Events

Community Partners at NAMI San Gabriel Valley host a book reading by NAMI member and Altadena resident Julie Parker. Julie as written her memoir titled Journey Beyond Despair, A Memoir of Love, Psychosis, and the Healing Power of Insight. She will read and converse with guests, sharing her perspective and experiences and answering questions. Books will also be available.

Can mental illness be a gift to a relationship?

Julie Parker’s book asks the above profound question. Meeting Julie and her husband Peter in person, loving life and each other at 92 and 93, will help listeners decide for themselves. Could mental illness in young adult life offer sufferers an opportunity to explore their psyches at a depth inaccessible to the ordinary individual?

A true story of early married life with Peter, Julie offers a character study of “two young lovers pitted against a deadly enemy.” The author boldly takes listeners on her long journey, beginning in a psychiatric asylum after giving birth, launching her 40-year search for meaning. The book makes a compelling case for mental illness as a mythic-heroic journey rather than a disorder dependent only upon drugs and diagnosis.