Published: April 21, 2007 11:00 pm            

Group stands up for mentally ill

Those who suffer from mental illness should not be discriminated against and are not the only ones who suffer from the effects of the disease, said Phill Gunning, president of the NAMI (National Association of Mental Illness) Kentucky Board of Directors.

Those are some of the things that will be addressed by a Madison County NAMI group now in the process of forming.

The group is starting out with two members, but after people hear about the NAMI mission, more may be likely to become involved, Gunning said.

Denise Garza and Vickie Miller are the only two members, as of now.

“They have both been through the Family-to-Family, which is a 12-week course that NAMI offers,” he said.

This is geared to train NAMI members about several aspects of mental illness, including behaviors, communication skills and the importance of regular medication, just to name a few.

NAMI will provide the Richmond community with free support groups and educational programs.

“We try to work very closely with mental health care providers, because they know who needs our assistance,” Gunning said. “We’re an advocacy organization and we’re trying to help all the folks who are affected by mental illness and their families.”

The group is working on creating what Gunning calls “a campus of mental health services.”

The “campus” will replace the former Eastern State Hospital and will feature inpatient beds, a veterans unit, a stabilization unit and transitional housing, he said.

The exact location for the facility has not yet been determined.

The NAMI group of Lexington hosted a town meeting at Richmond City Hall in September 2005, where Gunning’s wife, Kelly Gunning, executive director of the state organization, gave a personal testimony that fuels her desire to help fight discrimination against those with mental illness.

At the forum, she spoke about her 24-year-old son who tried to take his own life and did not succeed only because the gun was jammed. He traveled to Alaska and was wondering among the wilderness in 20-degree-below-zero temperatures wearing only a T-shirt and jeans. He stumbled into a school where police found him severely frostbitten.

Because of her son’s erratic behavior caused by his mental illness, she has seen him be forced into handcuffs by policemen on several different occasions and then taken to a treatment center.

“We are fighting a big animal here,” Gunning said. “It’s called ‘stigma.’ You never see a cancer patient being taken to the hospital in handcuffs.”

Future date and times for the Madison County NAMI group meetings have not been set.

The non-profit organization was formed in 1979 to help provide treatment and services to the 15 million Americans living with mental illnesses ranging from schizophrenia to attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

For more information, call 1-800-950-NAMI or visit www.nami.org.

To receive details about how to become a member of the Madison County NAMI chapter, send an e-mail to local representative Denise Garza at deegaygarza@aol.com or denise.garza@dobson.net.

Ronica Shannon can be reached at rshannon@richmondregister.com or 623-1669, Ext. 234.

        

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