Board Declares May Mental Health Awareness Month

The Milwaukee County Board unanimously passed a resolution Thursday officially recognizing May as Mental Health Awareness month in Milwaukee County.

Sup. Kathleen Vincent sponsored the resolution and told her colleagues, “mental health is something that we experience every day, and every single one of us in this room and in our county and our state and our nation are impacted by, whether it’s ourselves or someone else with mental health needs.”

Vincent’s resolution mentions a statistic from the National Alliance on Mental Illness that states one in five adults experience mental illness each year and one in 20 adults experience serious mental illness each year. “If we take each of our respective districts that comes out to somewhere in lines of 10,000 individuals and, and as a county close to 200,000,” she said

Vincent went on to share with her colleagues that she, too, is represented in those statistics.

“I have struggled for almost three decades now, and most recently decided to go public with the fact that I have a diagnosis, because I want to help break down the stigma for others,” Vincent said. “So I’ll say it on the floor today, in case you haven’t seen the interview, but I was diagnosed in 1999 with bipolar disorder, it is something that does not define who I am. But it is something that is part of who I am.”

Vincent said she has struggled over the years with her illness, but has found support from family and health care and community mental health advocates “that made it possible for me to even come before you as a board and share my own personal tale.”

“I’m not embarrassed by who I am. But I can tell you that there are many people out there that are hurting. And when they have examples of people that can step up and say ‘I overcome this challenge. Yes, I’ve fallen down flat at some point. But, you can work through it. And there is hope out there. And so that is the message I want to share through this resolution,” Vincent said.

Vincent noted that a 2013 state law, Wisconsin Act 203, took away any authority the county board had over county mental health institutions, programs or services.

“But that doesn’t mean we can’t be advocates,” Vincent said, “and that we can’t be a strong voice.”

Vincent’s colleagues on the board gave her a standing ovation after she finished speaking.