TOPIC: HEAD SPACE
It’s the compulsion to lock the door one more time, even when you know you’ve done it. Not getting out of bed and not knowing why. Never addressing the ghost in your past that haunts you. To be sure, taking care of your mind can still feel taboo. Here’s a chance to let the voice inside your head come out into the open.

There’s an implicit pressure to feel “normal” or “right” even when there’s a lot more jumbled up in your head. We often leave our mental health struggles unspoken in the appearance of propriety. But in the immortal words of R.E.M., “Everybody hurts sometimes.” Now is the chance to deconstruct what you’ve kept locked inside your head. Tell a story about the joys, challenges, and traumas of navigating your mind.

Our featured storyteller: Nancy Cleveland’s mother had mental health problems and was addicted to drugs, but her two maternal aunts were able to adopt her when she was 3. She was delivered to her aunts in the Bronx in New York City by June O’Neal, who worked for DFCS at the time and is now the executive director of The Mentors Project in Macon. Although Cleveland loved New York City and the people she met there, she said she always felt out of place. She said she kept thinking about her mother living on the streets in Macon. So she returned to Macon almost six years ago and today works with or has started a number of community programs designed to help people.

Nancy currently operates two nonprofit organizations, Macon Head Space and Freedom for All. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Advertising in 2012 from Syracuse University. Although, raised in the Bronx, New York, she was born in Macon, GA, and re-located to the Cherry Blossom capital in 2014. Cleveland serves as a board member of the Historic Macon Foundation and is an active volunteer in her neighborhood. She is a graduate of Historic Macon Foundation’s Leadership Institute, a graduate of the Leadership Macon Class of 2018 and a graduate of Kingdom Life Church’s Urban CEO Class of 2019. She can often be found hanging out with friends, traveling or playing with her dog, Duchess.

To sign up to tell a story: https://forms.gle/UAMuQtrdjJoDbnYm8
* Signing up prior to the event is encouraged
* Stories are limited to 5 minutes per person
* Please be mindful if bringing children that stories are uncensored, except for hate speech.