Overcoming a tarnish of mental illness, one mile during a time

River hollow 5k

HOLYOKE, Mass. (WWLP) – Conerlius Sewell was only 14-years-old when he swallowed a bottle of pills, in an try to finish his possess life.

“I took a whole bottle of tranquilizers. Somebody was means to move me to a sanatorium and they regenerated me,” he said.

Cornelius was eventually diagnosed with basin and post-traumatic highlight disorder, illnesses that he says years later, he can now pronounce plainly about. “There are a lot of people that humour from mental illness like me, and we feel like we don’t have to be alone,” he said.

Nearly one in 5 people in a United States are vital with some form of mental illness. On Saturday, River Valley Counseling hold their annual 5K River Valley Run to lift income for mental illness services right here in western Massachusetts.

There are some-more than 200 forms of mental health conditions, and they’re not always easy to commend or diagnosis.

Lisa Beauregard told 22News it took scarcely a decade for her daughter to accept a scold diagnosis. “They pronounced she had some serious training disability, though not Selective Mutism,” she said.

Doctors told Lisa her daughter had some form of training disability. It wasn’t until she got her retested scarcely 10-years after that they discovered, she was unequivocally pang from a debilitating stress disorder, called Selective Mutism. “With this disability, it’s not as famous as autism, so there’s not a lot of services,” she said.

Families like Lisa’s now dedicate their time to creation certain other people pang from mental illness aren’t ashamed, and aren’t fearful to strech out for help.

Claudia Mitchell, a member in Saturday’s run told 22News, so many families came together for a event to lift awareness, and erase a tarnish that surrounds mental illness. “It’s not something we need to be ashamed or broke about, since mostly everybody we know in a workplace, or your friends or your family, somebody has it,” she said.