During the first full week of October, you’ll see mental health organizations post for Mental Illness Awareness Week. In May, the same accounts post for Mental Health Awareness Month. The names sound nearly identical. Swap “health” for “illness,” though, and you move from the mental health all of us have to the people living with diagnosable conditions and the families who care for them. Organizers choose the words in these names with care, and they pick each one to signal the change they want to see.
Two observances, two histories
Mental Health America started Mental Health Awareness Month in May 1949, when the organization went by the National Association for Mental Health.
Mental Illness Awareness Week grew out of a family story. In Madison, Wisconsin, Harriet Shetler and Beverly Young, two mothers whose sons were living with schizophrenia, grew tired of hearing that their parenting had caused their sons’ illness. They met for lunch, ran a two-person support group for two months, and then invited 12 more families to dinner. In 1979, their group helped launch the national organization that became NAMI. In 1990, Congress set aside the first full week of October as Mental Illness Awareness Week in recognition of NAMI’s efforts to educate the public.
The World Federation for Mental Health launched World Mental Health Day in 1992, and it falls each October 10, within or close to the same week.
The meaning of “mental”
“Mental” comes from the Latin word mens, meaning mind. Your mind lives in your brain, an organ in your body that responds to sleep and to the people around you. Brain health describes the care of that organ from childhood through older age.
NAMI describes mental illnesses as brain disorders with biological roots, and states that bad parenting does not cause them. Harriet Shetler and Beverly Young spent years hearing the opposite. At Flawless, we use the language of brain health to place depression and schizophrenia alongside epilepsy and dementia, as conditions of an organ in the body that needs care and sometimes medical treatment.
Mental health and mental illness
You have mental health whether or not you’ve ever seen a therapist. You feel it dip after a week of bad sleep and lift after a long walk with a friend.
Mental illness refers to diagnosable conditions, such as depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, that change how a person thinks and feels. A person living with bipolar disorder can have long stretches of balanced mental health. A person with no diagnosis can struggle through a hard year after a divorce or a layoff.
Mental Health Awareness Month organizers speak to all of us, covering mental illness alongside strategies for wellness. During Mental Illness Awareness Week, advocates host events that teach the public about specific conditions, such as major depressive disorder and schizophrenia. NAMI has used past weeks to push for better care for people living with serious mental illness.
Keeping both in view
In May, you’ll scroll past tips for journaling and screen-free evenings. Those tips help plenty of people. A mother whose son lives with schizophrenia may need something else, like a psychiatrist who returns her calls and a care team that includes her in decisions.
At Flawless, we see families as partners in care. During Mental Illness Awareness Week, advocates put that mother’s needs at the center.
The words in the names
Advocates build a request into each observance name. With “awareness,” they ask you to notice and learn. With “prevention,” as in Suicide Prevention Month each September, they name a tragic loss they want to stop.
Some communities decided to ask for more. In 2021, the Autism Society of America and other disability organizations formally renamed April’s observance Autism Acceptance Month and asked journalists to use the new name in their coverage. The Autistic Self Advocacy Network had framed April around acceptance since 2011. Autism Society CEO Christopher Banks explained the change in two words: “words matter.” He added that many families find acceptance among the hardest things to secure when building a support system.
After the week ends
The posts slow down once October 10 passes. The families who founded NAMI kept showing up for their sons through the other 51 weeks of the year, and families caring for someone living with mental illness do the same today. Advocates use a week in October and a month in May to reach people who might scroll past the topic the rest of the year. Flawless shares resources for families year-round, including our Family as Partners in Care page. Let’s take the next step and bring awareness into action.
