NAMI WALKS LA

October 7, 2006, Santa Monica Third Street Promenade will be the date and site of this years NAMI WALKS Los Angeles at 9:30 AM.

When I heard that the walk would be at a new location I was overjoyed at where and when this years event would take place. The Third Street Promanade in Santa Monica is one of the greater Los Angeles Counties best spots for exposure to a cause as this one. On any Saturday this place is packed with people shopping, dining and theater visitors. This will be a great day for NAMI.

If you are reading this and have not joined as either a walker or team captain please do so. The money raised by this annual event helps educate, advocate and battle stigma on behalf of those who cannot always fight on their own.

The monies help raise the level of awareness to the plight of the chronically mentally ill. It's used to help change laws and policies that affect our loved ones at the federal, state and local levels. It funds the needed advertising to elevate awareness to our society at large. It allows for many important programs, "Family-to-Family", "Peer-to-Peer", "In Their Own Voice" and many others to be developed and improved upon.

If we really want to effect change on behalf of those who suffer with mental illness and advocate with the legislators for changes events like NAMI WALKS LA is where your voice can be heard.

Join us,

LA Times - Mental Health Stories this week

In the past week their have been two articles in the LA Times regarding mental health that are worth taking note of.
On Tuesday September 5 the sad story of Christina Eilman appeared. This story related the difficulties a young woman had after being diagnosed with bi-polar disorder last year, she was not med compliant had a manic episode that led to a series of very unfortunate circumstances and finally with her being tragically injured and in terrible pain. The story can be viewed through this link http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-plummet5sep05,1,6406843.story

My reason for starting a discussion on this story is because first it is a true story based on some pretty damaging facts of how ill-equipped the police are in handling mentally ill individuals, and yet they are having to deal with the mentally ill every day. Second, we can see how Illinois is doing how about California? What role do we have in helping our loved ones in being med-compliant?

It seems we are failing on every level as a society when it comes to helping the helpless individuals who are diagnosed, released on the own, and no or little follow up takes place. This leads me to the second story in the Times.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-prisons7sep07,1,6481263.story this story in Thursday’s paper shares the results of a study of 25, 000 prisoners in our nation of which ½ have a mental illness. We have moved from a society that had insane asylums once considered to be so disgusting that we did away with them and went to state run mental hospitals that were closed in the late 1960’s back to a state run insane asylum called the jail system. We are no further along in helping the mentally ill than ever. We are losing the battle and retrenching each day toward a broken system.

I do not mean to sound angry or depressed about this, but the fact is we as a society in a modern enlightened age with our scientific, sociological, wisdom and pioneering spirit cannot give a account as to why we are so poor at helping the mentally ill.

I look forward to your comments and ideas.