NAMI Walk Kickoff Luncheon
March 31, 2010
Have you ever stayed up for 24 hours without
sleep? 48 hours? Maybe in college you partied all night and
into the weekend. How did you feel? How did you act? How did you look? Could you easily perform normal tasks like
reading a chapter in a text to prepare for a test? Living with mental illness is often described
as always feeling like this, day after day, week after week, year after year.
Think of the saddest day of your life. Perhaps when your first love broke up with
you. Perhaps when someone you loved
died. Your parents, your child, or even
a beloved pet. Perhaps it was the
saddest several days in a row.
Depression, a mental illness, is like the saddest days of your life,
EVERY DAY, for weeks, months or years at a time without relief.
Have you ever lost your sunglasses or car keys
and no matter what you did, you couldn’t find them? How did it make you feel? Did you feel like screaming? Can you even imagine what it would be like to
feel that you’ve lost your own sense of what is real and what is not? Where you are and who you can trust? Not trusting even your own family!
We trust our brains to tell us the truth, what we
see, what we hear, what we understand as reality. Today our brains tell us we are at the 2010
NAMI Walk Kickoff Luncheon. We believe
that. Why not? Would you argue with yourself that you were not
really here? Maybe at church or perhaps
enjoying a indoor barbeque party? Of
course not. But what if when you went to
your home this evening, made yourself a sandwich with your bread
and jelly from your refrigerator and then went into your living
room, sat in your chair and turned on your TV to watch your
favorite TV show. Then suddenly someone
bursts into your home screaming at you that you were in their
home, eating their food, sitting in their chair and watching their
TV! They call the police and you are
arrested and tossed in jail for trespass and burglary. In your own home! Or so your brain told you. Mental illness is like that, and this really
happens, all too often.
Can you begin to imagine the confusion, the pain,
the sadness, the horror of living with a mental illness? Mental illness not only effects that way your
brain thinks and processes information it takes away your own sense of self
worth, makes you ashamed of yourself and because of that, often separates you
from those who love you the most, your own family! I talked to a talented artist who lives with
mental illness the other day. She told
me that although people think she looks normal on the outside they don’t see
that her brain is “in a wheelchair.”
Living with mental illness in this time is akin
to living with Leprosy 2,000 years ago.
You are made to feel ashamed, alone, unclean, unwanted, unloved and even
personally responsible for your own situation!
Stella March, who founded NAMI StigmaBusters,
says: “…stigma keeps families from
accepting a loved one’s illness and seeking treatment for them, and it also
marginalizes those who are afflicted.
Why else would it be socially acceptable for them to sleep on filthy and
dangerous streets? Would anyone tolerate
an outdoor dumping ground for victims of cancer, ALS and Parkinson’s?”
All over the United States our jails have become
the housing for our people who live with mental illness. Jails which are not equipped for, or even able
to provide the basic medical care necessary for someone who lives with a mental
illness.
Without available housing people are kept in jail
cells because the judges don’t, or can’t, release someone to the streets just
when they are making progress in their recovery.
Mental illness is a progressive disease which
when left untreated, or not treated properly, for a long period of time, is
progressively less able to respond to treatment. Treatment MUST come early, long before the
disease takes its victim to living lost and alone on our streets.
I don’t tell you these things to make you feel
sorry for those who live with mental illness, I tell you so you can more
understand the disease. It is my hope
that you also feel more compassion for those who live and suffer daily with
this sometimes invisible, sometimes all too visible a disease.
Today there are approximately 300 people
here. On your way you probably
encountered another 50 people or so, on the sidewalk, on the street on in the
autos you passed by. 1 in 4 or 25% of
those people live with mental illness.
About 90 people! Did, or do, they
look scary? Didn’t they look just like
you? You see, you have no reason to
fear most of the people who live with mental illness even if they are filthy
and standing on a street corner yelling at no one you can see. They may act different sometimes, but they
are not usually dangerous people. For statistically you really have more to
fear from the executive in a suit driving on your street, who stopped at the
bar on his way home to wash away his troubles.
Today I want to tell you about a beautiful,
talented and gifted young man. He was a
self taught computer engineer who helped develop some of the things we all use
every day, such as the way your computer sleeps when you don’t move the mouse
for a while. He went to Taiwan for HP to
set up the lab where they test their laptops.
He was a top support technician for Gateway Computers. And he didn’t finish high school! He was considered a genius. He was a talented musician. He was reading at a third grade level when in
the first grade. He was reading the Wall
Street Journal every day and investing in stocks when he quit high school to
join the Army. He was highly respected
and desired in the computer industry. He
made more money per hour in wages than I ever have. But he lived with a mental illness that
tormented him and thus his family. He
saw only one way to stop the demons that he lived with daily.
My son, Anthony Lawton Anderson, one
day in November 2001 came to our home and mixed the only medication that wasn’t
locked up in our safe, a few aspirin, into rubbing alcohol. He then injected this toxic mixture into his
arm with his mother’s insulin syringes.
He died within 12 hours and left his family to wonder why they had not
been able to help or even to save him.
How, why, where did he get such a horrible idea?
That was the beginning of my journey
to find a purpose to what I’d gone through.
In my search for answers to questions that can’t be answered, I found
NAMI. I found not only the help and
support I needed, I found a way to make my tragedy into something good. Something I can be proud of. Through NAMI I found that I can make a difference
for others who live with mental illness and for those who love them. That is why I walk and why I’m here today to
ask you to join with me.
So what can you personally do? I challenge you to stand up and be heard when
you hear someone spread misinformation about mental illness and it causes. Take the free Family to Family class offered my NAMI and learn more about mental
illness. Read Pete Earley’s book, Crazy a headlong
look into the maze of contradictions, disparities and Catch-22s that make up
America's mental health system. Read Steve Lopez’s
book The Soloist, the true story of his friend Nathaniel Ayers, a homeless
musician who lives with schizophrenia and is considered a cello prodigy. Mr. Lopez discovered Mr. Ayers on the streets
of Los Angeles and first wrote about him in his newspaper, the Los Angeles Times. The book was made into a film which was debuted
at the 2009 NAMI National Convention. Read Rev. Craig Rennebaum’s book Souls in the hands of a tender God. Learn how Rev. Rennebaum has made such a big
difference walking the streets of Seattle for over 25 years, simply doing what
he calls “companioning” with those who live on those streets. Form or join a Walk team. Write a check and ask your friends to write
one too. Most of all, be a friend.
For those who live with mental illness are us, our parents, our
siblings, our extended family and our children.
1 in 4 families are affected by a loved one who lives with mental
illness. Mental illness kills more
people than any other one disease. Those
who live with mental illness die an average of 25 years sooner than the rest of
the population. Suicide kills someone
every 15 1/2 minutes in the United States, 2 a day in Oregon, which rates 8
highest in the United States, and the rate is climbing. Every minute of every day someone attempts
suicide. Since we’ve been here at the
Doubletree Inn today almost 90 people have made an attempt to end their lives
across this country!
Here in Oregon we are facing a crisis. We have thousands of veterans scheduled to
return home this spring. The military
officials say that 30 to 40% of these solders are suffering from mental
illness. Our system is already
overworked and there are already many many more people who live daily with
mental illness not being helped. We
can’t ignore this problem any longer. We
must step up to help. NAMI volunteers
are in the forefront of the efforts to make a difference. We need you to join with us. We need your donations.
Your donations to the walk will make a huge
difference and they are needed now more than ever before. Housing will also make a difference. Jobs will also make a difference. As past NAMI-National Board Member Fred Frese
says: “Not 40 hours a week, for those jobs are hard to find, and for those who
live with mental illness, a 40 hour a week maybe impossible to do & keep. Only 3 hours a week can change a life and
make recovery possible. Any small job
will make someone feel better about themselves.” (Jobs such as working at the Warm Line, a program
sponsored by Clackamas County Behavioral Health and NAMI.)
Mental Illness killed my precious son Tony.
Please join with me in this mission to make a difference to do all we can to
prevent another’s loved family member from losing the battle with mental
illness or having to live on the streets of our communities lost, alone, ashamed,
hungry, afraid, cold, wet, and in squalor.
Mark S. Anderson
President NAMI-Clackamas
County
March 31, 2010
