ELECT

OPINION

Tirustee, Bloomfield Hills Board of Education

A Look At Life
And Learning To Cope

Cynthia von Oeyen

Confident
Competent
Committed

Endorsed by community leaders, board members and
former board members!

Cathy & David Cantor
Crystal & John Dharte
Gayle & David Fawcett
David & Trudy Fink

Jennifer & Mark LoPatin

Linda & Robert Finkel

Mindy & Tom Nathan

Debbie & Ken Macon
David R. McGraw

Barbara Moorhouse

Jan Furman
Martha Raphelson
Kathy &Jack Glezen
Sue & Rick Grant
Peggy & Carter Hodgson
Sandra A. Jacobowitz
Jain & Carl Lauter

Marlene Sack
Suzi & John Shepard
Ann Williams

Sharon & Daniel Tosch
C. Thomas Wilson

Arlene Victor
Bev & Steve Zuckerman

YOUR VOTE IS IMPORTANT!

Paid for by The Committee to elect Cynthia von Oeyen
518 Whitehall Road, Bloomfield Hills, MI 48304

LET'S GET ORGANIZED!

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SHARON KRASNER
Special to The Jewish News

Iff

y son has a mental illness.
No, I'm not telling
you that to win points,
nor to gain sympathy. I
can think of a lot of other things I
would rather tell you.
But the facts remain: My son is one
of many children in the Detroit Jewish
community and in communities
around the world who suffer from
some form of mental illness.
The reason I'm bringing this up
now is that it has become very clear to
me that my son's disorder, and the dis-
orders of others like him, have taken a
back seat to the very
real, but much more
visible, disabilities
that have been
addressed in the
past.
You can't see
mental illness; but
once the word gets
out that a family has
a member with a
mental illness, rest
assured that acts of
kindness will be few
and far between. You
will find acquain-
tances giving you a
quick hello as they
walk down the hall
of a synagogue. You
find yourself won-
dering how deep to
get into a discussion
when someone stops
to ask you how everyone is.
Dinner invitations are few and far
between, and you may attend the din-
ners knowing full well you won't enjoy
them because you will need to moni-
tor your child constantly to make sure
he doesn't blow his cool and start
going after other children for imag-
ined slights.
I find myself counting my bless-
ings, sometimes many times a day,
often when I see a physically impaired
or severely mentally impaired individ-
ual, that my child can walk, run, feed
and dress himself, play many sports
and, in general, function. He is
blessed with a high IQ, loves to tell
jokes, read and do math at levels far
above his 11 years; he is passionate in
his likes and dislikes. He will, God
willing, grow to be a caring, compas-
sionate person who will take pride in
his work and life.

This is tempered by the many
nights I have lain awake with cold fear
clutching at my heart when I wonder
whether he will ever learn not to take
every criticism to heart, whether he
will learn to read his bar mitzvah por-
tion, will he be able to function and
live alone and, dear God, what about
college?
Will he ever marry and be able to `--/
raise and support a family? Will he be
able to find a career that accepts his
uniqueness or will he drift from job to
job, never sure what he wants to do?
Mental illness does not just affect
the individual who has the disorder. It
affects all the members of the family,
their extended families, their employ-
ment situations,
their communities.
In our family, my
two other children
are sometimes lost
in the fray. Their
needs, while we
always try to meet
them, sometimes
must take a back
seat to the myriad
doctor appoint-
ments, school con-
ferences, telephone
calls and other
assorted craziness
that are a part of
the daily life we
face. They have
always had to listen
to the arguments
between their older
brother and my
husband and me
over whether he should take his med-
ication, whether it is okay to turn on
the television after dinner, whether
homework has been done and whether
he really needs to get up and dressed
right now for school.
When their older brother went to
Camp Silverman for 17 days last sum-
mer, it was the first time his siblings
had known such peace and quiet.
They both cried as we drove to pick
him up, knowing that as much as they
loved him, it had been a wonderful 17
days without him.
I take heart in knowing that some
of my questions about my son can be
answered by looking at the myriad
people who suffer from various forms
of mental illness and have made a
name for themselves. They include
such people as Abraham Lincoln,
Winston Churchill, Patty Duke, Edgar
Allen Poe and scores of others. These
people all functioned and succeeded in

Bear in mind,
please, that
mental illness
just doesn't
appear.
Mental illness
is a genetic,
inherited
disorder.

Sharon Krasner lives in Oak Park.

