I came across this blog post by Leslie Boyd at the Asheville Citizen-Times and wanted to share it with you. Leslie has been a tireless advocate for mental health services. Her journalistic work has kept the public informed about what can be very complicated legislative and social issues surrounding mental health services.
Excerpted, but it really doesn't do the piece justice to break it up - click here to go read the whole thing:
"Depression doesn't run in my family; it gallops. My sisters and I usually laugh when we say this, but some members of my family have been on meds for years. I think one of us was on Prozac the day after it was approved and I was just a week or so behind her."
[...]
"Sometimes, people say things about people with depression that really piss me off -- like when a state official referred to us as "the worried well," when she explained that people with "simple" depression wouldn't be part of the "targeted population" that would be cared for in the state's new mental health system."
[...]
"So, it's time to change the language -- and the perception. Not everyone with a brain-chemistry imbalance is "mental" or "crazy." People just need help dealing with a chronic illness. It should be treated the same as any other chronic illness -- dealt with before it becomes an emergency and managed so that it doesn't lead to a disaster."
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