Half of Americans will suffer mental disorders, study says

• A new national study that claims almost half of Americans will be mentally ill at some point in their lives made me laugh out loud.
• And if it happens to be true, well then, Americans are a lot crazier than I thought.
• But then I started running down the list of mental disorders provided by the National Institute of Mental Health, the main supporter of the study - and found quite a few that apply to me.
• The friend who experiences chronic depression, feelings of worthlessness and suicidal thoughts.
• The light side of this story is that we're not alone in our occasional nuttiness.
• But the dark side is that a lot of minor mental disorders start in childhood and, if left unrecognized and untreated, can develop into serious mental illness that can dramatically pull down people's lives.
• Her behavior seemed like a bizarre fluke at the time, until reports starting coming in about how she had engaged in a number of violent episodes previously.
• For others, mental disorders fester and explode in adulthood.
• And while not every phobia, anxiety or behavioral problem turns into serious mental illness, there are plenty of people for whom life is an unnecessarily hard struggle because their disorders are never recognized or treated.
• A 1999 survey by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that an estimated 3.2 million Americans suffering either from depression, general anxiety or panic attacks were medically uninsured.
• In view of the study results, I can envision a national public service campaign to make Americans more aware of mental disorders, and how they can get help for them - just like the campaigns we've done about teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, AIDS and domestic violence.