Hi, it's me Jessica, the host of Flipswitch.  For the first time on Tuesday, July 10 at 1 pm EDT/12 pm CST I will be sharing my story in a webinar with NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness.  Using my own experiences of excelling despite bipolar and helping other young people finish school, I will be talking about how to succeed and graduate when you have depression or bipolar disorder.  I will also discuss Flipswitch--how this blog & podcast empowers people with mental illness.  The other panelist, my friend and award-winning author Melody Moezzi, will be sharing advice on succeeding in the workforce when you have a mental illness.  In honor of Minority Mental Health Awareness Month, we will both be discussing what it's like to be a minority with a mental illness.  We will also have a Q & A time.

What You Need: A Computer, Phone, & (if other people are around) Headphones

Where You Can Register: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/island/webinar/registration.tmpl?id=137998250

Where You Can go to Understand Your Time Zone:  http://www.timezoneconverter.com/

Presenters (bios courtesy of NAMI):

Jessica Lynn Gimeno

Jessica is the Online Communications Associate at the Balanced Mind Foundation where she runs Flipswitch, the organization’s podcast and blog that helps teens and twenty-somethings understand depression and bipolar disorder. Jessica graduated cum laude from Northwestern University with a B.S. in Communications and a second major in Political Science. While at Northwestern, she developed a passion for helping students with depression and bipolar disorder get through challenging times and achieve academically. She and a best friend co-founded a depression support network. For several years, she gave talks to campus fellowship groups about de-stigmatizing depression while working with individual students to get them psychiatric help. This year Jessica won 2nd Prize in the National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare and Eli Lily’s Reintegration and Awards of Excellence.

Melody Moezzi

Melody is an Iranian-American writer, activist, attorney and award-winning author. She is also a United Nations Global Expert with the UN Alliance of Civilizations; a member of the British Council's Our Shared Future Opinion Leaders Network, and a member of the U.S. State Department's Generation Change initiative. Her first book, War on Error: Real Stories of American Muslims, earned her a Georgia Author of the Year Award and a Gustavus Myers Center for Bigotry and Human Rights Honorable Mention. Melody is a commentator for National Public Radio’s All Things Considered and for Georgia Public Broadcasting’s Georgia Gazette. She is a blogger for The Huffington Post, Ms. Magazine and Bipolar Magazine. She has made many appearances on CNN and other TV shows. Her writings have appeared in many publications, including The Washington Post, the Guardian, The Christian Science Monitor, NPR, CNN.com, Parabola, the American Bar Association, and the Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine. 

I hope you to see you Tuesday!  Together, we can succeed despite stigma.

--Flipswtich Host, Jessica Lynn Gimeno