Of 50 states, South Carolina ranks 44th in terms of access to mental health care. Early detection and treatment are key parts of recovery. No one asks for mental illness and it isn’t caused by something that you do. Can you imagine blaming someone for getting cancer or kidney disease? We don’t blame those with Alzheimer’s or heart disease for their illness, yet there is a great deal of blame, shame and fear surrounding diseases like depression and schizophrenia. These illnesses are really a young person’s disease - but we don’t think about them that way because the average time between the onset of symptoms and when people seek treatment is 11 years. Twenty-five percent of mental illness begins by age 14, 75% by age 24. Most of these illnesses strike in adolescence - making school, work and sometimes even daily tasks difficult or almost impossible. That’s about 1 in every 4 Americans.īrain disorders, like bipolar disorder or anxiety, affect the brain’s messaging system - which in turn affects behavior. About 26% of Americans suffers from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year.
My family is typical in another way also, because one of us has a mental illness. We love living in Greenville, surrounded by wonderful friends from school, church and the community. I’m writing today as a member of a typical American family.
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