Vigil casts light on mental illnesses Stories told at gathering reflect intent to change outmoded points of view

BANGOR – There was a time in Debbie Lawson’s life when she felt like she was clinging to a rope suspended in a well, and the rope was unraveling.

She wondered whether to hang on or let go. Lawson considered suicide and was hospitalized sporadically for years, including for four months in 1994 and for the last time in 1996.

Reaching for life, Lawson climbed out of the deep, dark well of her mental illness, overcoming the pain and difficulties that had come along with her bipolar disorder.

These days, Lawson finds she is worrying not so much about life and death, but about who will publish her book about her travails, titled “The Other Side of Me.”

Lawson was one of several speakers at a candlelight vigil held in Bangor Sunday night to shed light on mental health, a subject that historically has been cloaked in shadow and spurned.

For Lori Ireland, her grandfather’s and mother’s bipolar disorders were a family secret, she told the 100 people who had gathered for the vigil, sponsored by the National Alliance for Mental Health.

“I spent almost my whole life trying to hide the fact that my mother was crazy,” Ireland said.

Her mother’s mental illness kept her confined to the couch or looking for ways to escape the home. Her father’s treatment for the mother’s illness at times largely consisted of containment, preventing her from getting out.

Medicines helped, when her mother took them, but the doctor never explained the importance of staying on the medications. So when Ireland’s mother didn’t stick to the drug regimen, the cycle would begin all over again, year after year after year.

“We lived our lives waiting for the other shoe to drop and walking on egg shells,” Ireland said.

Relief came, for a while, as Ireland’s mother’s life resumed its normalcy for 13 years. But the conditions returned and Ireland found she had to contend not only with her mother’s mental illness, but also with her young family and mental health issues of her own.

Ireland said that she developed depression shortly after giving birth, although it would be three years before she was diagnosed. Her daughter has since been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

But like Lawson, Ireland has found renewed hope in the changing landscape of mental health, where new medications are being produced and a greater network of help is available.

But speakers at the vigil also acknowledged that there is still much to do, including changing people’s antiquated perceptions of mental health.

People like Lawson and Ireland have come to accept the cards they have been dealt, but others aren’t so accepting, and there is a stigma associated with mental illness.

“Stigma kills people,” asserted Dr. Judy Burk, a Bangor psychiatrist who believes that going for treatment for mental illness should be as accepted and easy as going to the hospital for other diseases. A patient experiencing heart problems knows immediately to go to the emergency room, Burk said, while for someone with mental illness, it is about 11/2 years before a diagnosis is achieved.

Lawson, the Rev. Robert Carlson and others urged that people with mental disorders be defined not by their disease, but by the life they live, much like people with heart disease or diabetes aren’t defined by those diseases.

“I am not a label, I am a person,” Lawson said.

As for the candlelight vigil, it will be just the beginning.

“I hope they shine brightly,” said Kate Young, who has been an advocate for the mentally ill since 1979. “I hope they are never extinguished.”