NOTE: The next Healthcare Issues Team meeting will be on Monday, October 21. Karen Twedt, Team Leader of the Social Issues Group of the LWVWA Lobby Team, will discuss and answer questions about I-2124, the initiative regarding long-term care. The LWVWA is urging a NO vote.
Mental illness touches all of us. It includes many different conditions and varies from mild to severe. The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that about one in five U.S. adults live with a mental illness, about 6% have severe mental illness.
To learn more about this, in September, the Healthcare Issues Team met with two volunteers from NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) who are living with mental illness. They speak to groups about their experiences to educate people about mental illness and to remove the stigma often associated with it.
Due to the very personal issues that were discussed, the meeting was not recorded. During the meeting they described their struggles with mental illness, how it began, their worst moments, and what helps them. They are both doing well now, but acknowledged that the challenges of mental illness can be chronic.
More information about NAMI can be found at NAMI Washington
www.namiwa.org or NAMI Whatcom County
www.namiwhatcom.org.
To see brief videos of persons describing their experiences with mental illness click on
One Word One Story on the NAMI Whatcom website.