A Common Struggle: A Personal Journey Through the Past and Future of Mental Illness and Addiction

by Patrick J. Kennedy

We decided to call this mental health leadership initiative the Kennedy Forum. One Mind is where we want to go. The Kennedy Forum is where we live.

after I started taking Lamictal again, I found out it was one of the medications my father had taken, at a higher dose than what’s used for mood disorders, to control seizures after his brain surgery. When you take the medication for seizures, of course, there’s no stigma at all. When I take it for my mood disorder, there’s stigma because I have the mood disorder, and some stigma from old-school recovery folks who think that if I was really working the steps I wouldn’t need any medication.

besides all these new THC products, smoked and “vaped” pot is much more powerful than what we ever had, and being used at increasingly younger ages when the brain is even more unformed.

him. I needed to make amends. In recovery, this is one of the most powerful and spiritual aspects of the journey, and it’s the kind of transformational moment that doesn’t come naturally. You just have to do it. You have to make right what you made wrong.

the future of care for mental illness and addiction is a new level of collaborative care, so physicians, psychotherapists, counselors, nurses, and lay support groups work together, not against each other, to make the best group effort for each individual patient.

Patients should have choices, and as long as those choices are evidence based, our medical insurance should cover them—just as it covers prescription drug remedies, surgical remedies, lifestyle remedies, preventive remedies, and combinations of these for every other disease. It’s the only way.

Harper and Owen were showing some of the world’s experts on addiction facility management, insurance reimbursement, and healthcare program funding how the seagulls dropped clamshells from the sky onto the dock, and pieces got caught between the planks.

You have to take the best possible care of yourself—or the person you are caring for—in order to be strong enough to advocate. And if you and your caregiver feel any of the care you need is not being covered by your insurance company, explore your rights under the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) with our in-depth Kennedy Forum Parity Resource Guide (www.kennedyforum.org/parity-resource-guide), which also includes information on how to formally register a complaint.

become educated about the political issues surrounding your illness.

These ten steps are just the beginning. There is a lot of work to do and, frankly, it is going to take contributions from everyone.

Thank you for joining me in the common struggle.

The biggest challenge of working on this book has been keeping it scrupulously honest about my illnesses and how they affected my relationships, even if it reminded me again and again how much time and love and productivity I have lost to being sick.

I want to thank my co-author, Stephen Fried, who has been my navigator in this venture. We often described this book as some kind of Lewis and Clark journey across many Americas, without my realizing that by the end, after traversing so much challenging political and personal terrain, it would feel like he had become my Clark.

Ultimately, the only reason I was able to write this book—in fact, the only reason I am still alive to tell this story—is because of my wife Amy and our kids, Harper, Owen, and Nora (and our new baby, who is due any day now). Amy saw something in me that I had not been able to find in myself, and instead of running away from me she ran toward us. Her belief in me and in our love has been so inspiring but also so steadying; I can only wish that everyone involved in the common struggle finds this kind of closeness and partnership with someone so grounded and so hopeful.