CONSUMER AFFAIRS BULLETIN
Volume 3, No. 1 Winter 1998

The Meaning of the Walk...

(Remarks by Janice Lynch Schuster were given at the official kick-off of the "Walk" at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., in October. Ms. Schuster has agreed to share her comments.)

"When I told my mother that I would speak to you today, she said, 'You won't talk about your own illness, will you?' Her response shows why we need a walk for mental health. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today about my experience of a life touched by mental illness.

Lives touched by mental illness can be touched by genius, creativity, wisdom, discovery, and adventure. Lives touched by mental illness can also be touched by grace: by recovery, medical and alternative treatments, therapy, self-help and consumer-run groups.

All too often, however, lives touched by mental illness are touched by fear, isolation, uncertainty, discrimination, and alienation. They are touched by homelessness, poverty, addiction, misdiagnosis, inadequate insurance coverage, and suicide.

In my own life, mental illness has touched generations of my family. It has touched me, through more than a decade of treatment for depression. It has touched me most keenly in the last six months as I have grappled with bipolar disorder and its treatment. Even so, I am fortunate: I am well-schooled and educated. I have health insurance with prescription coverage that pays for the more than $500 worth of medicines I take each month.

I have access to information. I have the support of a kind husband, family, friends, and colleagues. I found the treatment that works for me.

As a woman with a chronic mental illness, I continue to fear things that are the consequence of stigma and misunderstanding about this disease: