“What almost anybody with mental illness will tell you is one of the frustrating things is its invisibility.
“If we reach true parity, it won’t be called mental health, it will just be called health.”
Transcript
Kate Eifrig: I want to be very “out” about mental illness because stigma is a killer, and if I can talk about it and it helps one person, that's worth my social anxiety for the day.
Host: This is Keep Moving Forward.
George H.W. Bush: Let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down.
Host: Exploring the legacy and promise of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Kate Eifrig: My name is Kate Eifrig. I have refractory treatment-resistant major clinical depression and generalized anxiety disorder. For 17 years I was, other people say, a very successful actor in the Twin Cities and in the last four years of my career I was extremely sick, and nobody knew. What almost anybody with mental illness will tell you is one of the frustrating things is its invisibility. Because you want it to look like you hurt. You want to look like you have a big bloody bandage wrapped around your head.
An equitable society for people with mental illnesses, it would stop being called mental illnesses. It would just be called an illness. If we reach true parity, it won’t be called “mental health,” it will just be called “health.”
Host: Keep Moving Forward is supported by The Minnesota Council on Disability, The Minnesota Humanities Center and the Minnesota Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund, online at Ampers.org.