Paying more attention to mental illness

FAYETTEVILLE -- The following editorial appeared Tuesday in The Fayetteville Observer:

The tragic deaths last week of Billy, Kathy, Connor and Cameron Maxwell opened a door to something uncomfortable, something too many of us fear.

It also reminded us that we must look at what's on the other side of that door, confront it and understand it.

In the days after Billy Maxwell Jr. killed his wife, son, daughter and himself, friends and acquaintances first hinted, then openly confirmed that Maxwell was suffering from mental illness - so severe in his final days that he was delusional and irrationally fearful.

Maxwell's friends tried to help him. He confided in a few of them, just hours before the shootings, that he was even having trouble identifying family members by name. He was fearful that someone was trying to track him. But after his friends talked with him, he agreed to get professional help.

At a memorial service on Friday, the Rev. John Cook of Snyder Memorial Baptist Church - where Maxwell was a deacon - said, "We had every indication that there would be a Tuesday for the Maxwell family. All of us, even those closest to Billy, did not know how sick he was."

Few of us know how to gauge mental illness. We know many of the symptoms of physical illness. We know, from childhood, to seek help for a severe cut or a broken limb. We know many of the warning signs of heart disease or cancer or countless other ailments that can attack our bodies. But we don't know much about mental illness. And thanks to stigmas that have endured for centuries, we don't try to learn them - we turn away, even run away, instead.

The Rev. Cook and others did something important last week, opening a community conversation and a learning process about mental illness. It is, after all, a treatable disease. And North Carolina has led the nation with legislation that requires equal insurance coverage for physical and mental ailments.

Belinda Davis, who supervises screening and referrals at the Cumberland County Mental Health Center, says she hopes that, "as a tribute to the lives of these precious people, we could say, 'Hey, I need to talk to somebody,' and in turn, those of us who are here could say, 'I need to listen.' "

We all need to listen better, and to learn more. This would be a good time, in honor of the Maxwell family and the countless others who have suffered from mental illness, to put an end to old stigmas and to better understand mental health problems and the treatment for them.