WELLNESS EDUCATION

WELLNESS EDUCATION PROVIDING COMMUNITY WIDE EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMING TO INCREASE KNOWLEDGE AND REDUCE STIGMA

but I never actually told people what I experienced during my mental health problems.

“Canadian Goose”

A PUPPETEER’S DESCRIPTION OF DISCLOSING HER MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS TERESA MOLER, 2018 CAST MEMBER, THIS IS MY BRAVE NH

Being a person with mental health struggles since I was a young child, I decided when I was in my twenties that when and if I reached recovery, I would want to share my story with others.

I was told many times not to tell others that I had a mental health problem, so when I saw later in life that other people had this same problem and it was causing a problem in society, I decided to start disclosing my illness.

At first I was picky with whom I told and started out by saying I had a disability. Later I would get more specific and say I had a mental health problem. As I got more comfortable I would say I had schizophrenia.

This lasted for a while. I would not disclose what kind of specific symptoms I had. I would advocate for more mental health solutions, A friend of mine encouraged me to audition for This Is My Brave. I auditioned twice for the show in the Boston area. However, the Concord, NH show was the one that delivered for me.

I was debating whether to audition a third time but then before the deadline, some driving force came upon me to audition. To be honest, I wrote my piece for the audition at the last moment. It was maybe a couple of days before the audition.

I was determined to get feedback on it before the audition. A friend agreed to listen to my audition and was really moved by my piece. That gave me the confidence to share it at my audition.

I am a puppeteer and artist among other interests. I was informed of an art showcase in conjunction with Riverbend’s Mental Health Awareness Month. I had been in several art shows but never had put it in the perspective of mental health. I wrote the captions for my art work in relation to my mental health and my recovery.

I have been performing puppet shows since I was 9.

Puppetry is the passion of my life. So one could imagine that when my puppets started to become so real that they wrote the scripts and entered into my body and I started think I was one of my characters and talked like one, that I would be hesitant to share this with the public.

I would imagine that the public would have thought that they would not want me to do puppet shows for them with this condition.

In fact, I did suspend performing for a few years to find myself. So in my audition piece I shared about my puppets taking me over. It was hard and I had to be brave to tell this.

I was surprised to hear I made it to the cast. During rehearsals, I felt as though I was rough in my delivery of it. One rehearsal I had laryngitis. I am glad though we had rehearsals because they were helpful.

Then it came time for the performance. I really wanted to convey my message to the audience in an effective way.

Having experience in puppetry and theater was helpful to me that night. I had taken speech classes in high school and college and overcame my fear of speaking in public. However, to be in This Is My Brave one did not have to have that kind of background to share their story. I was initially shy for most of my life, so my public speaking background came in handy.

It was just as though a weight lifted off from me after I shared my story. I was so glad. I really wanted to be part of the movement to erase stigma and discrimination. My dream came true.

I made conversations with other cast members and directors of the show. These were meaningful as well

“Train Set” “Dad”

as hearing others’ stories. Days after the performance of Brave, in my daily life I would run into other cast members. This was like being reunited with something meaningful and the take away from being in the show is that I have educated the public and have new connections.

ABOUT TERESA MOLER Teresa’s interests are puppetry, watercolor, acrylics, selectmen duties, politics and mental health advocacy. Moler has suffered with schizophrenia since childhood. Some years ago, Moler became well enough to carry out her many activities and only seldom deals with her mental health problems.