According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), 60 million Americans experience a mental health condition every year – that’s one in four adults and one in ten children. People of every race, age, religion or economic status are affected. Whether we are aware of it or not, we all know someone who is living with some form of mental illness.
Mental illness is something we are intimately acquainted with as our youngest son, Matthew, struggled with a variety of mental illnesses from a young age. Even as a toddler there were signs that things were not right. At 7, he was diagnosed as clinically depressed which surprised us as we were unaware that children that young could be that depressed. As the years went by, he began to experience major depressive episodes as well as panic attacks, extreme mood swings, obsessions/compulsions, personality disorder, and heartbreaking problems in school and relationships. Life became a painful revolving door of doctor appointments, medication, therapy, and adjustments to school classes. There were periods of relative stability but then Matthew’s suicidal ideation became a part of our daily life. Our hilariously funny, immensely creative, intensely compassionate son struggled to make sense of his life and the mental pain he was experiencing. His anguish was our anguish. On April 5, 2013, impulse met opportunity in a tragic way. Our beautiful son ran into the unforgiving wall of mental illness for the last time.
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