Mental health care efforts a priority for Wild
Mental health wasn’t something Susan Wild imagined becoming one of her primary policy issues when she came to Congress last year.
That changed after losing her longtime partner, Kerry Acker, to suicide in May. In the months since his death, the Democratic lawmaker from the Lehigh Valley has been talking to experts about what’s needed to strengthen mental health resources and suicide prevention.
“I didn’t expect to be here at this moment in time, but we go where the path of life leads us, and this is where it has led me,” Wild said Friday as she introduced two bills stemming from that effort.
One would direct federal education and health officials to encourage colleges to develop suicide prevention plans, aiming to boost resources for an age group for which suicide is the second-leading cause of death.
Wild also wants increased access to mental health care for those affected by suicide. Her other bill would make the suicide of a loved one a qualifying event for family members to enroll in or change an insurance plan, so they have mental health coverage. Typically, those insurance changes can only occur during an annual open enrollment period, or after a life event like marriage or the birth of a child.
Wild finds a therapeutic aspect to working on the legislation and seeking to aid those who have or might experience such personal trauma. But it does little to alleviate her own grieving. Hours before ending his own life Acker, whose struggle with depression was linked to chronic pain from a surgery, texted her to say how much he loved her.
“It does, to some extent, help to feel as though I’m doing something specific that will elevate the discussion about mental health issues and suicide,” Wild told The Morning Call.
“On the other hand,” she added, “it doesn’t really matter how useful and beneficial I think it is for the country at large. It doesn’t do anything to help the personal loss. It doesn’t abate that at all.”
One month after Acker’s death, Wild shared his story on the U.S. House floor, choking up as she described the 63-year-old attorney that she had met in law school and reconnected with in 2002. Among those listening was Fred Stokes, a former NFL player who nearly took his own life.
Stokes reached out to Wild days later, offering to help with her policy push any way he can.
“I heard her voice, but I felt her heart, because of what I experienced,” Stokes recalled during Friday’s roundtable event with mental health experts and advocates.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also stopped by to show her support for expanding resources to prevent suicides, and praised Wild’s strength in working on the deeply personal issue.
“Imagine the courage of her to do this,” Pelosi said, hugging Wild.
Since that floor speech in June, Wild has been speaking publicly about her own loss, seeking to de-stigmatize discussions around mental health and suicide. She points to the statistics from 2017, when there were 47,000 suicides and 1.4 million suicide attempts, as evidence it affects many across the country.
That was reinforced by the number of people who have come up to her on Capitol Hill or reached out to her office, seeking to share their stories.
Talking about mental health should be more like talking about a physical health issue, Wild says, comparing the reluctance that employees might feel to ask for accommodations to see a therapist to making the same request for another type of doctor’s appointment.
“Nobody wants anyone outside of their immediate family to know about their personal, emotional struggles,” Wild said. “So when people are able to come out and talk about it ... I really admire that in people, because we’ve got to normalize it so that people seek the help that they need.”
State Rep. Mike Schlossberg, D-Allentown, who has spoken openly about his own struggles with depression and anxiety, sponsored a state law approved last year that’s similar to Wild’s proposal for colleges. Schlossberg’s measure created an optional certification process recognizing colleges and universities that create suicide prevention programs.
He said so far just one school — Allentown’s Muhlenberg College — has opted in to the state program.
“It is clear that we need to do more,” Schlossberg said.
Some of the unmet needs have a legislative fix, such as creating an easy-to-remember, three-digit number for the national suicide hotline, training more mental health professionals, and creating more physical barriers on bridges.
Others may be cultural, like expanding the awareness around the best practices for how to talk to someone struggling with mental health issues and the proper terminology, such as saying someone “died by suicide” instead of “committed.”
Perhaps most of all, Wild said as the conversation at Friday’s event easily spilled over its initial hourlong time frame, is the importance of keeping the conversation going.
Washington correspondent Laura Olson can be reached at 202-780-9540 or lolson@mcall.com.