EveryMind is an essential community resource, ensuring that the most vulnerable in our community have access to the mental health services and supports they need in order to reach their greatest potential. We are also CHANGING THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and demonstrating its interconnectedness with overall health. We are committed to helping everyone recognize that taking care of one’s mental wellness is as necessary as taking care of one’s physical wellness. Because every mind is important and needs attention, care, and support. Please consider sponsoring me in the Run for EveryMind.
My mother, now 92, was diagnosed with a "nervous breakdown" when she was 19 years old, in 1951. Her parents took care of her, kept her at home as much as they could, found her work with friends, swooped in throughout her life periodically when she found herself in crisis and rescued her (and later her and her two daughters). Like many with bipolar disorder, she resisted medications because they made her feel dimmed, and the side effects were intolerable. Now, in her last two decades, she is appropriately medicated, in part because she has a degree of dementia and has lost control of the ability to agree or disagree to taking them. As a result, she is much easier to get along with, but sometimes I look at her and mourn the loss of the lively, creative, unpredictable and often impossible woman who I knew most of my life.
Mental health has been a personal issue for me, and also a professional concern (I am a physician, and many of my patients suffer from mental health issues). I feel very strongly about destigmatizing mental illness, in order to allow everyone to access care for themselves, their family members, and their friends.
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