If you are diagnosed with cancer, family & friends will “circle the wagons”. People will make an effort to understand your illness, research your treatment and use web sites like CaringBridge to communicate all the pertinent details. People will volunteer to provide assistance with meals, errands and transportation.

No one brings you a casserole when you have depression.

Despite significant awareness campaigns highlighting schizophrenia, major depression, and alcohol dependence as neurological based diseases; society still views these afflictions as lack of initiative or morality on the part of the individual. These patients cannot “get with it” or “start an exercise program” as a cure.

Leadership Twin Cities will be discussing Health Issues this month at Hennepin County Medical Center. On the agenda for the first time is Mental Health. The class will also discuss health care reform, how it will affect the uninsured population, the insurance companies and the medical device industry. The inclusion of mental health is significant. If we are going to reduce the misperception of these illnesses, it will take civic leaders and community organizations to partner together to support the Minnesotans affected by these diseases. Maybe empathy is the prescription and perhaps advocacy is the cure.

You can join the Leadership Twin Cities class in discussing Minneapolis-Saint Paul Health Issues on Thursday, January 13^th on Twitter.  Follow @wendyhelg and use the hashtag #LTC2011

Recently, I took part in an impressive interview project called “It’s Our Story,” a collaborative effort to record the histories of 1,000 people in the disability community, across the nation.  To date, 928 people have had their stories logged on the web site of Disability Media Initiative, in 98 cities and 148 locations.  Their goal is to log 1,000 interviews by July 2010, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

An interviewer, Scott Cooper, was at Courage Center for three days in August, interviewing a variety of local disability rights advocates and leaders.  What the experience brought home to me was how important history and role models are to members of a community.  As a boomer, I was on the forefront of the disability rights movement.  I was one of the first people with a disability to be mainstreamed in the Brooklyn Center School District.  There were no role models with disabilities for me to follow back then. Heck, I was amazed to learn, as an adult, that FDR was disabled!  So, it’s not surprising that I didn’t want to be labeled as “handicapped” as a kid.  I had no real friends who were disabled, other than a few who I met through Camp Courage.  My friends with disabilities and my  disability advocacy efforts didn’t start until I was working.  My self-acceptance as a person with a disability started as an adult and has evolved over time.

Now, through stories of lots of people just like me, kids with disabilities growing up in today’s world will have at least 1,000 role models and stories to guide them to break down their barriers.  My peers, those of us who did so much of the hard work that is now benefitting so many people, are full of great wisdom.  Here’s to the people, like Scott Cooper, who are helping tell our stories.