GRAND RAPIDS, MI – As a politician with the famous last name of Kennedy, former U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy said he feels compelled to help others by sharing his experience with mental illness and addiction.

"People (with mental illness) are subjected to such ridicule in the media, in the press, in the arts," said Kennedy, who spoke to the Economic Club of Grand Rapids on Monday, March 25. "It's hard for people to have the courage, especially if they are facing the disability of a mental illness, to stand up.

“Not everyone has Kennedy as a last name. Not everyone has the backup I had. I was given that support, and I have to give back. I didn’t get here on my own.”

Kennedy, the youngest son of U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, has battled bipolar disorder, depression and addiction. As a Democratic congressman from Rhode Island, he sponsored the 2008 federal mental health parity law, which requires the same coverage for physical and mental illness.

Kennedy compared the battle for mental health parity to the civil rights struggle. Just as there were separate laws for black and whites, there is separate treatment for physical illness and mental illness, he said.

He called for giving mental health issues the same prevention efforts, early intervention and treatment as are focused on diabetes, asthma and leukemia. A mental illness should be considered a disease of the brain, and not different from any other physical illness, he argued.

“We want to treat this illness just like every other physical illness,” he said. “Just like in the civil rights fight, it took people showing up and willing to be counted before things changed.”

Hope Network, a nonprofit that provides treatment for mental illness as well as brain and spinal cord injuries, sponsored the visit by Kennedy, who will also speak Tuesday to the Economic Club of Lansing.

Paying attention to mental health issues and providing treatment is good for business, said Phil Weaver, Hope Network’s chief executive officer. Mental illness causes an estimated $5 billion in lost productivity ever year in Michigan.

“As a society, we tend to speak about mental and physical health care as though our brain is not part of our body,” he said. “We discuss our physical ailments, but we hide our depression. We mask our anxieties. We pretend our mood disorders are not real.

“We don’t need to live this way in our families or our communities.”

Kennedy praised a Michigan state law, passed in 2012 with support from Lt. Gov. Brian Calley, that requires insurers to cover an intensive form of treatment for autism.

“We want that kind of protection for families with loved ones with autism to apply to families throughout the country,” he said.

In general, he called for a spiritual effort and recognition that mental health issues affect everyone.

“You just want to treat this issue as if it were your child, or your parent, or your sister or brother,” he said. “The question is, are we going to be able to change this so that we actually treat one another the way we ourselves want to be treated.”

In the video, Kennedy talks about whether the shooting in Newtown, Conn.,is a factor in a growing awareness of mental health needs.

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