Pete Earley

My local chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness held its annual NAMI WALKS on Saturday, raising more than $53,000! That’s a record for our chapter.

I participated along with my son, Kevin, who is identified in my book by his middle name, Michael.

As a journalist, I scrupulously avoided joining any organizations because I wanted to remain impartial. But I became a lifetime member of NAMI as soon as I finished writing my book. I joined NAMI because I realized that families, such as mine, needed a strong advocacy voice and programs tailored to help us better understand mental illnesses. NAMI is the largest grassroots mental health advocacy group in our nation. It was founded in 1979 by a group of mothers who were frustrated by our nation’s badly broken mental health system. You can find a NAMI Walks  near you by clicking here. 

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I learned this past weekend that the adult son of a friend had died. This young man had been diagnosed with schizo -affective disorder and had been ill since childhood.

It is always difficult to know what to say to parents who have lost a son or daughter. My own parents lost my sister in a car accident when I was fourteen. That accident happened more than fifty years ago. Still, not a day goes by when they don’t think of her.

It might be an old custom but I went to my friend’s house as soon as I heard about his son’s death. I’d met this friend at our local National Alliance on Mental Illness meetings and when I saw him, I asked if he would show me photographs of his son since I’d never met him.

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Not long after my book, CRAZY: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness, was published, I was contacted by Muffy Walker, a California mother whose youngest son, Court, had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She asked if I would lend my name to a fledgling group that she was starting to educate people about bipolar disorder. Muffy seemed earnest and I was impressed by her enthusiasm so I agreed, but I quietly questioned whether much would ever happen.

Wow, was I wrong!

Muffy is a true tour de force!  In less than six years,  Muffy has made the International Bipolar Foundation into a well-respected, advocacy organization that has helped thousands of parents and their loved ones who have bipolar disorder.  The IBF’s most recent achievement is the publication of a book entitled Healthy Living With Bipolar Disorder that can be your’s FREE for the asking.

Every parent or person who suffers from bipolar disorder should get a copy and read it!  I have and yes, it’s that helpful.

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Jessie, Mattie, Sander and Calen

“My mom was not a constant in our youth. Some days I would bask in her comfort and loving support only to find her distant and cold the next…At age 18, my older brother Calen suffered a severe mental breakdown that lead to a role reversal. My role model was gone and in his place was a frantic, scared and fragile boy rambling about aliens, surveillance cameras and notions about everyone being able to hear his thoughts. There was nowhere for him to escape.

    “It is difficult to describe what you witness when someone is in the throes of a psychotic breakdown.  There is a distinct characteristic about someone’s eyes. It is a stare that pierces your soul. . It is scary but it is even scarier when it is someone you love and you can feel and see the hell that they are in and there is nothing you can do.”

“I’ve always thought that the more sensitive a person is, the more susceptible they are to mental illnesses. A sick joke in our universe is that the more it allows a person to see its beauty and deep connectivity, the more difficult it becomes for that person to maintain good mental health.

     “In our culture, we tend to treat this tradeoff with a fierce double standard. As long as they are sharing with us beautiful insights into humanity, we will love and cherish them as heroes, but if they fall into substance abuse, depression or any other form of mental illness, we tend to say, ‘It’s not our problem.’

     “Classically, these are artists, musicians, writers, etc., but, of course, they come in all sorts, unsung or not. These people tend to add value and meaning to our lives. At their best, they are the types who make us laugh and cry, to learn and to take risks and to love. They are brave and it angers me that as a society, we abandon them when their skies darken.”

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