GARDNER — Laura Blockel always knew she stood out from the rest of her peers growing up.
By reading books and immersing herself in school, she said, she escaped physical, emotional, and sexual abuse she faced in childhood. She was bullied throughout middle school, and things only got worse as she entered high school.
Lucky enough to earn a full scholarship to Williams College at 17, Blockel thought she had found her escape. She met friends who shared her same intellectual passions and she began dating a boy who hinted at marriage.
But things changed for Blockel during the summer between her junior and senior year when she began hearing voices in her head. She would eventually be diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, a mental disorder that alters a person’s view of reality coupled with mood problems.
Her voices would tell her to cut herself with knives and hit herself, which she did. When her college friends didn’t return to the dorms, her voices only got worse, she recalled in front of a group of 150 faculty members and students at Mount Wachusett Community College.
The college was host to a conference, Voices for Change: A Mental Healthy Campus for All, sponsored by Fidelity Bank’s SHINE Initiative. It is the SHINE Initiative’s goal to increase knowledge and understanding of mental illness and behavioral health problems and help to increase support for students with mental illness so they can succeed in school.
Daniel Asquino, president of Mount Wachusett, expressed his thanks to Fidelity Bank for recognizing the importance of the issue, and said he has personal experience with loved ones dealing with mental illness.
“This is an issue we really need to talk about. It is so predominant and pervasive in our society. People just do not understand it,” he said. “I know the stresses for families, for regions, for society and our country. It’s one we can deal with collectively. We need to do that. It’s important. They can function in our society. They can raise families. They can be very productive and innovative. We just need to understand this particular illness.”
The SHINE Initiative was launched by Fidelity Bank in 2004 to help people and families affected by mental illness, to educate the public, to fund research and to change public policy regarding mental health.
The SHINE Initiative is looking to launch educational programs throughout North Central Massachusetts to ensure people with mental illness, especially youths, have the access they need to succeed in school.
“Big gigantic changes take more than one person but as more people grow around that cause, their voice helps lend to the cause,” Jim Notaro, the assistant to the president of Fidelity Bank told the approximately 150 people in attendance. “They bring others to it. This is a really important cause. This is a huge cause. Fidelity Bank has been a partner with the SHINE Initiative for some five years now. It is our main cause. We believe in this cause.”
Arlene Betteridge, the executive director of the SHINE Initiative, said that the conference was an important step in raising awareness on mental illness throughout the state.
“Voices for Change is an inclusive conference. It provides the opportunity for every sector of this college to identify stigma surrounding mental illness in every area. Change does not come easily. We’re all creatures of habit. It requires confidence in what you’re doing well already,” she said.
It is her hope that a similar conference will be held at Fitchburg State University next year.
Upon graduation, Blockel moved to Colorado, working as a social worker in a nursing home. When the home she was renting a room in sold, she found herself homeless. She spent the next 10 years of her life working in various jobs and taking classes.
She eventually got married and had two children. Her diagnosis came more than 15 years ago during the pregnancy of her second child. Her husband left her and she focused her attention on raising her children.
She now works at the National Alliance on Mental Illness, is an active member of the Genesis Clubhouse in Worcester and is completing her master’s degree in nonprofit strategic development.
Many young people consider suicide as their only way out of mental illness, said Dr. Boris Lorberg, medical director at the Transition Adolescent Intensive Residential Program in Worcester and an assistant professor of psychiatry at the division of child and adolescent psychiatry at UMass Medical School in Worcester.
According to a 1999 report issued by the Surgeon General, one in five children age 9 to 17 have a history of diagnosed psychiatric disorders, and of those, only 20 percent receive treatment. One in five adolescents consider suicide, while one in 20 attempt suicide, and 1,600 teens die annually from suicide.
Erica Tolles, who works at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, spoke about Active Minds, a nationally run nonprofit that has many branches on college campuses and encourages students to have an open dialogue about mental illness, according to their website.
She offered her services to the Mount Wachusett community in hopes of starting a local chapter there.
Active Minds was founded in 2001 by Alison Malmon, who was studying at the University of Pennsylvania at the time, in response to her older brother Brian committing suicide. It currently has more than 200 college chapters and its headquarters is in Washington D.C.
