Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 2, 1994 TAG: 9410030077
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Yet he says he feels wonderful. He is at his most creative. After an eight-hour workday, he soars through the night in front of his personal computer, crunching number after number.
And sometime soon, Lloyd will come crashing down from the great high to a low so severe he cannot get out of bed. He will feel a deep hurting, a burning underneath his skin. He will want to shut out the world.
Lloyd, 43, is a manic-depressive, a victim of a disease characterized by wide mood swings and impulsive, erratic behavior. He declined to use his full name, not yet ready to be so public about his illness.
"I'm more concerned about potential repercussions because of the way society is," he said. "I would like to reach a point in time where I can use my name and photograph."
Lloyd says he wishes the stigma associated with mental illness would vanish, though he recognizes that increased awareness has slowly chipped away at the label.
Still, he says he feels discriminated against. His illness has affected his job, his relationship with his church. Insurance companies, generally, do not give equal coverage to his ailment, though manic-depression has been deemed as physical in origin as diabetes or cancer.
"We like to think of the mentally ill as homeless or institutionalized," Lloyd said. "But that's a very, very small portion. People with mental illnesses are the people among us."
This week, the Alliance for the Mentally Ill of Roanoke Valley is observing Mental Illness Awareness Week.
The alliance's goal is to make people more sensitive to the mentally ill, to eliminate stigma and to educate the community about mental illness, said Mildred Willis, president of the alliance.
"We're trying to bring information and support and hope to people who are going through this," Willis said. "It's a traumatic experience. We just want to let them know that they're not alone."
The alliance works to improve the quality of life of people affected by severe mental illnesses - schizophrenia and depressive illnesses such as manic-depression and clinical depression. The alliance is strongly advocating insurance parity - that mental illnesses receive insurance coverage equal to that given physical illnesses.
"A lot of health insurance companies do not cover mental illness," Willis said. "And the research has shown that mental illness is a biological brain disease."
A Virginia advisory panel on mandated health insurance benefits appointed a task force this year to deal with equal coverage of mental and physical illnesses. Insurance companies typically pay 80 percent of the cost of treating physical illnesses but only half the cost of treatment for mental illnesses.
The task force, composed of business leaders, government officials, doctors and patients, wants to make enough progress this year to back legislation in the next session of the General Assembly, perhaps in the area of hospital stays for the severely mentally ill.
"A lot of people think, 'How bad can depression be? Why can't they just get their act together?''' Lloyd said.
"But it's not just having the blues. For me, it's like being pulled in two directions at once. When I'm having a manic episode, I don't have to eat or sleep. I become more creative. In depression, I can feel empty and not there, sluggish. It's hard to describe.
"Some people are suicidal. And it's not that they want to die. They just can't stand to live without some relief."
by CNB