If you are good at developing a tapestry, your stitches will be neat and the same dimension every try. When you have a mental illness, creating the tapestry is a lot more difficult.
The summer going into my junior year of high school, I started to feel different…A month or two after being diagnosed, the thoughts came. I had a plan to end my life.
My diagnosis was just a fluke, I told myself. Two years later, back at home in Indiana, the symptoms returned. This time worse than the first time.
Happiness and contentment come from the inside out and not the outside in.
Proactive Media: Letters to Editors A letter to the editor (LTE) is a short letter sent to a newspaper or magazine to present NAMI’s position, make a factual correction or comment on a story or previous LTE from someone with an opposing view. For newspapers, LTEs generally ap...
Key Messages: NAMI Youth Programs NAMI programs for youth, their families and school personnel help to battle the stigma often surrounding mental health conditions and provide the resources and support that can lead to making a difference in the lives of youth and their famil...
Last summer, when I was an intern for NAMI, I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a launch event on Capitol Hill for Ok2Talk.org . I listened to Congressmen and women talked about how important it was for the government to set aside party differences and address mental...
I've lived successfully in recovery from schizophrenia for 25 years: all of my adult life. I'm here to say that you can recover and go on to have a good life. On Sept. 25, 1987, I had a breakdown that was sudden, total and irreversible. A NAMI survey report, Schizophr...
July is National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month. Join the celebration and spread the word. Mental health recovery is a possibility for people of diverse backgrounds. To learn more about the Month and get ideas of how to celebrate it visit: www.nami.org/minoritym...
We have a day for giving thanks and two days for sales and buying presents. Now there is a day for giving back. #GivingTuesday is a social media movement to create a national day of giving to kick off the holiday season. The second annual #GivingTuesday is on Dec. 3, 20...
At a fundraising banquet for their NAMI Affiliate earlier this spring, Wendy Wendt and her son Matthew excitedly waited for a video slide show the staff has put together. The video would highlight the reason everyone had gathered: HUGS. As the video plays, Matthew’s face l...
Navajo brother and sister duo Clayson and Jeneda Jenally make up the band, Sihasin. Photo courtesy of the artist. One of those traditions that can have a positive influence on mental health is music. Music has historically played a significant role when it com...
Technology is rapidly changing the world. People use the Internet at home and on their phones to do everything from gather information to perform everyday tasks. What isn’t well understood is how much people with serious mental illnesses use technology to cope with their sym...
Let’s applaud WAMU-FM, the National Public Radio (NPR) affiliate in Washington, D.C. for a recent five-part series on children, mental health and schools. Each episode (available in both audio and text) can be found here: Feeling 'Invisible' — How Mental Illness Often Goe...
Who would think that the way to finally get your family talking about mental illness would be to sit them in front of a camera and start rolling? That’s exactly what Dinesh Das Sabu did in Unbroken Glass , his new documentary from Kartemquin Films. After living his ...
What does anxiety mean to you? Nervousness before a test? Driving down a dark highway and realizing you’re almost out of gas and it’s 35 miles to the next exit? Or does it mean breaking out in sweat as your muscles suddenly tighten and your heart rate quickens? You th...
At 50 years old, Joe experienced what he considers his first manic episode. He was fired from his job—a career he spent 33 years building. After getting the news, he drove straight to the hospital. “I walked in through the employee’s entrance, all stressed out,” Joe explai...
July is Minority Mental Health Month which provides an ideal opportunity to talk about the mental health of young people of color. Our country is becoming more and more diverse—the proportion of children of color are projected to become the majority by 2020 and people...
Something notable happens whenever my depression hits: I immediately forget how to pull myself out of it. To remedy this cycle, I’ve all but posted a “How-To” guide in my office. Being the fixer I am, it is my natural inclination to offer advice or a bullet list to myse...
Children, and sometimes even toddlers, can experience depression. The clinical term is called pediatric depression, and around 3% of children aged 3-17 years old experience it. Sometimes it can be hard to know the difference between normal childhood feelings and symp...