To share problems and concerns, as well as the means for overcoming them, at regular monthly NAMI meetings.
To assist each other and provide moral and emotional support in times of crisis.
To help all who are affected by mental illness, either directly or indirectly.
To educate ourselves and to provide information about mental illness to our community.
To advocate legislation which can improve the quality and the availability of treatment for those with severe mental illnesses and to provide legislative updates regarding mental health issues.
To promote research into the causes and cures of mental illness, and to help raise funds for that purpose.
To monitor public and private mental health facilities.
To help eradicate the stigma associated with mental illness.
Facts about Mental Illness
Schizophrenia, the major mental disease, affects at least one in every 100 people.
Common forms of mental illness include schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, bi polar (manic depression), major depression, panic disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder.
These disorders are neurobiological brain diseases - physical in the same way that diabetes, heart disease and other physical diseases. Neither the victim nor his/her parents are to blame.
Mental illness occurs worldwide, in all classes and ethnic groups, and usually strikes youth in what would be their most productive years - between the ages of 15 and 30.
Mental illness is characterized by disordered thinking, unjustified fears, loss of touch with reality, poor judgment, negative self-image, and immature behavior. Many become unmotivated, withdrawn and quiet, absorbed in their inner world. They are more often the victims rather than the aggressors.
Mentally ill people represent a cross-section of the whole society--some are artistic, talented and unusually intelligent; some have normal or below-normal capabilities.
