when peers were able to get together and help each other get trained and get employment. Like, and how did it feel for you to gather peers and make yourself a community and you and make not and not just a volunteer community, as you say, although there's certainly value in that as well, but have good uh certainly good financial things have happened and good medical things have happened. Emotionally, what happened when you found a community of people? And then tell us about pure mental health, because I think that ties into that.

SPEAKER_01 40:32

It's definitely challenging to be honest with you. So you build a community, right? You're thinking from the perspective of enterprise business, like you're a business person. And so there is a fine line between boundaries. Like when you are building this community, you have peers coming through, but the engagement between those peers and yourself as a professional, you have those boundaries that you have to set up because you're operating the company. So it's difficult to get so close as I used to be. And I've noticed that it's been very difficult to make myself so vulnerable and open because it's it creates uh weird dynamics. And I and I just want to be that transparent to say I appreciate and love community, and I definitely have built it, but outside now, as I built this community with Dave and Rachel Chambers, um, you know, with Painted Brain, it's difficult to then you could, you know, you can only go as far as an executive of this organization with your community. Like, I just want to be that transparent. I hate to say it like being in a leader position, I don't want to play games on some podcasts and make people feel like false hope, like, oh, I'm gonna go into the community, I'm gonna make friends with Eli. It's like I'm always working. So, in terms of a community, I've definitely attracted like-minded individuals. And when I have spotted people in the community, it's been very rewarding to see, wow, look at that. You attracted like-minded individuals that were gonna be siloed off, marginalized. Now they have a place to go, they have a purpose, and now you're empowered them with productivity. And so, what what how what else can you ask for? Right, and so that feeds the soul. I feel emotionally, and I'm not ready to go. So that's not like I'm not complacent, like, oh, I've met my nirvana. No, I'm still gonna keep hitting, like I'm still hustling, right? But the idea is that it's really a feeling of like reveling in that because so many individuals have told me, you know, I was about to take my life until I found you, this organization. And that was like, whoa, because I thought, and I'm just gonna be this transparent, I also was gonna take my life if I didn't if I didn't get this organization going either. So it's interesting that you think about the opposite spectrum of somebody who's trying to start a movement or a you know, create the space, and the person entering to the space also are on some level connected mentally or in that same state of like if this doesn't exist, I'm going. And if this doesn't exist to come to, I'm going.

SPEAKER_03 43:13

And so that's really powerful. You know, when people are asking for funding for programs like this, I think that's a crucial point. You know, it's not a nice thing to do, it's not just so people can have money, it's life-saving.

SPEAKER_01 43:27

It is. It is. I've definitely saved my own life. I've saved my own ass, excuse my language, multiple times because I kept thinking quite all right. This is a really beautiful night. It's very poetic. Maybe it's the time that I go. And I kept thinking, how stupid, you know, and this is something that even within the mental health community, no one wants to talk about because it's again, they want to cuddle people. No, no, don't talk about how stupid suicide is. No, no, it's selfish. It's when you have so much pity upon yourself that you've taken on some. A burden, and I'm talking about very specific suicide ideology, not or ideation about that, not um, oh, I have a uh a terminal illness and I'm gonna go anyway, so I might as well just like control my timing, right? That's different, but when you have something that happens mental, and when you're kind of leaning against yourself as your own master of your own impulses, the power that you hold, that's when you conquer those types of self-pity, self-sympathy, you know, and it's it's the and that's called hard love toward yourself. But nowadays, everyone's like, no, no, no, don't don't talk about that, don't say that. That's offensive, that's triggering. It's completed suicide, not attempt, like it's like, oh my god, how I know.

SPEAKER_05 44:46

And there's so much, there's so much to and I'm glad you brought it up. And I guarantee you, there will there will be someone listening who said, Thank goodness he brought that up. Because you know many, many movements. Uh the power of now, Eckhartoli, starts with him saying, I wanted to kill myself, and then I stopped myself. So who is I and who is myself, and how did that happen? So though, but I I'm gonna corral you back in, Eli, because we only have five minutes left, and you have so many important things to say, and I so appreciate that. In our last five minutes, can you tell us about pure mental health and um a bit about how our listeners can find out more about it, what it could mean to them, how they can expand this movement and find more community in their lives. So that's a tall order for five minutes, but I know you can do it.

SPEAKER_01 45:35

Absolutely, I can do it. Thank you so much. So, pure mental health, gamifying your mental health recovery. We're living in an age where you know, we're dealing with technology, we're interfacing with it constantly. You know, most of most people now are just living within that like smart device and they're you know relying on all communication, all sense of connection. And so I said, okay, but how much of that is integrated with your sensory, you know, in terms of your three-dimensional space. And so I looked into virtual reality. I've I've been drawn to virtual reality since I was really young, and now I've had the opportunity to create a community in VR where individuals come in and we're creating a proprietary software that allows for them to have that introspective analysis and understand these are my challenges.

SPEAKER_04 46:29

Can you dumb this down for me? Can you dumb it down for me?

SPEAKER_05 46:32

Yeah, sure. I don't really understand what you what you know. Explain it to me like I'm a fourth grader. What is peer mental health and why should I go to the website?

SPEAKER_01 46:40

Sure. So peer mental health is a mental health peer-run organization that looks to technology to address mental health challenges. And it is where it takes the cross-section between mental health and technology and it ties it together. So it comes from primarily a peer-centered model. It's not just like some developer technologist who said, Hey, I'm going to build some platform EHR system that's going to help people with mental illness, and I'm going to somehow connect the clinician with them and we're going to make this happen.

SPEAKER_05 47:14

So it's peer-created, it's peer-run. And if somebody like my son were to go to the website, what would he find there?

SPEAKER_01 47:21

He would find that there is a different approach to dealing with isolation to dealing with stress, depression, any sort of anxiety around sort of like the you know, you think of the aftermath of symptoms or the negative symptoms of mental illness, like schizophrenia. Even individuals that have used VR to sort of have a perceptual cognitive change in their mind of what is real, what isn't. So as a schizophrenic, I use VR.

SPEAKER_05 47:58

And that's virtual reality in case somebody doesn't know what that is. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

Virtual reality is a platform uh headset that you put on, and you're able to interact in a three-dimensional space. It has sensors to understand when you're walking, when you're not. And what it does is it simulates reality in its finest. And it has different types of applications that you can use to better, you know, support yourself or to use it for gaming.

SPEAKER_03 48:24

We're using people all over the country and world since it's technology and the internet.

SPEAKER_01 48:30

Yeah, you can meet somebody in Italy for a coffee, and you know, you know, so it's very, it doesn't have any sort of it's like Zoom, except imagine you turn your head to look at the person, right?

SPEAKER_05 48:40

So it's a virtual reality community where people have an avatar, or do they are they using their own?

SPEAKER_01 48:46

They have an avatar, you got it. So they have an avatar, like ready player one, kind of you got it. So they're able to interact with each other, share files with one another, engage, set up, you know, meetings, um, be in and hold anonymity. That's one of the biggest pieces that a lot of folks want and need is I don't feel comfortable coming into your community. I don't want you to know who I am. But if I go in VR, now it changes the paradigm of how I interact with society goes out the door. If I'm disabled and I can't walk around, you don't know any of that. So I can I can be walking around, I could have two arms if I, you know what I'm saying? So there's like there's just it's unlimited.

SPEAKER_05 49:30

So how does one first like do you do you vet the people that come in that they have to have a serious mental does it cost money and tell us about the website? This is like in all in the last two minutes, but now I understand what it is, and now I have questions.

SPEAKER_01 49:47

So we do private pay for individuals that may not have insurance. We do have insurance coverage, but specifically at this moment, Medicare. We are looking to branch off and get credentialed with Medicao or Medicaid for other states and continue to build that credentialing. Um, but we definitely, folks, come on to the website, go to peermentalhealth.com and click sign up. You'll see uh an intake form. You fill it out, and then you get connected to one of our uh uh peer specialists who will then set you up for a consultation to get a wellness evaluation. After the wellness evaluation, you get entered into a group, and that group is held either in VR or Zoom. So it all depends. Some folks may already have the VR headset, but we really are looking for a commitment in our program because I'll tell you one thing as a business owner, VR is not cheap. So you're coming into our program, we invest in getting a VR headset for you. We expect you to also take your health seriously. And so, with every progression into our program, we also incentivize that by providing you different types of wellness VR apps that you could download. We pay for that. Um, we may even give provide you a Chromebook. So there's certain things we do that other organization organizations may not afford or do. So just you know, if you're interested, let us know and we'll we'll connect you.

SPEAKER_03 51:16

Does it cost the individual anything or is it all paid by their insurance?

SPEAKER_01 51:20

Depends. If you're a Medicare recipient or if you're Medicaul or Medicaid, it could cover some of those costs. Um, but if you know, and we obviously, as I said, we take private pay.

SPEAKER_05 51:31

So exciting. Unfortunately, we're we're out of time. So I just want to make sure that uh you tell it's purementalhealth.com. You got it, and painted brain is painted brain.org.

SPEAKER_01 51:46

Painted brain.org, you got it. So it's purementalhealth.com, it's P-E-E-R. Sometimes people spell it with like pure, it's P-E-E-R. Okay.com. Thank you so much, Randy, Mindy, and Mimi, for having me. I really appreciate this time. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 52:02

I just want to point out our audience. Um if you remember a while back we had Ryan on, who had reached out to us because he was a young adult with schizophrenia, and he came on because he thought that other moms might want to talk to somebody like him. And um I hooked him up with David. And David, can you just give us a little update on how that went?

SPEAKER_01 52:30

He's incredible, that young man. And we were just, you know, philosophizing and sharing a lot about our experiences. And he said, Can I use you as a reference to get this gig as a pure sports specialist? I said, I can only speak to my impression of you. I can't speak to you the history of you. And he landed that job, and he's an incredible, incredible individual who's a forward thinker, brilliant mind. So I look forward to seeing how how else I can work with them and collaborate with them for the future development of pure mental health.

SPEAKER_05 53:07

That's wonderful. And you know, for those who aren't going to go to a virtual reality setting, I hope this will inspire everybody to understand that community is so important. And I think the isolation of having a mental illness, and the only time you meet peers is in the hospital when everyone's at their worst, and then you get out and there's and there's nothing. So I know from my son, he's found community right now in his group home, and he has found community in his uh recovery groups that he goes to, and he's beginning to embrace that, and that is making a huge difference in this happiness level. So uh let let Eli's story spark whatever you can do to help create community as well. And I look forward to hearing more. I think we've just heard the start of this uh pure mental health, and I thank you so much for coming on today.

SPEAKER_01 54:04

Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_05 54:05

Hey, thanks for joining us for this episode of Schizophrenia Three Moms in the Trenches with Randy K, Mindy Gryling, and Miriam Feldman. To get in touch with us or to learn more about our books, please visit our websites at MiriamHyphenfeldman.com, mindygryling.com, or randyk.com.