Healing or stealing? Paul Hawken's commencement speech

The world is full of magical, miracle people.

After I read Paul Hawken's speech below, I was desperate to share it with our blog audience. So I visited Paul Hawken's website, found the phone number, and gave them a call to see if it was okay for us to republish it here. Erica, who answered the phone, is one of those magical, miracle people. We ended up having a random, wandering chat that led (among other places) to the wonderful work they're doing with Wiser Earth and Highwater Research, which feeds into the socially responsible investments made by Highwater Global.

Mostly, though, I just want to publicly thank Erica for her warmth and openness to a total stranger. She made my day.

The Commencement Address by Paul Hawken to the Class of 2009, University of Portland, May 3, 2009

When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was “direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.” No pressure there.

Let’s begin with the startling part. Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation... but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food—but all that is changing.

There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring. The earth couldn’t afford to send recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, “So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.” There could be no better description. Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.

You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen. Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way.

There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is true. Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider. “One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,” is Mary Oliver’s description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world.

Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the evening news is usually about the death of strangers. This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots. Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance except on behalf of itself. The founders of this movement were largely unknown — Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood — and their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of four people in the world were enslaved. Enslaving each other was what human beings had done for ages. And the abolitionist movement was greeted with incredulity. Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive England into poverty. But for the first time in history a group of people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit. And today tens of millions of people do this every day. It is called the world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, non-governmental organizations, and companies who place social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history.

The living world is not “out there” somewhere, but in your heart. What do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no better motto for a future economy. We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets. We are the only species on the planet without full employment. Brilliant. We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time rather than renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can’t print life to bail out a planet. At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.

The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our fates are inseparable. We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells. And dreams come true. In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours. Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe, which is exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science would discover that each living creature was a “little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars of heaven.”

So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body? Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore it, and wonder instead when this speech will end. You can feel it. It is called life. This is who you are. Second question: who is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. Our innate nature is to create the conditions that are conducive to life. What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would create new religions overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead, the stars come out every night and we watch television.

This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations before you failed. They didn’t stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn’t ask for a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hope only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it.

……….

Paul Hawken is a renowned entrepreneur, visionary environmental activist, and author of many books, most recently Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming. He was presented with an honorary doctorate of humane letters by University president Father Bill Beauchamp, C.S.C., in May, when he delivered this superb speech. Our thanks especially to Erica Linson for her help making that moment possible.

www.paulhawken.com

Kids, crises, and the kindness of strangers

When I was four years old, a man tried to kidnap me.

At the time, and being four, I was immensely proud of my independence and growed-upness. My generous and indulgent mother humored me gracefully. We had a little game: she would take me to the supermarket, and I would stand at the entrance waiting for her while she did the shopping.

It was all fun and games until the Fateful Day, when a homeless man approached me as I stood obediently in the doorway. He had long dirty hair. He wasn't wearing any shoes, and his socks flapped at the toes.

"It's Pa," he said, holding out his arms. I might not have been the brightest bulb in the pack, but I was smart enough to know that he was most definitely not Pa. For one thing, my Pa didn't call himself Pa. My daddy was big and strong and he didn't have long hair; he had a bald spot. And he didn't need an introduction.

"No," I whispered, and took a few steps away, closer to the door.

"It's Pa, it's Pa," he repeated, and came closer.

"No!" I cried, and moved away further. And that's when he gave up the pretense, picked me up off the ground, and ran.

I started screaming. My mother's superhuman mother hearing kicked in. She came running out of the store and tore after us faster than Ushuaia Bolt. She caught up to us and grabbed my foot. The man kept running. My shoe came off. My mother fell, twisting her ankle badly. She jumped back up and kept running. I kept screaming.

Then, suddenly, the man stopped.

I looked up. At the far end of the block, a crowd of angry New Yorkers stood, arms folded: there's no way you're getting by us, buddy. The man wheeled to cross the street, only to be confronted by another angry crowd blocking his way. He spun around to go back the way he'd come -- and ran straight into my mother and the police.

Remember that scene in Spiderman when the New Yorkers defeat the Green Goblin by throwing stuff at him? A man yells, "You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us!"

I can vouch for that. It's true.

There's a point to this long backstory: last week, I stumbled on a bone marrow drive for Kai, a five-year-old with a rare form of leukemia. Kai lives in lower Manhattan with his parents and little brother. And Kai's family is making admirable use of the Internet to let people know about his plight. From their website:

Bone marrow transplant is probably very different from what it was the last time you heard about it. Getting tested for compatibility takes only seconds. Dab a swab on the inside of your cheek and register with the national bone-marrow registry. If the marrow is a match, donors are asked to undergo one of two minor, non-invasive outpatient procedures that extract some of your healthy stem cells to replace a patient's unhealthy cells. It is that simple to give someone a second chance at life.

There are bone marrow drives in and around New York today, Thursday, and Saturday, with more coming in future weeks. If you're in the neighborhood, please consider going. If not, please consider passing this information on to someone who might.

I don't live in New York any longer, but I feel fortunate to have seen that this trait of bonding together in times of adversity is not exclusive to the tri-state area. It is just what we do, everywhere in the world, as part of our shared humanity.

Thank you for your help.

Connectedness, Acceptance and Inspiration

“Come to the edge!” he said. 
They said, “We are afraid…”
“Come to the edge!” he said.
They came.
He pushed them.
They flew.
 --Guillaume Appolinaire

In 2003 I was privileged to be asked to speak to a Leadership Development Programme developed by young people (then still at school) for young people. Recently I was interviewed by Ben Irving from On the Edge Trust. What struck me back in '03 still struck me today -- the power of leadership organizations for youth that are really led by youth. Ben was talking to me about the need to “age out” now that he’s nearing 25!

I love On the Edge because they are passionate about inspiring young people of all cultures and backgrounds to have a positive impact on their communities. From them: “We chose to use leadership as our focus as we saw it as a way to either prevent things from becoming challenges in our communities or equipping leaders to help provide solutions and support to the challenges we face”.

Wow. I think we underestimate young people all the time. 

On the Edge Trust is making a short film for Youth Week 2009.  They wanted to break down barriers between business people and youth. They asked me the following questions:

• Why does spending time matter?
• Why do teenagers want more time with their parents/caregivers?
• How do you make more time?
• What stops parents/youth from spending time together?
• How do we move past those problems?
• Quality or quantity time?
• What would quality time look like?
• Will these tough times make it harder or easier to spend quality time together?

What do you think? 

I think we all need Connectedness, Acceptance and Inspiration. Some of us find these things in our birth families (oh you lucky ones!); some of us develop them with our friends and the companies we start; and some of us set about creating them in the families we make.  Teenagers especially need these three things -- and yet the teen years are generally when we see the least of our children, hoping instead they find what they’re after with their friends. We will make the world a better place if we spend time with the teenagers in our lives.

I pick quantity time! I think we need more time together as families. More time on the couch, flying kites, scootering in the park, cooking, eating… I am all for more. We need time to BE together. The problem with quality time to me is that it is all about achievement and Doing. I guess the best quality time is quantity time (thanks Ben for pointing that out to me!).

My daughter (age 8) recently asked me what my best childhood memory was. I had two -- they both involved running wild on holiday with my brother. I asked her the same question. “But I’m still a child,” she responded. “So?” I replied. Her favorite memory was the Hawaii trip I previously blogged about. Me, I had a life changing revelation on that holiday, but for her, the trip was about family: family hanging out, no rush, plenty of time and plenty of love. What more can we give a child? A teenager? The people we love? And those we haven’t yet met?

Make time to spend some time with people… and in Youth Week, 23 – 31 May, make time to think about the young leaders around us, and how you can give some time to support them.  You might just gain a whole lot.

Very cool: Cooltribe pledges 1 million trees

We all strive -- not always successfully -- to live our values in everything we do. If you care about the planet, does your house reflect that? Your car? Your job? Your groceries?

Everyone I know, even those who are most passionate about the environment, does something that doesn't exactly qualify as green. Rather than throwing our hands up, crying, 'It's all useless!', and condemning us all to the prison of ecological hypocrisy, we need to keep our focus on where we want to go. Honor people who are doing good things. Recognise those who are making an active contribution. Remember that change happens one small step at a time.

And to that end, I'd like to give a bit of a shoutout to Cooltribe, the 'community with a green conscience'. Did I just say change happens one small step at a time? Cooltribe has just pledged to plant one million trees in time for the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this December.

Here's how they'll do it:

• For every new member who joins Cooltribe and for every existing member with a completed profile, Cooltribe will plant 1 tree in the rainforests
• You will receive, from Cooltribe's tree planting partner, Carbonica.org (who is fully regulated by DEFRA), a full certificate with GPS coordinates of the tree’s location, the type of tree planted and the amount of CO2 absorbed by the tree during its lifetime. Click on the image to check it out. It's a cool certificate (pun intended).

What a fantastic promise for Cooltribe to make. Will you help them keep it?

Dressed to NOT kill... the planet

A couple of weeks ago, I went to Cherry Hill Mall with my sister-in-law. I can’t resist cute little outfits for my kids. I love the little matching sets. One dress, two t-shirts, two matching leggings, and a purple cardie later I found myself in the line at Old Navy… Then I had a thought.

Where does this stuff come from? Where is it going?

I went looking for info. I just buried myself for a couple of days into UK reports on the textile industry. I was amazed to find out that Britons buy over 2 million tonnes of clothing a year (35kg each, 77 lbs) -- and that that amount is increasing steadily!

According to their government, textiles are now the fastest-growing waste product in the UK. Waste is produced during all stages of the clothing lifecycle; however, approximately 90% of the waste is from consumer use and garment disposal. Sales of new clothing in the UK have increased by 60% in ten years. Textile waste is forecast to continue increasing as sales of new clothing continue to rise.

The UK government released a sustainable clothing plan at London Fashion week this year. It was simultaneously eye opening and baffling.

20% of UK clothing sales are now made at the discount end of the market. Almost all of this clothing is imported from Turkey, China and Hong Kong. I wonder what the map looks like for the US? Australia? The UK research shows these clothes are less likely to be passed on for re-use (or sale at op-shops or charity stores) and less likely to be recycled into other clothing items.

The cute little outfit I found included two items from Honduras, four from Viet Nam. They were all cotton, not a synthetic fiber amongst them. Was this a good choice, or a poor one?

I don’t want to buy synthetics for all the obvious reasons: synthetic materials use large amounts of energy to produce fibers from oil. They don’t feel so good to wear. They can’t be composted. The UK government says “The processing of synthetic fibers from fossil fuels however causes considerable energy use, GHG emissions and resource depletion when compared to cotton production.”

OK, so that makes me feel better about my cotton choice. But then the government report scared me with these two quotes:

Evidence showed that conventional cotton growing has a high water impact from irrigation and energy and toxicity impact from pesticides and fertilizer use… The production stage of the clothing life cycle has a significant environmental impact, particularly from the dyes and finishes associated with production.

The demand for natural fibers has been almost constant for the last 15 years, whereas the demand for synthetic fibers has nearly doubled, with polyester driving this demand. Approximately two-thirds of the UK imports of basic textile materials (fibers, yarns and fabrics) by mass to the industry are synthetic.

The clothing and textile industry in the UK emitted 3.1 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2006. The good news? This number’s going down. The bad news? The decrease is caused by a shift away from domestic production and toward imported clothing from discount economies. Sadly, those emissions are just becoming someone else's problem.

What about organic cotton?
Sales of organic cotton have tripled since 2006, from US$900 million to US$2.6 billion in 2008.

But the report said, “Further investigation is required as to whether the use of organic cotton results in reduced environmental/social impacts.”

Say what? I want to know that buying organic cotton is the right thing to do. I just paid a lot for an organic cotton t shirt. Don’t tell me I may not be doing anything useful! I found a ray of hope buried on page 90 of another government report: “There is a 90% reduction in toxicological impact when organic cotton is used.” Whew, that’s something!

Other biodegradable fibers?
They don’t seem to know much about jute, bamboo, and flax or banana fiber. Apparently those fibers only have “niche” appeal at the moment. I live in a wool-producing country. Kiwis use more wool than anyone else. I buy my organic machine-washable merino from Untouched World. But even here in the land of the sheep, a lot of our wool is shipped off to China to be made into yarn and clothing (e.g. Icebreaker), and then shipped back.

That isn't to say there aren't some great eco-stories in the textile industry. Through the glory of Twitter, I was introduced to Eco-Star Clothing in the UK, a group that combines new organic clothing items with pieces rescued before they end up in landfills to make funky and stylish streetwear. It can be done.

I know more than I need to about the production of men’s briefs – wool uses the lease water and has the lowest toxicity, but sounds hot! Cotton came in second overall, with acrylic (yuk) last.

Disposal?
The UK government again:

The increased demand for discount fashion is resulting in increased production and therefore increased impacts (i.e. resource consumption; harmful emissions to land, water and air; solid and hazardous waste). In addition, the low quality of discount clothing is reducing the availability of suitable clothing for reuse and recycling and increasing the amount of clothing that is being thrown away. The sales value of recycling grades of material has fallen by some 71% in real terms over 15 years, largely due to the introduction of discount fashion, and may now be less than the cost of collection and sorting donated textiles.

I also found that children’s clothing makes up a disproportionate percentage of clothing sent to landfill – because the little darlings don’t wear it for very long.

I generally pass the children’s clothes on to friends. This is a great thing to do: pass the clothes on to friends or family, and, if that doesn’t work, your local women’s shelter usually needs the stuff.

What else can you do?

• Buy quality
• Buy natural fibres – I still believe organic is best
• Pass it on, or remake it into something else
• Wash stuff less often (fine if you are wearing wool)
• Wash it in cold water and dry on line or rack
• If it has to be dry-cleaned, use a green drycleaner

I’m doing my best – don’t even get me started on the shoes I just spied in a window that would go beautifully with… well, anything! I’m off to find out about them now.

What do you do with your old clothes?

Hats off to the Obamas' green garden

I recently read that our First Lady started a new garden project at the White House -- a 'green' garden, to be exact. How much does that rock? In the latest issue of O magazine, the First Lady said:

"We want to use it as a point of education, to talk about health and how delicious it is to eat fresh food, and how you can take that food and make it part of a healthy diet. You know, the tomato that's from your garden tastes very different from one that isn't. And peas -- what is it like to eat peas in season? So we want the White House to be a place of education and awareness. And hopefully kids will be interested because there are kids living here."

I believe people in power have a responsibility to make their best effort to set an example. And small actions as the White House green garden make a huge impact to a world starving for change, for answers, and for guidance on establishing a pattern of positive behavior to our children. Who best to set an example but the president and his family?

I struggle with ways to implement a healthy lifestyle in my home. You see, I grew up with parents from the old school: where food was fried, and buying organic was the way for huge corporations to use strategic marketing to steal our money. And everything on the plate had to be eaten before we could play. 

Luckily, I think my wife and I have so far set a pretty good example of healthy living and being environmentally conscious. It's still early, though. The kids will begin school in years to come and they will be presented with decisions to make. Before the big no-nos like drugs and alcohol, we've got simpler questions to tackle: should I eat unhealthy chips or healthy fruit? Drink soda or water? Choose fried or grilled? Ask for paper or plastic? Paper, of course! Yes to organic! Yes to fruit! No to soda! And yes to recycling, because no matter what their step-grandfather says, recycling is not some weird conspiracy. Who cares that we aren’t getting paid for separating our garbage? We're doing something for the good of our environment and teaching our kids something positive. Right?

Michelle Obama, I thank you for setting a great example for your family and for all of us who truly believe that it is up to each one of us to make a difference. What difference have you made today?

Where does the time go?

My name is Alex and I'm a parent. And, yes, I still wake up thinking it’s a dream and we were just married with no kids. But ten minutes into Sesame Street and two diapers later, I remember that we're blessed with two pint-sized generators of energy, laughs, cries and poop. The best part is, they are living genetic links of my wife and me.

My wife and I are still in awe at the presence of these boys. When the parents before us warned that time flies, they were right! Our boys are only toddlers and it seems like just yesterday that we found out we were pregnant and brought each of them home.

Where does the time go? I bet a lot of it goes to trying to figure out where the time went.  Some of it may go to trying to figure out what we’ll give them for lunch! Maybe Time is celebrating on an island away from cries and dirty diapers. My real guess is that most of it is lost at work or thinking about work.

Though there's no shortage of advice to new parents on the fleeting nature of time, you really have no concept of how fast it goes until it’s gone. I came to realize this after I was laid off from my job. I discovered that there was a period of their short lives that I was not present for. I thought to myself, 'I have to make a change!' I had spent too many evenings focused on work, glued to my crackberry, and neglecting what was most important -- my beautiful wife and two boys.

The good news is that I realized what I’d been missing out on in time. Now I do my best to record in mind every smile, every cry, every burp, every step, and every quirky sound my boys make. These small yet significant events  give my wife and me an opportunity to exchange endearing stories about our boys, and they let me be the cringe-inducing dad that can one day say, “Son, you used to be so funny and cute -- what happened to you?”  Or, “I remember when you wiped poo all over the wall -- that was so adorable!”

So now what, Alex? After a long day of work and the hustle and bustle, what do we do? From my own experience, I've put together a few suggestions to take the place of the TV:

• Visit the Barnes & Noble bookstore -- awesome kids’ section
• Take a walk around the block -- offers great exercise and an opportunity to appreciate the beauty of our planet
• Check out Target! Yes, TarZHAY -- cool stuff for parent and kids
• Go grocery shopping at Publix (a local grocery chain) -- gives free cookies to the kids while we shop
• Hang out at Toys-R-Us -- allows the kids to see and play with new toys (most times we can leave the store empty-handed, but you'll have to be vigilant)
• Go to the park -- lets the kids work on their social skills and expel some of that late-in-the-evening burst of energy.

There is no doubt about it -- parenting is tough! But would it be as gratifying if it were easy? I think not. A parent’s job is never done. We don’t get sick days, personal days or vacation days. We’re exempt from pay day, health insurance, and paid holidays. Alas, we're parents no matter what, so we'd better enjoy it. Enjoy all the hugs and kisses you can get. Time will continue to race by and eventually your kids will be too cool for air guitar, hide and seek, and those delectable snuggles.

I just want to be the best I can at what I love most. I love being a daddy!

If you have any suggestions to help me be a better dad, or ideas for more fun simple things to do away from home, let me know in the comments!

Kids, don't deal with mental illness alone

Being a parent has its ups and downs. We all go through tough times, and we all need support.  

Some families need more support than others.  

Families affected by mental illness or addiction need more support, yet are often the most isolated. As a child, I felt pretty alone and didn't really know how to get help. When there are family ‘secrets’, it is especially isolating for the kids. Who can I talk to? Who can I trust? If I talk, what will happen to my family?

Children in these situations have to deal with the double challenge of bearing a greater burden of responsibility than many other children while being on their own. In my own case, I felt I had to be responsible for so many things: my brother, my mother's life. I was afraid that if I asked for help, something bad would happen that would result in my family being broken up.  

When my mother attempted suicide, I was too afraid to wake her, and too afraid to tell anyone that she couldn't wake up. Luckily someone came to check on us. On another occasion, I was sure she was about to try again, and I didn't know if I should tell anyone. Would I be in big trouble with her if I was wrong? Who was I to interfere with her plans if we were not enough to live for?  When she didn't come home, I was afraid she would get in trouble if I tried to get the police to look for her.

These are things children should not have to deal with on their own. I didn't have the skills or knowledge as a 5-year-old, or later as a 12- or 13-year-old to deal with it. And children like me are still out there. Families like the one I grew up in still exist.

May 7 is National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day. Check out www.NAMI.org, this Facebook group, and http://www.childrensmentalhealthawarenessweek.org.

I support the Network Mosaic project, which helps families with mental illness, because no child should have to deal with these issues alone, and families affected by mental illness don't have the skills or networks they need on their own.

When I was asked to speak at the Network Mosaic launch, I felt both honored and fearful. Honored, because I am a survivor, and I have made it through.  Fearful, because I don’t want to cause hurt to people in my family who may suffer from stigma from me ‘outing’ them or their illnesses and struggles.

Yet this is my story. I own my story and I am proud to tell it, and to use it to show people that there is another way. I want young people who are affected by mental illness in their families to know that they can come out the other side. I want the people who work in supporting professions to know that what they do -- what you do -- makes a difference.

Thank you for listening, and thank you for working to make the world a better place.  If you have a story to share, whether it’s one in which you needed help or gave help, I welcome it in the comments.