CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – The Linn County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, or NAMI, held its annual forum Saturday afternoon.
“Mental health affects everyone. Whether it’s you, the person you live with, it could be a parent, it could be a child, it could be a co-worker,” said Allonda Pierce, President of NAMI Linn County.
The Linn County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Iness spent Saturday afternoon connecting community resources with people who can use them.
The Nami president said the first step to this end is to change the way people think about mental illness.
“People see people with mental illness as something negative or something that’s completely wrong with them, and they don’t want anyone to know about it because they don’t want people to treat them differently,” Pierce said.
NAMI organized a panel of speakers to share their experiences, but from those unique stories, they all shared one experience:
They felt it was taboo for them to talk about mental health.
“I learned that vulnerability is weakness. But I discovered that I wasn’t actually able to express or utilize all my abilities if I didn’t understand the ‘v-word’,” says Daniel Pledge-Johnson, CEO of Children for Promise.
Children of Promise is a group that mentors children with incarcerated parents and minority students.
Pledge-Johnson said it is critical for the mental health community to have groups that represent the communities they serve.
“There are certain things that I don’t need to read in a book that I have life experience about that I can help a client with, or help my staff with, or help my team with,” Pledge-Johnson said.
In Cedar Rapids, NAMI said the problem isn’t necessarily a lack of resources, but the stigma surrounding mental illness that keeps people from seeking help.
“There are people who know that resources exist, and that’s because they’ve heard about it or because they know someone else who has used it. But they haven’t tried, or they’re too scared to make that call,” Pierce said.
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