Mental Health Awareness Week

October 7-13, 2007 is national Mental Illness Awareness Week (MIAW). Sponsored by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), MIAW was established in 1990 by Congress in recognition of NAMI’s efforts to educate the public about mental illnesses, which occupy more hospital beds in the US than cancer and heart disease combined. Mental illnesses are medical conditions that disrupt a person’s thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to others, and daily functioning. The good news about mental illness is that recovery is possible, if people have access to the treatment and services they need.

The fifth annual Bipolar Disorder Awareness Day is on Thursday, October 11, 2007. People diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which affects an estimated 10 million Americans, experience alternating episodes of mania (severe highs), depression (severe lows) and mixed states which contain elements of both. Unfortunately, seven out of ten people with bipolar disorder receive at least one misdiagnosis, and many wait years for an accurate diagnosis. It is estimated that 80 percent to 90 percent of people with bipolar disorder can be treated effectively with medication and psychotherapy.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness is the nation's largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to improving the lives of individuals and families affected by mental illness. NAMI has more than 1,100 affiliates in communities across the country who engage in advocacy, research, support and education. NAMI -Skagit joins other affiliates nationwide this week in raising awareness about mental illness.

Depression

Researchers have concluded that depression is more damaging to everyday health than chronic diseases such as angina, arthritis, asthma and diabetes, and if people are ill with other conditions, depression makes them worse.

Somnath Chatterji of the World Health Organisation, who led the study, said researchers calculated the impact of different conditions by asking people questions about their capacities to function in everyday situations -- such as moving around, seeing things at a distance and remembering information. "Our main findings show that depression impairs health state to a substantially greater degree than the other diseases," the researchers wrote.

The team used World Health Organisation data collected from 60 countries and more than 240,000 people to show on average between 9 percent and 23 percent had depression in addition to one or more of four other chronic diseases -- asthma, angina, arthritis and diabetes.
The most disabling combination was diabetes and depression, the researchers said. "If you live for one year with diabetes and depression together you are living the equivalent of 60 percent of full health," Chatterji said in a telephone interview.

The findings show the need to provide better treatment for depression because it has such a big impact on people with chronic illnesses, Chatterji added. "What tends to happen is a health provider doesn't look for anything else but the chronic illness," he said. "What we are saying is, these people will also be depressed and if you don't manage the depression you can't improve a person's health because depression is actually worsening it."

Content provided by Reuters

Mental Health Myths

For some of the more than 54 million Americans who suffer a mental illness in any given year, the stigma of their condition may prevent them from seeking treatment, U.S. experts say.

A team at the Menninger Clinic in Houston reviewed the top five myths about mental illness:

• Myth #1. People with mental illness are weak. In fact, many famous and powerful people have struggled with depression and other forms of mental illness. Making the decision to seek help for mental illness, and participating in treatment, takes strength in itself.
• Myth #2. Medications cure mental illness. While medicines can help manage symptoms, they're only part of the treatment process, which also includes therapy to help patients better understand the factors that contribute to their mental illness.
• Myth #3. People with mental illness could "snap out of it" if they really wanted to. That's no different than telling someone with the flu, diabetes, hypertension or other physical illness or problem to "snap out of it."
• Myth #4. Children don't have mental illness. In fact, 10 percent of children and adolescents in the United States suffer from serious emotional and mental disorders that have a major impact on their day-to-day lives, according to a 1999 U.S. Surgeon General report.
• Myth #5. People with mental illness don't get well. The truth is that a combination of medication and psychological treatments and support reduces symptoms and improves quality of life in between 70 percent and 90 percent of people with mental illness, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

See the Surgeon General's overview on mental illness here. Thanks to Revolution Health for this post.

New Beginnings

Next week I will be co-leading my very first Family to Family Education Program. Although I'll admit to some nerves, mostly about the details, I'm very excited to finally be able to share this amazing program. My husband and I were introduced to F2F the way most folks are - the hard way. My son had just attempted suicide and my sweet husband (we had married only 4 months before this and he is childless,) suddenly had a 21 year old living on his couch. This lump on the couch found it difficult to manage a daily shower and spent most of his time playing computer games or sleeping. I was a wreck with worry. Things were, to put it mildly, strained.

A dear friend of mine told me about this 12 week program that she had heard about and gave me a phone number. The class was starting that very week and we barely squeaked in. We began an odyssey of learning - about brain function, diagnosis, medication - so much information that I could hardly take it all in. As the class progressed we moved into other, scarier, territory. Feelings. Communication workshops. Problem solving. Grief. We moved through a process of self examination and self care. It wasn't just about understanding my son and his illness. It was about understanding our reaction to it and finding some peace with that knowledge.

Two years later I can see all that we got out of that 12 week commitment. My husband found some understanding of the boy on the couch - they have a solid relationship to this day. I formed a profound respect for my son and his courage, and he and I were able to heal many of our old hurts. We can talk more now. He is on a road of dramatic recovery, and although his disease will always be with him, we hope for the best life that he can have. Our family works together toward that end. Family to Family was the beginning. As I share all this with the families in this new class, I know they will find that beginning as well.