Beginning Oct. 1 - PBS television stations in some 

         communities will begin airing the documentary

         Unlisted: A Story of Schizophrenia.

Saturday, Oct. 9 - Run for Mental Health, a Walk/Run in

         Batavia sponsored by NAMI-DKK.  Go to

         nami5k.com for more information and to enter.

Sunday - Saturday Oct. 3-9 - Consider spending a few

        minutes each day learning more about mental

        illness or share your story so that someone else

        can learn more.

A Book Review by a Consumer

Nutterville ...And Other True Stories of Coping with Mental Illness 

by Faye Ellen Kufahl

I like being with family and friends, reading true stories of inspiration, and taking care of my Labrador Retriever.  I chose this book because Faye, the author, isn't mentally ill and her sister, Gail has paranoid schizophrenia.  Accordingly, my sister isn't mentally ill and I am a consumer.

The book's title is somewhat misleading, as mental illness is only lightly mentioned until chapter 20.  It is primarily about Faye, growing up in the 1950's in Nutterville, a Wisconsin town.  During Faye's childhood Gail is institutionalized.  When mental illness is written about, it is poignant.  When both women are adults Gail arrives at Faye's doorstep after release from an institution and subsequent homelessness.  I was struck by Gail's helplessness and the care and compassion Faye shows Gail.  This speaks to the problem of homelessness the mentally ill face today.

Furthermore, I learned through Gail, as her life traces the treatment of the mentally ill, starting in the 1950's until her death. 

I had to push myself to read the earlier parts of the book because I wanted to read more about mental illness, but I found the parts on mental illness moving.  For example, the book touches on the effect Gail's illness has on her family.  Faye depicts her father crying on the way home from a family party when Gail is on a home visit.

The writing is readable with good imagery.  It is because of  Nutterville ...And Other True Stories of Coping with Mental Illness that I would like to read more about the history of and present day treatment of the mentally ill.

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Book Review By Elaine P. Mulligan

Helping Someone with Mental Illness

By Rosalynn Carter     With Susan K. Golant         1998

Elaine Mulligan here.  I live in St. Charles, IL.  I like to knit, sew, play golf and bridge, as well as spend time with my kids, grandkids and friends.  I have been a career homemaker (you never retire from that) and substitute teacher (retired).  My reading interests are varied.  I picked this book to review because my husband and I have a 39-year-old son who lives with schizophrenia.  He was diagnosed 12 years ago.

I enjoyed the book very much.  It was better than I expected.  I went into it thinking that since the book is 12 years old, it could be a bit dated.  It is true, much has happened in the field of Mental Health Research in the last 12 years, however, the book is so well put together and includes many resources (a glossary and 5 appendices), such that you are getting a great handbook to help someone, much as the title indicates.  The writing style was very pleasing to me as it was peppered with examples that Rosalynn experienced either through meetings with families and their mentally ill loved ones, her own family and acquaintances with mental illnesses, letters that she received from people who themselves had a mental illness or from their family member, as well as facts from researchers in the field.  Rosalynn Carter was very involved in the area of Mental Illness for almost 30 years before the writing of this book.

Something that I learned in the reading of this book, or perhaps I should say relearned, is that the stigma attached to having a mental illness is very real and although it has lessened over the years, it is not close to going away.  Helping Someone with Mental Illness underscored this fact by citing many examples of people who actually were diagnosed either very late or not at all because of the problems those persons expected to experience in the work-a-day world if they were to be public with their "potential" or perhaps very real mental illness.   Yes, laws have been passed to stop gap this problem, but nonetheless, it is still a very common problem. 

A great example of the consequences of stigma given in the book was in 1972  when Senator George McGovern, the Democratic candidate for president, selected Senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri as his vice presidential running mate. Soon after word was leaked to the McGovern campaign and eventually to the press that Senator Eagleton had had a mental illness.  Eagleton held a press conference during which he admitted to having been "voluntarily" hospitalized three times in the previous twelve years for "nervous exhaustion".  Initially Senator McGovern expressed confidence in his running mate, and Eagleton's colleagues in Congress applauded his abilities despite his earlier bouts with depression.  However, donations to the Democratic Party dropped sharply after the news conference.  Two weeks after he was chosen, Senator Eagleton became the first U.S. vice-presidential nominee to withdraw from candidacy, a victim of the stigma associated with mental illness.

Yet another piece of this book was the "hope" given for those with mental illnesses and in fact for those who are genetically predisposed to mental illness and have not yet or maybe never will have a mental illness.  I only have to read one and yet there were many examples of people living normal lives with a mental illness and I am given great hope.  Bigger than that we have today and had at the writing of this book in 1998, the hope of preventing mental illness onset via emphasis on children's mental health and early intervention, as well as the vast advances made in the field of brain imaging.  Last year, 2009, was the one hundredth anniversary of the first White House conference on the needs of American's children.  The author, Rosalynn Carter, at the writing of this book in 1998, said: "Let's really have something to celebrate, but let's not wait until the year 2009.  Our future and the lives of our children depend on it."(Pp. 256)  Strides have been made, but our vigilance is essential.

The reading of this book was for me a wonderful experience.  This is a great handbook, even though written 12 years ago.

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