Family-to-family class opening in Chesapeake will help people living with mental illness

Sept. 02--Bruce Harlow wasn't prepared for the changes he was seeing in his son.

His youngest, a musician and math whiz, had always been social and happy. Then he began exhibiting signs of mania starting around 19. He'd be laughing uncontrollably one day, and cursing everything the next, Harlow said.

He was in a zombie-like state the night Harlow thwarted what appeared to be an attempt by his son to hit his mother with a skateboard.

Here he was, Harlow said, a middle-aged father of three with no mental health experience watching his son unravel.

"It is truly a day to day, hour by hour living hell," he said.

Harlow and his daughter turned to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, which offers a free course geared to family members, friends and significant others whose loved ones have a mental illness.

That program was, until recently, only available in Norfolk and Virginia Beach. Now the family-to-family class is coming to Chesapeake.

It starts Sept. 20 and meets on Thursday evenings for 12 weeks at the Chesapeake Integrated Behavioral Healthcare building in Great Bridge.

"There's nothing else like it, that I know of," said Harlow, whose son was eventually diagnosed with a form of schizophrenia. "You look forward to going and sharing."

At its heart, family-to-family is about educating people about their loved ones' mental illnesses, according to Jen Williams, who has taught the course five times. It's facilitated by trained volunteers -- most often former class participants, said Williams, a NAMI board member whose son has depression and anxiety.

One in five adults in America experience a mental illness, according to NAMI statistics. Nearly one in 25, or 10 million adults, live with a serious mental illness, and three-quarters of all chronic mental illness begins by the age of 24.

Williams said people who attend the family-to-family program span generations, from adult children and siblings, to parents and grandparents. The illness their loved ones face can be just as varied, but in most classes there is a mixture of depression, anxiety, PTSD, and bipolar and borderline personality disorders, with some schizophrenia.

Participants are taught how to identify symptoms of mental illness and discuss various treatment options. They learn how to better communicate with their loved ones, and also how to advocate for them. Involuntary temporary detention orders are discussed, as well as how to ask for an officer trained in crisis intervention when things get bad.

According to NAMI's national website, research has shown the course significantly improves the coping and problem-solving abilities of the people closest to an individual living with a mental health condition.

"(But) mental illness doesn't go away," said Williams, who takes medication for her depression. "You learn to live with it."

Masayo Ikeda became certified to teach family-to-family after taking an equivalent, now defunct program in Virginia Beach called MESA -- Mutual Education, Support and Advocacy -- in 2012.

Ikeda said she watched her son transform into someone she didn't recognize, starting at 19. The kind-hearted and gentle young man with lots of friends turned reclusive, irritable, verbally abusive and eventually delusional. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2014, she said.

Role-playing exercises taught Ikeda to use short and concise language when communicating with her son so she wouldn't contribute to the conflict in his mind, she said.

The mental health care system can be scary and overwhelming, advocates say, and education can provide the tools to help people navigate it.

The key point of the class is learning about mental illness in a safe, nonjudgmental environment. To be able to say things like, "My son had an episode," knowing the person next to you understands what that means.

And while there are plenty of success stories, according to advocates, there are also people like Harlow and Ikeda, whose sons continue to struggle. NAMI support groups pick up where the class ends.

For many years, there was no education available for family members, according to Tommie Cubine, a licensed clinical social worker who served the city of Virginia Beach for more than three decades.

Cubine co-authored the MESA family workshop back in 1987, which was eventually replaced by the national, family-to-family program.

Families are often the best -- and sometimes only -- advocates for mental health causes, Cubine said.

Steve Hills works with people with mental illness as a certified peer recovery specialist at Chesapeake Integrated Behavioral Healthcare.

He said "there is a great need" for programs like family-to-family in Chesapeake. People with mental illness say their families don't understand what they're going through, he said, and family members say they want to be more supportive, but don't know how.

Harlow, the former family-to-family student turned mental health care reform advocate, said "one of the huge benefits is learning you're not alone and sharing what you're learning with other families." He'd like to see the program offered regularly.

"When you're in the dark struggling, and you can't pray hard enough," Harlow said, "you need help now."

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