NAMI honors local mental health efforts, advocacy
The Daily RecordAug 26, 2018
And that taught them, Howard said, “that mentally ill people came from other people’s families and they had bad parents.” So when Howard began experiencing anxiety and the mania that comes with bipolar disorder, “their son was not sick,” he said. “Their son was a brat” and was punished accordingly.
But by the time Howard was 25, he found a friend who recognized his symptoms and told him they needed to go to the hospital. “Why would I go to the hospital?” came the reply. “I’m not sick.”
Turns out, the friend was right. And though it took some time to come up with the right combination of medications, Howard told the audience at the NAMI of
For him, that means “I spend more of my life living than I do managing my bipolar disorder,” Howard said. It’s gone from being “100 percent of my life to this tiny percentage, this manageable percentage.”
And, he said he’s realized this because, “I’m just lucky.”
He had that friend. He had good insurance. He had money.
Now, Howard is an advocate for mental health services, a motivational speaker and author and the host of the Psych Central Show, an iTunes Top Ten health podcast. “And if someone is lucky,” he told the group, “then someone is unlucky and that is not OK with me.”
The evening was all about advocates like Howard, from law enforcement officers working in crisis intervention to volunteers at MOCA House and members of the community who have made a difference in the mental health community.
Executive director
“Deputy Ecker has been involved in many serious, diverse and dangerous incidents involving subjects with untreated mental illness,” according to the nomination letter from
Ecker also serves on the
Also recognized for their CIT commitment were
Doctors Dennis and
The NAMI Community Service Award was given to
In the evening’s only formal business,
Reporter
CREDIT: