In response to the editorial “6 Months after Newtown, Shameful Inaction,, I agree with the statement, however, I think the elephant in the room is being ignored. Mental illness.
As the mother of an adult child with schizophrenia, the topic of mental illness is near and dear to my heart. I have experienced the heartbreak of the loss of a child to mental illness. I feel deeply for those in Newtown who have suffered at the hands of an extremely disturbed young man.
I heard the 5,000 figure and I was curious, how many deaths have there been that can be tied to mental illness? What I found surprised me. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in 2010 that there were 38,364 suicides. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 90 percent of those who commit suicide have a diagnosable mental illness. That means that over an identical time frame of six months, 17,263 suicides occurred that can be attributed to mental illness! More than three times that of gun deaths! With that kind of statistic, I would think improving our treatment of those with mental illness would be number one.
Sadly, it isn’t even close. I almost lost my son to suicide. He came close to being a statistic, and it wasn’t with a gun.
Susan Gallagher
Wallingford