For many, getting help starts with a conversation. People who believe they may be suffering from a mental health condition should talk about it with someone they trust and consult a health care provider. As a Nation, it is up to all of us to know the signs of mental health issues and lend a hand to those who are struggling. Shame and stigma too often leave people feeling like there is no place to turn. We need to make sure they know that asking for help is not a sign of weakness — it is a sign of strength. To find treatment services nearby, call 1-800-662-HELP. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline offers immediate assistance for all Americans, including service members and veterans, at 1-800-273-TALK.

Our commitment cannot end there. We must ensure people have access to the care they need — which is why the Affordable Care Act will expand mental health and substance use disorder benefits and Federal parity protections for 62 million Americans. For the first time, the health care law will prevent insurers from denying coverage because of a pre-existing condition. The Act already requires new health plans to cover recommended preventive services like depression screening and behavioral assessments for children at no extra cost to patients.

My Administration will keep building on those achievements. Earlier this year, I was proud to launch the BRAIN Initiative — a new partnership between government, scientists, and leaders in the private sector to invest in research that could unlock new treatments for mental illness and drive growth throughout our economy. We have made unprecedented commitments to improving mental health care for veterans suffering from traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. And we have proposed new funding for mental health programs that will help teachers and other adults recognize the signs of mental illness in children, improve mental health outcomes for young people, and train 5,000 more mental health professionals to serve our youth.

Mental health problems remain a serious public health concern, but together, our Nation is making progress. This month, I encourage all Americans to advance this important work by raising awareness about mental health and lending strength to all who need it.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim May 2013 as National Mental Health Awareness Month. I call upon citizens, government agencies, organizations, health care providers, and research institutions to raise mental health awareness and continue helping Americans live longer, healthier lives.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirtieth day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand thirteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-seventh.

BARACK OBAMA

Read more

Read more here

Learn more here: http://sd06.senate.ca.gov/news/2012-12-20-steinberg-introduces-national-proposal-enhance-mental-health-services

Stigma associated with mental health conditions, including the misconception that people with mental illness may be violent, stops our society from properly funding and providing the positive effective services and supports that help people recover. It stops our families and friends from accessing help or even talking about their struggles. The worst result of all this, of pain combined with fear of disclosure leading to isolation and hopelessness, is death. Death by suicide is now the single leading cause of preventable death in our country, killing over a hundred people every day, five thousand Americans a year.
I am one of many people who has survived a suicide attempt. Like many of you I’ve lost people I was close to as well. And like many of those who die, shame and stigma drove me to consider that death was more dignified than getting help. (MHASF Executive Director, Eduardo Vega, MA)

By Malihe Razazan

On today’s Your Call, we’ll have a conversation about mental illnesses. According to National Alliance on Mental Health, approximately 58 million Americans— experience a mental health disorder in a given year, but about 30% receive services. What is mental illness? What can be done to erase the stigma? And what resources are available for helping people with mental disorders? It’s Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Listen here

“Laura’s Law” is named for Laura Wilcox, a college student who was murdered by a schizophrenic man with a history of violence who had refused treatment. It lets counties throughout California opt in to a system in which the mentally ill, like Wilcox’s killer, can be forced into treatment.

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said the city will roll out a version of the law on a permanent basis this year to help mentally ill homeless people get treatment. But, San Francisco will avoid the most controversial aspect of the law – by making compliance voluntary.

Read more

Yet, in our rapid-fire media culture that seeks tidy comprehension for such devastating acts, we often turn to simple answers. Unfortunately, one of those answers has been to inaccurately connect mass murder and violence to mental health conditions rather than to focus on the true scourge of gun violence that infects our nation.

The prevalence of mental health conditions is nearly the same across the world. The prevalence of gun violence is decidedly not. In 2011, 8,583 people were murdered with guns in the United States compared with 58 murders with guns involved in England and Wales.

We know precious little about what precipitated the events at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and it is assured that we will never know enough to fully comprehend or accept it. Yet within hours of the shooting, it was linked on national media sites to both mental health and developmental conditions such as autism when there was no real evidence that either condition was involved.

More to the point, when substance abuse is not present, individuals who experience mental health symptoms are no more likely than anyone else to commit violent acts. They are however, much more likely to be the victims of violence.

Those of us who have personally dealt with mental illness are familiar with this conflation of gun violence and mental illness. It can feel easier to accept such horror by thinking of a perpetrator of such violence as “the other,” as not one of us. This type of thinking is dangerous.

Between 20 and 25 percent of Americans will experience mental health symptoms at some point in their lives. We are your friends, your co-workers, your neighbors, your children, your parents. We live fully productive lives, achieve our dreams and increasingly speak out about our experiences as a way to help others understand and empathize.

When mental health is immediately linked to nightmarish episodes of violence, a dark barrier of stigma is built up between individuals with mental health conditions and society. Rather than seeking services and support that would promote healing and recovery and make mental illness manageable, more individuals will be forced to hide in fear, to suffer in silence, to feel suspicion cast on them. That road leads to disability, isolation and, most painful of all, to the loss of hope.

There is another road. The other road is to come together and examine hard truths about our society and shared values. As a mental health consumer-run organization, the Mental Health Association of San Francisco urges the citizens of San Francisco and beyond to join us in the difficult conversations that we all need to have to forge solutions that will help ensure that no more innocents are lost in such a senseless way.

Michael Gause
Deputy Director, MHASF

Click here to watch the discussion

Her daughters came in and threw everything away — to Ms. Stark’s horror — but a year later her home was again barely navigable. “I couldn’t throw out my garbage,” she said. “I put it in plastic bags, but I couldn’t take it out.”

A drop-in support group sponsored by the Mental Health Association of San Francisco helped her begin to control her hoarding behavior, and she has made considerable headway. “My bedroom is still a work in progress,” said Ms. Stark, 67. “But I can cook again.”

She has become a trained peer responder who works with others with this disorder. Many of the Mental Health Association’s clients are older adults: A woman in her 70s occupies one small room because the rest of her spacious house — leaking and mildewed — is filled with stuff she can’t discard. An 87-year-old, a compulsive thrift-store shopper, faces eviction because the city health department says she has created a safety hazard. “I’ll say, ‘Of these dozen black leather coats, pick two,’” Ms. Stark said, mapping her strategy to help keep the woman in her home.

Read more here