NAMI Blog

"We must push back and speak up for our kids when they cannot yet advocate for themselves." 

Due to the challenging lifestyle inherent to military life, veterans often experience mental health challenges such as PTSD, traumatic brain injury or depression. Here are a few ways you can help give back to them for their service. 

Deep Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation is a non-invasive treatment that can be highly effective in reducing OCD symptom severity. Learn more about this new type of treatment.  

"For me, talking to my therapist, going for long runs or taking salsa dance classes initially only seemed like ways to help myself cope with the stress of caregiving. What I later realized was everything I did actually made me stronger and more resilient during my daughter’s darkest days, which in turn helped her get through them, too."

Using a collaborative care plan can help families work together to develop treatment goals, responsibilities and action plans to help their loved one with mental illness. Here's what that would look like.

"Maybe we will even learn through the process of accepting our illness that what we thought of as weakness has brought us strength. We might learn to love ourselves more for enduring hardship, becoming strong and gaining wisdom."

"When I returned from the doctor, I couldn’t believe it. PTSD: a diagnosis given to a person who has survived a traumatic event. I had never seen a body on the ground covered in blood, I had never killed anyone, I had never even been hit. Is what I had endured worthy of the title of PTSD?"

"In honor of National Depression Awareness Month, I encourage you to have a conversation with your loved ones about depression. Do your best to be a support system for those who need it, and let them know you’re there."

"Rather than these harmful comments, I want people to ask me how I’m doing, validate my feelings and my struggle, ask if I need help and tell me they’re here if I want to talk about anything."

"Stigma says to people with mental illness that we’re not ambitious, motivated, intelligent or able. It says we’re unable to handle stress, too sick and even potentially dangerous. However, these are all myths, and the common belief that people with mental illness cannot work, is a myth."