NAMI Metro Suburban Blog

COVID-19 has disproportionately affected communities of color. This is seen with their increased mortality rates and underlying health conditions. People of color have a larger prevalence of underlying health conditions, likely due to their communities having a harder time accessing health care and affordable healthy food. A lack of accessible heal...

When it became increasingly clear by mid-March that the global pandemic was going to turn life as we knew it upside down, the unthinkable happened for millions of Americans like me who are in recovery from addiction: One by one, the 12-step meetings that were our lifelines to connection and support began being canceled as the churches and clubs whe...

 According to NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness*: 1 in 5 American adults contend with a psychiatric illness* Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide* Millions of people in the U.S. live with psychiatric disorders*.Some seek treatment; many have hope; all can recover.There is always hope.People can and do live in wel...

Feeling stressed? Worn out maybe? Go ahead and turn on some music and sing your heart out. Or perhaps sitting and listening to soft music is more your way. Sometimes I do both. In the car I put on some loud music and sing my stress out. It's very fun this way. Who you listen to can be different to who I listen to, but as long as the result is the s...

Those who know me know I am a huge fan of live theater. Maybe that is why I woke up this morning with a song from the Sondheim musical, Into the Woods, stuck in my head. It could have just been that I was missing my evenings at Broadway in Chicago performances, but my analytical mind read more into it. You see, the song I was singing was "You Are N...

Amid the epidemiological chaos created by the novel coronavirus, a psychological pandemic, too, has emerged. According to the Crisis Text Line, the mental health impacts of COVID-19 will outlast the virus. Millions across the globe bear the brunt of economic uncertainty, loneliness, and grief. Heightened rates of stress and anxiety are now coupled ...

'What happened to the day?', I would wonder as I got up from the couch looking down at my pajamas and then up at the clock that read 4 pm. A smile would come to my face as I realized I had accomplished absolutely nothing of consequence and enjoyed every moment of it. Those were "me" days; the very rare days where I slowed down and ignored the deman...

For years a close friend and I, both struggling with bouts of depression, had a routine. She would call and tell me her tale of the terrible day she'd just had. I would always respond with the same question, what's the win? She would do the same when I had a day that was less than stellar. No matter how bad things were the question was the same, wh...

We toss around the word "normal" as if it should mean something, as if there is a gold standard we are all looking at to determine what is right and what is wrong. If we disregard right or wrong for a minute and look at what is typical, the last few days certainly do not measure up to normal. We are living in a time that is difficult to understand ...

According to a 2017 article in Science Daily "less than half of Americans can recognize anxiety. Most people don't know what to do about depression even when they spot it." That was based on a national survey on issues surrounding mental-health literacy out of Michigan State University¹. Could improving our mental health literacy decrease stigma an...

When looking for inspiration to get going on a bad day, the words of the popular children's book come to mind. If you are not familiar with "If you give a Mouse a Cookie" by Laura Numeroff, the story begins with "If you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to ask for a glass of milk. When you give him the milk, he'll probably ask you for a straw." It ...

It happens every year like clockwork. The days get shorter and the air gets colder. The leaves change colors and then the trees become bare. Warm walks in the sun turn to hayrides under the moon and, finally, to snow falling from a dark and dreary sky. Many welcome the turn of seasons as a pleasant change from the heat of summer but others look at ...

Last weekend 60 NAMI Metro Suburban members and supporters, along with their friends, neighbors and relatives, could be found Striking Down Stigma at Striker Lanes in Berwyn. We bowled some high scores and some gutter balls, had a lot of laughs, and enjoyed some great munchies. Did we rid the world of all mental health stigma? No, I cannot say we d...

Talking about mental illness is hard. Stigma is prevalent among us and can be scary to face. I believe in order to get ahead of stigma we must talk about mental illness and our feelings openly. I know this may feel challenging, especially if feelings such as shame or embarrassment arise, so I've come up with some ideas that may help. I hope my tips...

Survive and Outlast. Etched into my back are three simple words that encapsulate a lifetime of struggles only unearthed four years ago. A lifetime of struggles but only discovered so recently, how does that work? For the majority of my toddler years, anytime we would have a babysitter, I would cry until I threw up. In first grade I was in the healt...

"Give and take" can be a wonderful thing! In the context of recovery, it can be used to enhance a session, understand a person more deeply and balance the relationship between consumer and provider. When I was nine years old my first acting teacher taught me about the importance of give and take. I learned that when I gave energy to the other peopl...

Even before I got formally diagnosed, I felt that there was something intrinsically wrong with me and that I was defective. I blamed myself for everything that ever happened to me, including childhood trauma. I knew rationally that it wasn't my fault and that I was just a child, but I had convinced myself that I was responsible. On top of that, dep...