Funds for Mental Health

I make no apologies. I’ll tell you right up front. In this blog entry I’m going to ask you to make a commitment to support mental health funding. It is too critical an issue to leave alone.

Quoting from the 2014 NAMIWalks brochure:

“From coast to coast and around the globe, mental illness affects everyone. Every year, regardless of race, age, religion or economic status, mental illness impacts the lives of at least one in four adults, and one in ten children across the United States – that is nearly 60 million Americans.”

“NAMI, National Alliance on Mental Illness, is the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans Affected with Mental illness. NAMI advocates for access to services, treatment supports and research.”

 As a concerned community member, I have been involved “in the trenches” as a volunteer friend of a man severely disabled with mental illness for some 18 years now. My college degree is a B.A. in Psychology (1972, Bethel College, North Newton, KS). I was Seminary-trained in chaplaincy/counseling and for a time I worked in that role. I am also an Adult “with” A.D.D. Attention Deficit Disorder.

I prefer to think of myself as “an Adult A.D.D.;” something I AM and not what I have. I’ve come to view it as almost a personality type in and of itself, and I’ve made friends with myself as such a person. It’s far easier to manage my moods, etc. when I think in that way; when I accept myself as worthy of my own care. 

A.D.H.D. (“H” for hyperactive), is listed high on NAMI’s list of mental illnesses. A.D.D. and A.D.H.D. are genetic issues and aren’t “curable.”

I have had only a brief time in my life when I was involved in a professional intervention for my “condition,” and I do no meds for the so-called disorder. Thus, I generally think of myself in my concerned community member role rather than as a Mental Health Consumer. A year ago, I joined NAMI Reno, the local NAMI affiliate and became NAMIWalks Captain for Reno County, KS. I continue in that role this year, and I am under full steam in seeking sponsorship for our team, HutchInStride.

If you are inclined to join me in my concern for mental health consumers, please visit http://namiwalks.nami.org/HutchInStride2014 – my own NAMIWalks website – and sign on to support my efforts. Your response has never been more important, with a Kansas Governor in an election year who believes that taking money from one part of the overall mental health budget and applying it to another, less needed area, represents increased funding with which he can make political hay. The net effect is that Mental Health Consumers are actually losing services. NAMI stands in the gap, working to rectify that problem.