Race Held To Raise Awareness on Mental Illness
By Pat Gareau
All registered participants paid $20, which will be used by Project Aware to pursue their mission of enhancing the mental, emotional and physical health of the campus community.
Pete Birdsinger won the race with a time of 20:02.
“We’re raising awareness for mental illness,” said Alexa Dibiase, human services major and member of Project Aware.
“Stigma is one of the prime examples of things keeping people from getting help,” said Sean Mackenzie, human services major and member of Project Aware.
Local organizations handed out information on mental illness.
“A lot of people are still hesitant to seek mental health treatment,” said Dr. Walter Niedzwiadek, Chair of Psychiatry at Ellis Hospital. “They shouldn’t be embarrassed. The community as a whole has a lot of resources.”
Mary Beth Honsinger, president of the Rensselaer chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness said, “Whenever you hear about mental illness on the news it’s about violence.”
Honsinger explained that this creates an unfair negative stigma when the vast majority of those diagnosed with a mental illness are not violent.
According to the National Institute on Mental Health, 26.2 percent of Americans age 18 or older suffer from a diagnosable mental illness in a given year. This equals a total of nearly 58 million. The most common types are mood disorders with over 20 million and depressive disorders with about 15 million.
Every year in America over 30,000 people commit suicide.
“90 percent of those that die from suicide have a mental illness,” said Lisa Reilly from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
She explained that mental illness is no different than physical illness and people should seek help in the same way they would when suffering from a physical ailment.
“Illness is illness. [Mental illnesses are] no different than diabetes,” said Reilly.
Other organizations present at the event included Berkshire Farm, a state-wide child welfare organization and Equinox, which provides services to the mentally ill in the Capital Region.
Last year the Center for Counseling and Transfer helped 3,225 students. Among them were 590 who took advantage of the personal counseling services offered to students.
“Mental health concerns are real for college students,” said Sweener.
According to the National Institute on Mental Health, 75 percent of mental illness cases begin before the age of 24. 64 percent of college dropouts do so because of a mental health related reason. While 45 percent of student dropouts due to mental health did not seek help.
“We want students to be aware that help is available and they’re not alone,” said Kelly Sweener, director of the Center for Counseling and Transfer.