• Facilitator has lifelong Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

• Sharing from all re: coping mechanisms for navigating this difficult life

• Sharing from all re: tips and tricks for dealing with pain and other flareups

• Lots of laughs and silliness welcome!

• Sharing of current public medical and psychological resources

Quick history: I lived with an undiagnosed, untreated anxiety disorder (Generalized Anxiety Disorder) since early childhood and until my mid-60’s. In addition, I had what was determined (when I was young) to be a severe birth defect resulting in my left leg being several inches shorter than my right leg. After several surgeries (several of whom would qualify as malpractice), today the difference between my legs is over eight inches. Also as a result of the doctor who only saw me as a guinea pig, I ended up with a life-endangering scoliosis and was saved only through surgical intervention which introduced stabilizing rods along my spine. A survivor of cancer and a heart attack (among other many other health issues), my underlying mental health condition was not definitively diagnosed until 2014. Despite my own mental and physical challenges, I have worked tirelessly both on my self-care and advocacy for people with a variety of disabilities most of my life. I worked in the developmental delay and mental health fields in Pennsylvania and Connecticut (from 1980 to 1990) at inpatient facilities for the Department of Developmental Services (known at the time as the Department of Mental Retardation) and for private agencies serving people with mental illness in various roles (including the role of Group Home Manager). In 2014, I came to the Recovery Movement as a consumer/peer. Early on, I walked away from my career in the mental health field saying, “I’ll come back to Human Services when they become humane.” I have been actively seizing the current social momentum to make my dream of a humane human services system and the effectively influencing voice of the peer consumer a reality.