Getting organized, looking for help

Group assists people close to those with mental illness

Friday, May 19, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff Photo by Susan Craton Connie Walker refers to a NAMI report, ‘‘Grading the States,” that gives Maryland a C-plus for its services available to those with a mental illness. Walker is working to strengthen NAMI’s St. Mary’s County chapter to advocate for changes that should improve that grade. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

Above the bookcase are display cases of meticulously arranged green, red and blue medals and awards from her and her husband’s years in the Navy. And then the books on the top shelf of the bookcase relate to that career — books on leadership, recruiting, training techniques, Winston Churchill, ‘‘The Fifth Discipline.”

The theme changes, though, down lower on the middle shelves, the easier-to-reach shelves.

There, the books are about mental illness. There are rows of books on how a family copes with mental illness, how mental illness affects a family, how to live with mental illness, different kinds of mental illness.

Walker, a retired Navy captain living in Leonardtown, is fighting something different now.

She points to those books on the middle shelves and says they are the resource books she’s gathered over the last two years.

Two years ago is when her son — her 6-feet-7-inch tall basketball-playing son — a private first class in the Army, came home from his tour of duty in northern Kuwait. Walker described his work in the Middle East, his experience with Scud missiles and wearing full-body biological warfare suits in the stifling heat.

Walker’s son was diagnosed with a serious mental illness, SMI, six months after his return from serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom in July 2003. ‘‘Everybody has their different tipping point,” she says.

The diagnosis threw an unexpected curve in Walker’s life and their family’s life. ‘‘When my son was diagnosed with a SMI, my husband and I, like many others in the beginning stages of this journey, thought that we could influence the course of his recovery if we just worked hard enough,” Walker wrote. ‘‘We thought if we did the right things ... whatever they were ... life would return to normal for him and for our family.

‘‘It doesn’t work that way.”

Walker had planned to start law school once she retired from the Navy. Instead, she is devoting her time, at least for now, to passing on what she’s learned about what works and what doesn’t when mental illness strikes a family.

She’s doing this by working to revitalize the St. Mary’s Chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, or NAMI, a chapter that has been fairly dormant for the past couple of years, she said. NAMI is an organization that provides advocacy, education and support for people with serious mental illness and brain disorders and their family members and friends. It’s an organization that helped Walker, and she believes it can help others in Southern Maryland.

‘‘It’s my way of fighting,” Walker said of her efforts.

Mental health officials in the county welcome Walker’s participation in the local struggle. The Mental Health Authority of St. Mary’s Inc. is responsible for managing the local applications of the statewide mental health programs. But officials in that office are interested in more than monitoring the state dollars. ‘‘Our mission includes promoting the mental health wellness of the community,” said Alexis Zoss, executive director of the local mental health authority. ‘‘And that is why we need partners like NAMI.”

Zoss noted that 22.1 percent of Americans will experience mental illness at some point in their life, meaning it’s a problem that many cannot escape. And it’s a problem that requires resources from every sector of the community — resources that aren’t necessarily in place at this point.

‘‘I think what’s important is that folks start to realize it’s not just the formal mental health system that is the entire answer to mental health wellness problem,” Zoss said, adding that families, consumers, the community are all parts of the solution.

NAMI is designed to educate and mobilize families, consumers and the community. And, according to Walker and to a recent nationwide NAMI report, there’s plenty of work to do. Walker holds up a thick report, ‘‘Grading the States,” produced by NAMI that rates each state on the services available to those with a mental illness. ‘‘It’s a huge problem in this country,” she said.

Maryland received a lackluster C-plus for its services. Walker noted that the Southern Maryland region doesn’t deserve particularly high marks either, at least at this point.

‘‘Southern Maryland is a great place to live. Just don’t have a mental illness here,” Walker said.

She sees a ‘‘healthy” NAMI chapter as big step in the right direction. And she wants some help. ‘‘There is no such thing as a NAMI of one,” she said.

With a sigh, she considers her lists of needs. ‘‘I need board members — a treasurer, secretary, community relations person. I desperately need office space. I need a Web site,” she said.

Eventually she hopes to also bring a NAMI educational program to the area that particularly helped her family. The NAMI Family-to-Family Education Program is a free 12-week course for family and individuals with serious mental illness that is taught by trained NAMI family members. And so, if the program is to be offered in this area, the local chapter will need members willing to be trained as teachers for this program.

The local NAMI chapter held its first official meeting under Walker’s leadership on May 3 at St. Mary’s Hospital and had 18 in attendance, not a bad turnout by Walker’s estimation. The next meeting will be held May 23, and Walker hopes that the number of attendees will increase.

‘‘I think we can [make a go of this],” Walker said. ‘‘I think everything we need is here. It just needs to be harnessed.”

E-mail Susan Craton at scraton@somdnews.com.