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Nineteen months ago, when I was treated as an inpatient by psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses, social workers and staff, I never imagined these professionals would look to me as an educational resource within six months of my discharge.

Can you see me today presenting to over 100 psychiatric nursing students at a recent Grand Rounds, telling them, "I found nurses generally cold and indifferent during my inpatient care?" Or even more recently, I heard myself advise a class of Columbia Graduate School social workers to "look for new day treatment program alternatives where people like me are not treated like children." I went on to discuss consumer-run alternative day treatment and other program options I know about like New York City Voices, the Brooklyn Peer Advocacy Project, the new Bridger Program, etc. I asked them to help us create other new programs where we would be treated like the intelligent people we are. Two of these social work students immediately responded by suggesting that they would try to involve me as a regular speaker in an inpatient first break and family group at Columbia.

In between these teaching engagements, I spoke to over 150 psychiatrists at SUNY Downstate Grand Rounds where I shared my experience of being over-medicated on Risperdal when first committed for my schizophrenia in 1998. I told the doctors how the excess dose made me stop taking my medicine and relapse for another 30 days of hospitalization. The message I sent was "less is best" when you start people like me on medication, but psychiatry seems to think "more is better." I was almost lost to treatment because of that belief and I told the psychiatric residents so. These were not my first experiences teaching professionals about my illness -- paranoid schizophrenia. I taught graduate school social workers and advised a group of psychiatric residents, fellows and attending psychiatrists at Columbia University the previous year too.

My first formal conference presentation was at the annual Columbia Schizophrenia Conference on April 1st, 1999 where I presented to clinicians, consumers, family members, and psychiatric professional students in several fields, as well as researchers and attending psychiatrists. My parents shared the panel with me and the three of us took turns speaking. Dwelling on our journeys through my illness was not easy for any of us. We all viewed the same events from different perspectives. It was three hours of back-to-back presenting. I'm glad they invited me back for this year's Schizophrenia Conference held April 1, 2000.

At the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Psychiatric Institute conference last October, I presented in a workshop titled, "Self-Help, The Next Generation: Where No Consumers Have Gone Before." The audience of psychiatric residents and attending psychiatrists heard my message about creating better and more relevant day treatment programs, many consumer-run and driven. We had an interactive discussion around the pros and cons of segregating the mentally ill in programs outside of mainstream community life. I reminded them of recent lessons I've learned based on my work with New York City Voices: "You get what you expect from people. Expect them to not be able to mainstream and they won't. Expect more from them and I promise they'll surprise you."

At the New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) Research Conference last December, I presented to members of the state mental health system including psychiatrists, researchers, nurses, administrators, state hospital staff, and psychiatric professional students in several fields. This was a panel discussion too, with my dad and Ken Steele. Once again we addressed the subjects of many current day treatment options, cloistered and segregated ones in particular, as being "dinosaurs in this new age of atypical antipsychotic drugs and the vast improvements in our abilities to function."

It is difficult to describe how it feels to instruct the same professionals who watch over us when we're hospitalized. When speaking to rooms filled with these people I am challenged to communicate my ideas without freezing up. Success is measured by audience response afterwards in the form of questions. When I began this process early in 1999 my self-esteem was very low. Since then it has improved quite a bit, due in part to teaching professionals and presenting at major state and national conferences. My success has been very satisfying, and as long as I continue to do the work I'm doing, I expect my low-self esteem will soon be gone.