Don't Be Part of the Problem

RIDICULE, NEGLECT DISCOURAGE PEOPLE FROM GETTING HELP

As a psychiatrist, I have the privilege of treating people who have
various forms of mental illness and substance abuse.

I consider treating them a privilege because each person I've met in
my office is a unique and valuable member of society with a story to
tell, a story that must be heard by someone. To be able to participate
in charting a course toward recovery for these individuals is a
blessing to me.

Unfortunately, we live in a society that sometimes views the
individuals my colleagues and I treat as "different" or "dangerous."
Many fear and misunderstand mental illness, its causes and
consequences.

This fear creates the stigma associated with mental illness. People
with mental illness are often labeled, sometimes ridiculed, and
sometimes neglected and completely ignored. Avoiding the stigma keeps
many who need help from coming in for treatment.

We are here today to dispel the myth that the people who have mental
illness and substance abuse are different than anyone else. With this
demonstration today, we hope to open more eyes to the reality that
mental illness is everywhere.

While we are emphasizing that one in three individuals have some form
of mental illness, we need also to recognize that about 50 percent of
us - that's right, half of us - will at some point in our lives need
treatment for mental illness or a substance abuse problem.

Look to your right. Now, flip a coin, and realize the odds of getting
heads are about the same as the odds that either you or that person to
your right will someday need treatment for a substance abuse problem
or a mental illness.

I hope you will walk away from this event today with a clearer picture
of just how many people need treatment. My hope is also that you will
remember that mental illness cuts across all economic and social
barriers. It affects average working families, politicians, musicians,
actors, writers, inventors, scientists, teachers, businessmen and
women, the impoverished and the wealthy.

From Winston Churchill, to Edgar Allen Poe, from Abraham Lincoln, to
Nobel laureate and Princeton mathematics Professor John Nash (upon
whose life the movie "A Beautiful Mind" was loosely based), from
Virginia Woolf, to Tennessee Williams, from Beethoven to Jim Morrison,
from Jimi Hendrix to Kurt Cobain, perhaps from your spouse to your
next-door neighbor, the list goes on and on.

People with mental illness and substance abuse problems are
everywhere, and they enrich each and every one of our lives.

To treat these diseases as something to fear and avoid instead of what
they really are, just diseases that can affect anyone, is not merely
wrong, it is dangerous. When we contribute to fears by labeling,
ridiculing, neglecting and ignoring those with mental illness, we risk
keeping others from getting the help they need.

Our example becomes an obstacle to those who watch us and respect us.
Let us instead open our arms and our hearts and embrace this tragic
consequence of being human and overcome our fears so we might aid or
encourage someone who needs help to seek help. Thank you.