By Caleb and Mary Freeman, Acadia Community Foundation
Where can those suffering from mental illness find safe harbor for relief and recovery?Where are places offering acceptance and support? Where do family and friends find help for their loved ones? There are gateways in Greenville to mental health. There are gatekeepers able to open gates of hope for the mentally ill.
Coping with mental illness challenges everyone. Our community sees the growing crisis and accepts the challenge. No less than our fight against cancer, our battle for mental health calls for concerted effort and better tools: awareness, early detection, improved counseling and therapies, and experienced caregivers. Our community is built on helping those in need. “No man left behind” is not just a soldier’s vow; it is taught, preached, and believed in our town.
“Caring about” is not the same as “caring for” the mentally ill among us. We are not ashamed to admit to mental illness in our families. We are not ignorant of the costs, emotional and financial. We are not afraid of mental illness; we refuse to be stigmatized by the label. But we should be ashamed if we do nothing, whether out of ignorance or fear, to care for our peers in need of mental health care.
There is much that can be done to lead us to mental health and avoid mental despair. Those lonely pathways to mental despair and suicide are not manned by us; they are left open by neglect, by indifference to those suffering from mental illness.
In our town, we are not indifferent. Our town created gateways of hope for the mentally ill. These caregivers are all around us, have been for years, but now more than ever they could use our community’s support. The National Alliance on Mental Illness (namigreenvillesc.org) offers families a network of resources to address their problems. Mental Health America of Greenville County (mhagc.org) staffs a crisis line at 864-271-8888 and a teen line by text 839863. Gateway House (gateway-sc.org) provides members with independent housing, jobs, counseling, continued education, and a welcoming clubhouse community of care and support. Gateway House leads in the clubhouse model of mental health care, training other clubhouses around the world, while establishing more clubhouses closer to home, in Greenwood and throughout the state.
In the fight for mental health, Nami, MHA and Gateway House deserve our broad-shouldered push. Let’s help them open the gateways of care for everyone suffering from mental illness. Let’s widen these gates, and leave no one behind.
