"Stop stigmatizing": Colorado lawmaker stands tall after facing backlash for sharing mental illness
A state lawmaker, who came under attack for opening up about her own struggle with mental illness, is fighting back.
Democratic State Rep. Dafna Michaelson Jenet, whose district includes Adams County, says it's past time to break down the negative stereotypes around behavioral health.
"I have major depressive disorder. It's not easy to talk about," Michaelson Jenet said. "But we have to start talking about it because we have to get rid of the stigma."
She has carried more than a dozen bills over the last six years aimed at lifting the secrecy and shame around mental illness and improving access to care. Her latest bill would bar insurers from requiring people with a serious mental illness to try a series of less expensive drugs before covering the one recommended by their doctor.
The bill got its first hearing last week and Michaelson Jenet explained, from personal experience, why it was so important: "I mentioned when I was recommended a medication, I had to take fail-first medication too and that I ended up in an outpatient partial hospitalization program to keep me stable while we were trying to get me on the right medication. It was two weeks of my life that I'll never get back and it was the hardest two weeks of my life."
Initially, she says, the feedback on social media was positive, including a tweet from a person saying, "we appreciate that you bring your lived experience to the capitol."
Then came a tweet telling her to step down as chair of the Behavioral Health and Human Service Committee, saying she wasn't fit to manage a fast-food restaurant because of her mental illness.
"When that first tweet came in, I shrunk inside, which is what we do to people when we stigmatize their mental illness," Michaelson Jenet said. "I'm talking to you about it today because I think it's really important that we stop stigmatizing people."
Maybe no one at the capitol has done more to destigmatize mental illness than Michaelson Jenet, who ran for office because she couldn't get help for her son when he attempted suicide at 9 years old.
She says children aren't the only ones in crisis: "We have an adult mental health crisis as well, and if we can't talk about it and if we can't be open about it, then we can't help each other survive."
Five years ago, Michaelson Jenet says, she was diagnosed with cancer. When she posted about that on social media, she got nothing but support. She is hopeful that someday she will get the same reaction when she posts about her depression, which she says she is not only living with, but thriving with, thanks to having access to the right medication.
The National Institutes of Health says nearly one in five adults in the U.S. lives with mental illness and many don't seek help because of the stigma it still carries.
Michaelson Jenet says she's more motivated than ever to remove that stigma: "There's work to be done and we can do it and we're going to do it."
