Books focusing on Mental Health care now from 2010 Rosalynn Carter ending the Mental Health crisis. [applause] im on book tour this week i get the same questions every time so i thought i would tell you what they were. The first is how did you get involved in Mental Health . Why did you write the books i will tell you how i got involved. I was campaigning for jimmy when he ran the first time and lost the first time we got in late the candidate dropped out in this was 1966 and we didnt have long to campaign so i drove from one town to the next very disorganized campaign. But this was 66 and they are beginning to move people out of the Central State Hospital and into the community but there was no Mental Health service yet. I had so many people say what way your husband do if elected governor . Standing at a gay at 430 in the morning for the shift change a whole bunch of people coming in and going out and passing out brochures. A lady was small and elderly you could tell how tired she was i hope you can get some sleep she said i hope so but we have a mentally ill daughter and we struggle to pay for her care my husband stays with her at night i stay with her during the day. So then i was riding around town it was a very disorganized campaign. [laughter] so i stayed in the back of the room he didnt know i was there he was shaking hands standing and receiving lines is part of my life he had my hand i got in front of him he said what are you doing here . I said like to know what you are going to do when you are governor for people with Mental Illness . He said we will have the best program in the country and he will be in charge of it. [laughter] he didnt because i didnt know anything about it the four years later not even a month before he established the Governors Commission to improve service and i worked on it for four years. But in 123 communities but they were not comprehensive son were offices where they could go but i was part of it. When i left georgia that working on Mental Health issues and everywhere i went people had Mental Health if it went good i wanted to show it off there was very few and if it was bad they wanted me to help when he was president so it was the real responsibility because they were still putting them in institutions and nobody wanted to talk about it or talk about Mental Illness. Somebody heard me that night and i always say all the advocates descended on me it was a long time before we could get people to come we never really did get a big build up of advocacy but advocates were always there just because my husband was governor. Its a very long time since i got involved and now i have a really good program in atlanta. Its a two and half hour drive south we spent one week a month that we schedule one year ahead i dont get home is much as i would like but thats how i got involved we worked hard and got it passed in october 1980. [applause] with a whole legislation was abandoned was on the biggest appointments of my life. So why did you write the book and you heard how i got started on the situation and now i work all this time with help from Mental Illness to say it goes in cycles with great funding to research and then it drifted a while in the first president bush with the decades and added to the research from research and new treatment and medication we now know that people can recover. We spend 120 billion per year that does not count Supportive Housing or employment or anything else. Just Mental Health care and millions are still suffering i am so distressed i am angry about it. To know that people can recover want people to know what i know to get over the stigma for those with Mental Illnesses. So we focus on four major things recovery because it distresses me so much because people cant recover from Mental Illnesses. And our system we have to shift away from controlling Mental Illness. I have so many people and he was a teenager think a junior in college and he went to the doctor and the doctor said you can never do that. Stigma is so distressing to me. It holds back funding for programs where people dont feel like Mental Illness can be helped so the politicians and policymakers and people like me who really try have a hard time convincing officials and i hope it is going to change since we got the bill. It has Mental Health and Substance Abuse disorders in the basic health package. It has a great priority for training mentalhealth professionals. In 2003, 2002, president bush had another mentalhealth commission that reported in 2002 and when i looked at the recommendations they were the same ones that i did in 1978. Its distressing when you look back and see what it is. The report of that commission was there is no way to fix that we need to start over so now with the program developing because consumers have done the research so there was a woman named Judy Chamberlain who in 1978 wrote a book called on our own and then she started meeting with she had had a bad experience so she started getting together groups who had been living with Mental Illness and talking about how they could help each other and it grew into a movement. One of my friends on the mentalhealth force is one of the early people on an. He started the First Program in the State Government in alabama. My other friend who is from georgia and has lived with bipolar and is in recovery started the first Consumer Program in the government in georgia and also then started working as a Consumer Network they started meeting and bringing in people that he knew were living with Mental Illness and talking to them. Mentally ill people need respect. They need housing. They need a job, so they can give you could Consumer Network helps them with those things. And people recover, some without even taking medication anymore. Some take medication and therapy that they recover and live good lives in the community raising their families, working, young people going to school. Even with major illnesses, people can recover, and can you hear me in the back . In georgia the one who started the Consumer Network in the government, the Consumer Program was able to get medicaid for the consumer peers and in georgia we have a 50500 mentalhealth specialists and they go from communities. A lot of people now come to see them come up as they go to communities and if they see somebody homeless suffering or with Mental Illness, i think its in 40 states, but im not sure. Theres one in maryland i know because i had a book signing this morning and someone from the Consumer Network had me sign a book to my Consumer Network friends, so i know its in maryland now. I dont know other places, but it is growing and the reason im optimistic is because thats what we know about medications from research into treatments and so forth and to be able to help people recover i think the movement is too strong now. I dont think they can set us back. I thought if insurance covers Mental Illness it would be all right to have it. It would legitimize them and that would mean an awful lot. The other thing is prevention. They are now learning so much about prevention and building resilient. We have learned that it is developmental and i think 50 of home until illnesses to make a Mental Illness is diagnosed by 75 by age 24 and we also learn for any parents here with babies come and we need Parenting Classes because when children are growing, they need deep attention. People need to watch to see how they nurture and the parent develops. They need to watch the age at appropriate milestones like whether they crawl or walk at the time and even when they are starting to Nursery School to see how they react with their peers. We need to get the word out because now we know that if you detect the illness early and intervene, the interventions that mitigate sometimes it can prevent it from developing into a major Mental Illness. Always mitigate the. So those are the things in my book. Im pleased you came out and that you are interested. You can help because you can go to your policymakers and let them know how important this is. They always need volunteers. People that are interested and care can really contribute. I am pleased to be here. I think im going to be signing books for you now. [applause] every saturday evening this summer, booktv is taking the opportunity to open up the archives and a pinch watch with a wellknown author. Tonight our focus is a little bit different. We are looking at books written by former first ladies. Up next is former first lady barbara bush. She served as first lady from 1989 to 1993 and was the author of five books including two memoirs. She was very well known for her Childrens Book about her dog. Her memoirs were published in 1994 and in 2003. Heres the late barbara bush discussing the second one, reflections, at the texas book festival in austin. I loved writing my memoirs and the urge to write was still there. My good friend Mary Higgins Clark told her she suggested that i write a novel and she said it would be very, very easy. She recommended i do what she did, pick applaud him and know the ending and then work back. She told me that when her characters talk to her, she wont let them say something. She knows shes on the right track. Its as if they color i would do that or i wouldnt say that. It certainly sounded easy, so i set forth to write a mystery novel. I made up what i thought was a rather interesting plot centered around two female roommates, a Flight Attendant and secret Service Agent who never stayed in town long enough to meet any attractive eligible men they decided to get in touch with an escort bureau, you know, a dating service. All the men ended up dead. Like mary, i knew the killer and i worked my way back. I had one huge problem. My characters never said one word to me. [laughter] i spent hours waiting. Nothing. Besides that, my conversations were deadly stiff, awkward and really boring. So i decided to leave the imagination for the real writers and stick to what i knew. After all, life hasnt stopped after the white house. The last ten years have been filled with travel and new experiences, making new friends, working on causes that they care strongly about coming into the usual ups and downs of a large, close family. And some very exciting moments. I bet you didnt know that alcohol biker magazine declared the first lady of the century. [laughter] of course accompanied by a picture of my head superimposed on a curvaceous body draped over a harleydavidson bike. [laughter] biker bab babe of this country i think was one headline. It is quite an honor and certainly worthy of another book in yes, there were two son and one who became governor and one who went on to become president. So, there were some things i could write about. As for research, i didnt have to do any. Im trying to remember what happened when and who said what to whom. I didnt have to worry about that, either. Iive been a devoted diary keer for years so all i had to do was take my diary already on my computer, turne turn it into sod of readable prose, take out an opinion or two maybe, not all that some. Some things are left best unpublished. I toiled away usually in the early mornings sitting with my laptop in bed while george read the newspapers. While on a road, he cursed. [laughter] somehow it all worked. Already people are asking me if there will get again be another sequel. At age 78, i rather suspect not. But who knows, just as life didnt stop after the white house, it doesnt stop either as to approach 80 years of age and beyond. Especially if you are married to george bush. After all, this is the man that spares hes parachuting one more time on his 80th birthday. He jumped on his 75th birthday and loved it and raised 10 million for the great cancer and research hospital. Now, on the 13th of june, this is the day after to celebrate his 80th, he will make his last jump and friends around the country are raising 30 million to be shared by the points of Light Foundation and the george bush president ial library foundation. This will not only be his last jump, but this he swears will be the last time we ever ask anyone for money. [laughter] i think so far he has lined up our Texas University grandchild whos going to jump with him. Anyway, i have one little story that happened this past september. During a trip to russia we were invited to spend a day with president putin said the russian equivalent of camp david. When we arrived, he was wearing a suit and tie while putin met us in more informal clothing at the airport. Now we were very, very flattered that he came to the airport to meet us and why we were driving back some 20 minutes away, he suggested he would drop us off and then they would talk to meet us, they were going to have a press conference right after that. So he rushed i they rushed in ad into very casual clothes. Would you believe sweatpants and a polo shirt is all they had. As we walked up the hill and they were walking down it soon became obvious president putin also changed his clothes. [laughter] into a suit and tie. Anyway, i found myself writing in my diary that night that this should go in the next book. I do know writing this book reminded me of a couple of things ive always known. One is you shouldnt take your self osoftware life too serious. I would like to read a short passage from the book to prove my point. Not my only regret but one regret is i didnt keep all the pictures that id gotten from the barbara bush lookalikes. I get at least four letters a month and have for years from ladys been told they look exactly like me. I am so common looking at when i spoke to the Junior League in toledo ohio in october, they had to lookalikes. They could be 5 feet tall to 6 feet tall. They could way 122 to 20. They can be 55 to 95 years of age. They all have one thing in common, white hair. I finally had learned to say i wish i did loo didnt look as ps you and in most cases the true. As you can imagine it also brings all sorts of funny surprises. One year shortly after giving the commencement address at texas a and m. University, i received a letter from a lady thats what i might be amused by something that happened after my talk. She had taken her granddaughter with her to the graduation and when she returned the little girl to her mother, the child ran into the house yelling youll never guess what i did. I heard the mother of the president of the united states. I heard George Washingtons mother. [laughter] i might have been more amused if i didnt sort of look like george washington. [laughter] another letter that truly thrilled me and abused my family came from a little girl who said Something Like great news. Ive named my effort after you. [laughter] this child send me updates on barbara bush ahead for. Barbara competed in the houston livestock show one year and came in a. They was sorry for my little friend but slightly relieved as im not sure i could have stood the headlines barbara bush wins defense talk show. [laughter] which brings me to the next thing that i was reminded of while writing this book. You cannot survive life without a sense of humor otherwise he will never recover from the ups and downs and disappointments. One of the reasons i married george bush was he made me lau laugh. This was written after the death of our beloved dog, the one that wrote the bestselling book about life in the white house and donate all the proceeds to literacy. The book made over a Million Dollars for my foundation. George used to say you work all your life and finally obtained the highest job in our country and maybe the world coming into your do dogs makes more money tn you do. [laughter] we were very sad when she died but thankfully some of the reactions to her death made us smile. I wrote in my book the outpouring of letters, flowers and telephone calls was unbelievable. People wrote things like i love her and i will always remember her over im having a mass for her. Anat our First Congregational Church they prayed for her on the sunday after her death and one lady wrote she knew the pain we were suffering. You see, my husband died last year. [laughter] that made george very nervous. [laughter] the Barbara Bush Foundation for literacy got a 500 contribution in memory of her. People wrote letters, sent pictures of their dogs or cats either living or dead. She wouldnt have liked that the latter one. My good friend after whom she was named head an interview and georges chief of staff was interviewed by people magazine. Both ladies said that the interviewers said they knew she had written a book and had given her proceeds to charity, but they wanted to know the personal side of her. What she had done lately. She was a dog. Thank god for a sense of humor. However, the most important thing i was reminded of is that i am the luckiest woman in the world. I have a husband i adore, children that bring us great joy, friends that mean a tremendous amount to us, and we live in the great state of texas which is part of the freest nation in history and