Pubdate: Sun, 23 May 2004 Source: Sunday Gazette-Mail (WV) Copyright: 2004, Sunday Gazette-Mail Contact: http://sundaygazettemail.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1404 Author: Stephen Durrenberger Note: Dr. Stephen Durrenberger, medical director at Prestera Center for Mental Health Services, made these comments at a recent event in Huntington. 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. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake