Glenn Close, family work to end stigma of mental illness

• One in four families affected by mental illness
• Mental health care is not on parity with physical health care
• Glenn Close%27s sister is bipolar%3B her nephew has schizoaffective disorder

Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified the name of a mental illness printed on a T-shirt in a 2010 public service announcement.

Calen Pick has schizoaffective disorder, a combination of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. He was 15 when he realized something was wrong, 16 when he checked himself into a lockdown mental health facility, 18 when he got out and 28 when his sanity touched down on solid ground.

Now 31, Pick got married last year and is working with his mother, Jessie Close, who is bipolar, and his aunt, six-time Oscar nominee Glenn Close, to help end the stigma and discrimination facing the mentally ill. Their work is through the foundation BringChange2Mind, which Glenn Close founded in 2009.

"The most powerful way to change someone's view is to meet them," she says. "People who do come out and talk about mental illness, that's when healing can really begin. You can lead a productive life."

Jessie Close and Pick, who are both easily unsettled by loud noises and large crowds, took the issue of stigma front and center in 2010, when they walked into Grand Central Station in New York and filmed a PSA directed by Ron Howard. Pick wore a T-shirt with "Schizophrenia" printed on it and his mother wore one that said "Bipolar."

"It was scary. People just stared at us," Pick says. "But I think of myself as an intact soul, so for me to put myself out there like that, I hope it initiates more people to talk about it. Just talking about mental illness would do it a great service."

The PSA, which also features John Mayer's Say, has been viewed in 800 million households, the organization says.

According to BringChange2Mind, one in four families is affected by mental illness. When Jessie Close started showing signs of bipolar disorder in her early 20s, it was largely unknown. "At that time, it was really common to self-medicate with drugs and alcohol. Then I was given my first treatment in my late 40s and finally, the correct diagnosis -- and medication -- when I was 51," she says. "I'll be 60 in July and I grieved for those lost years. There were careers I couldn't handle because of it. I wish I was able to get help earlier."

In their second PSA, Schizo, being released Tuesday, Pick steps into the spotlight. The PSA plays like a trailer for a horror film, ending with the camera shooting down a dark hallway, a door opening and Pick standing in a kitchen, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you if you were expecting a lunatic on a rampage," he says in the final scene.

"When he got out of that mental health facility, he never took off his dark sunglasses, which helped him be around large groups of people," Glenn Close says. "Once Jessie came to visit me in New York City and she had to leave a restaurant we were in because it was too noisy and she went to sit on a stoop to collect herself. So that they were brave enough to wear those T-shirts, standing in a place as busy and echo-ey as Grand Central Station, is miraculous."

Stepping out of the shadows to share their experiences is a rarity; one that Pick and Jessie Close hope will inspire not just people with mental illness to come forward, but policy makers to start putting laws in place to protect the mentally ill and to put mental health care on parity with other health care.

"If you change policies, eventually that will affect what people think," says Bernice Pescosolido, an Indiana University professor who focuses on mental health care, stigma and suicide research. "There are two parts to mental literacy, one is knowledge and the other is what to do about it. That's where we need to make progress. How do we get through the door? Insurance doesn't address long-term help. And service isn't available everywhere, especially as you get to more rural areas."

Family support is key. "If our family had not supported Calen, he would have been caught up in that terrible cycle of jail, street, jail, street," says Glenn Close. "What do people do when they're in that cycle? I don't have a good answer to that."

"Fear is lodged with people who don't know someone with mental illness. How you treat someone with cancer or diabetes is more accepting than someone with mental illness," says Pescosolido. "If you can see the entire person, not just the label, and the more people interact, then the more that the attitudes go away. Contact is a powerful predictor of greater tolerance."

For those first brutal years when Pick was psychotic, his mother says she didn't know how to deal with his erratic behavior, despite suffering from a serious mental illness herself. "One afternoon, we were standing in the yard and he said that the TV antenna was put there to keep track of him," she recalls. "When he was overwhelmed, he'd rock, with his forearms tight against his thighs, his hair hanging down."

With a combination of talk therapy, careful medication and the support of his family, Pick pieced together his splintered sanity. "It was scary not knowing where to draw the line; my imagination just didn't know how to stop," he says. "It was like a free association of everything around me. Everything took a special meaning; it was thoughts building on thoughts and me trying to put reason to them. It was a good 10 years, every hour I was awake, I lived in hell."

As the psychiatric field and policymakers search for a solution, families and patients can find relief through organizations like BringChange2Mind. "I would love BringChange2Mind not have to be anymore, which is when people are talking about mental illness without shame or judgment," says Glenn Close. "It's about social inclusion, and when people are enlightened then change can happen."