Glenn Close: 'Mental Illness Is a Family Affair'
Inspired by her sister's struggles, the award-winning actress and activist works to erase the stigma of mental health conditions.
Sister Struggles continued...
Jessie's own struggle was difficult enough. Even harder was watching her son, Calen Pick, battle schizoaffective disorder -- a combination of schizophrenia and mood disorder symptoms. He, too, spent time in McLean Hospital, nearly 2 years, before getting his disease under control.
"He used to be the leader of the pack. He was drop-dead gorgeous, and the girls just flung themselves at him," Jessie recalls. "But when it became evident he had a mental illness, everyone was out of there. I said to Glenn, 'Never give me another birthday or Christmas present. Just do something about the stigma and prejudice toward those of us who have mental illness.'"
Call to Action
Jessie's plea inspired Glenn to launch Bring Change 2 Mind (BC2M) in 2010, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization working to change attitudes about mental illness through public education and partnerships. She assembled an advisory team of scientific experts in mental illness who help design and evaluate BC2M's programs. "Goodwill for goodwill's sake isn't enough. We have to evaluate what we're doing," Glenn says. "We need to know if we've made real change, if we've moved the needle."
"The No. 1 challenge in mental health care is stigma," says one of BC2M's scientific advisers, Stephen P. Hinshaw, PhD, author of The Mark of Shame: Stigma of Mental Illness and an Agenda for Change. "It's because of the rather 'unspeakable' nature of mental illness that funding levels for research and treatment remain low." States have cut more than $1.6 billion in general funds from their state mental health agency budgets for mental health services since 2009, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
"People know more about mental illness than they did decades ago -- surveys have shown that," Hinshaw says. "But at the same time, attitudes including 'social distance' -- how close you might want to be to someone with mental illness -- have not budged."
BC2M has developed a series of public service announcements about mental illness, appearing everywhere from bus-stop shelters and taxicabs to Yahoo!, Sports Illustrated, and TV Guide. Calen, Jessie, and Glenn appeared together in one of the PSAs, "Schizo," a powerful video that opens like a horror film and ends with the family together in the kitchen.