xxAACP Newsletter, Volume 14, Number 4, Fall 2000
PRESIDENT'S COLUMN
What Aren't We Doing?
Last week my local NAMI affiliate held a "Walk for Mental Illness" as an event celebrating Mental Illness Awareness Week. The day of the walk arrived, sunny and crisply cool. However, despite the weather, and although Birmingham and its surrounding area claims a million plus population, and although NAMI Birmingham is one of the strongest chapters in the state, the turnout was abysmal. Fewer than twenty people showed up. Two probate court candidates spoke quickly, we grabbed our picket signs, walked about four miles, ate a snack, and went home. Not much money was collected. On Sunday there was a picture of the walk buried in the Metro section of the newspaper.
The next day I read about the local annual walk for AIDS. Churches across the area were collecting money during services, and congregants were being encouraged to participate in the walk; the newspaper was predicting over $100,000 would be collected for the cause. A couple of weeks ago, the "Run for the Cure" (breast cancer) fundraiser occurred; before that, the walk/run for the American Heart Association, all much better attended than the NAMI walk. What is going on?
For years, stigma busting has been a top priority for NAMI. NAMI "scores" by campaigning against movies and television shows that further stigmatize those with mental illness. Within the last year, the Surgeon General has provided a sentinel report on the mental health of our nation. Depression Screening and Anxiety Screening Days proliferate across our country. An occasional column on mental health blesses regional newspapers, or national magazines. Consumer and family education materials related to mental illness are distributed in a variety of venues and languages. And yet, during an open forum period for announcements during a recent school board meeting I attend, the level of discomfort in the room exploded when I prefaced my announcement of the upcoming NAMI walk with "one out of two of you in this room has a mental illness or emotional problem or has a friend or loved one with a mental illness or emotional problem". Well educated, empathic people who always have time for one more cause would not make eye contact with me. Is this singular to Birmingham? I don’t think so.
Families cannot or do not recognize when their loved ones are hurting. People with mental illness still do not seek the care they need. Necessary services are not readily available, particularly for those who are the working poor, the poorly insured, the substance abuser, the victims and perpetrators of violence, the person behind prison bars. Some diagnoses are deemed more worthy of care and services and resources than others...by society, by advocacy groups, by insurance companies, by state and federal funders.
I know we are all frantically busy, and over committed. Our lives are hectic because we care, and we are passionate about our causes. I would ask that each of you take on one more task; do whatever you can to decrease the stigma related to mental illness. Offer to write a column for your local newspaper once a month; give a talk at a church or temple or mosque once in a while. Visit your child’s school to discuss substance abuse or depression or family violence. Call your representatives about legislation on dementia. Take your son’s cub scout pack to the local homeless shelter with donations of clothes. Attach a face and a story to the facts when you write or speak. Only when everyone sees that their lives are touched daily by issues of mental health and mental illness will people, and systems of care, and funding institutions change.
President, AACP
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