Mental-health issues hit home for lots of Michigan families. Including mine. – MLive.com

Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps is now a mental-health advocate discussing his experience with depression and anxiety.

David Lettermans Netflix talk show has Letterman and Kanye West swapping details about Lettermans struggle with depression and Wests diagnosis of bipolar disorder.

CNN hosts Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo recently talked on air about the importance of psychotherapy in their own lives.

The Washington Post website has started a regular feature in which women write about their experience with anxiety.

Mental health is having a moment.

And its about time.

For far, far too long, psychiatric disorders have been shrouded in shame and stigma, and mental health has been the poor stepchild of the American health-care system.

Its a throwback to generations ago when experts attributed mental illness to nurture vs. nature the result of a weak personality, a dysfunctional family, a woefully inadequate mother. Something wholly different than, say, heart disease or cancer.

Knowing what we know today, the segregation of mental health from other types of health care makes utterly no sense.

We now realize that mental illness is much like other chronic diseases. There is often a biological component as well as environmental triggers, and behavior matters, too. Just like diabetics or heart patients make choices that exacerbate or alleviate their symptoms, so can the person with depression or anxiety.

Theres also growing recognition that mental health is an integral part of physical health. Managing stress is an important part of staying healthy, and serious or prolonged physical problems are often accompanied by mental-health issues.

Its estimated that half of Americans will experience a mental-health issue at some point in their life.

Half.

And yet, the stigma lingers.

Its an issue that hits home for me.

My husband lost his father and his brother to suicide, deaths that occurred a half-century ago when treatment for depression was still in its infancy.

Meanwhile, my sisters and I were raised with a suck-it-up mentality about illness. But weve learned the importance of seeking help as various members have been diagnosed with various mental-health conditions.

Just last fall, I spent several days in a metro Detroit emergency room with a niece needing an in-patient psychiatric bed.

I know what its like to see a high-achieving teenager get derailed by bipolar disorder, depression or anxiety. I know how scary it is for the teen, for the parents, for the others around them. I know that with mental-health issues, theres rarely a quick fix.

But I also have seen first-hand how medication, psychotherapy and a good support system can help a person regain his or her footing. My extended family is not just a cautionary tale of how mental illness can strike any household; its also a heartwarming and resounding tribute to the successes of modern psychiatry.

My hope is that mental health is experiencing its own version of the #metoo movement -- that an issue long in the shadows is given the respect and attention it deserves; that the shaming and negative judgments are fully recognized as the hurtful and destructive reactions they are.

You SHOULD think people will think less of you if you seek help with mental health, Cuomo said. Because they will. Thats part of the problem.

That stigma is a killer. Literally.

In 2017, Michigan had a record number of suicides 1,457, which is 40% higher than the number of vehicle fatalities.

Give credit to people like Phelps and Cuomo and Kanye West for stepping forward, for telling their story, for as Phelps puts it letting us know its OK not to be OK.

People are talking about it, Phelps said in a USA Today interview, and I think this the only way it can change.

Preach.

Mental-health issues hit home for lots of Michigan families. Including mine. – MLive.com

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