“In 1970 I graduated from the University of Maine at Orono with a degree in Sociology. As part of my study there, I went with one of my classes to visit the Bangor State Hospital. The suffering that I saw on so many people there was a memory that embedded itself in my consciousness. In 1994 my youngest son had his first psychotic break one month into his college education at Bard. Since he had graduated tenth in his class at Portland High School, he had received a four year scholarship to attend Bard at the price of his State University. By 2008 , fourteen years after he first got sick with a major mental illness, my son and our family finally found our footing again and are moving forward. In 2009, I wrote a book called Getting My Night Vision , of our family’s experience in learning to see the patterns of mental illness and bringing it out of the dark and into the light. My book is full of hope, practical matters, compassion, mothering and family. It is way past time for mental illness to come out of the darkness into the light, and I know that my book will help families as well as mental health treatment providers to move that process along. My husband and I are committed to do our part by getting 5001 books into the world to help break the stigma and isolation for families and for those suffering with mental illnesses. At the National NAMI conference in Washington, D.C. in July, I did a poster presentation titled Do Not Give Up Family. Our family helped promote healing and we know it can be done! My book is available online through Amazon and Barnes and Noble or directly through me.” Email: rcbou@maine.rr.com