Michigan NAMI chapter uses TV ads for anti-stigma messages about mental illness

From the Lansing State Journal in Michigan:

Larry Ackerman understands first-hand the stigmas associated with mental illness and said he works every day to put an end to them.

That's why he appeared in two National Alliance on Mental Illness Michigan public service announcements that aired on Michigan television for the first time this month.

"I had a sister who had schizophrenia and committed suicide," said the NAMI Michigan office and consumer programs coordinator. "I, myself, have a Schizo-affective disorder, bi-polar type, but I'm in a very high degree of recovery."

Sherri Solomon, NAMI Michigan executive director, said the TV campaign was funded with part of a $50,000 grant from the Ethel and James Flinn Foundation.

Ackerman, of Lansing, was one of several dozen people who volunteered to appear in the public service announcements. He said he hopes the TV campaign will help inform people.

Ackerman said mental illness is more common than many people realize and it's treatable.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, about one in four American adults suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year.

Solomon said about a quarter of a million people in Michigan have been diagnosed with mental illness. She said she hopes the two public service announcements, which have been distributed to television stations in cooperation with the Michigan Association of Broadcasters, will air for at least three months. But eliminating stigmas will take much longer, she said. "It took years for the stigma against people with cancer to be eradicated."

Ackerman said he hopes to dispel stereotypes perpetuated by popular culture.

"Too often Hollywood has portrayed people with mental illness as bad people and dangerous, and that's just not true," he said. "We're just folks that have a higher hurdle."