"Believe In Me" film

"Believe in Me" is an anti-stigma film developed by the Washtenaw County Community Support and Treatment Center. DVDs of this film are free and available by request (limit one per person). 

Chapter 1 - Introduction

"Mental health problems are very common and cause mild to severe distortions in thinking, perception, and behavior. Some are believed to have biological causes, just like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. And some are believed to be caused by a person's environment and experience. If you have a brain, you can have a mental illness."

Chapter 2 - Symptoms

"I think one of the things that can happen sometimes is that we see people behave in a certain way and we think that they're being deliberately defiant or non-compliant. But if we took a minute to look closer, maybe we could see that the person is really confused--they're not really processing what we're saying."

Chapter 3 - Treatment

"Integrated health care is physical health care, behavioral health care, and substance use treatment delivered by mental health care professionals and behavioral health care professionals working together in one site. That site should be the place that the consumer feels comfortable receiving care."

Chapter 4 - Early Intervention

"We're building the evidence of how to stop severe mental illness in its tracks and make better health possible even in the context of difficult life circumstances. Washtenaw County is committed to the health and wellness in our community."

Chapter 5 - Community Awareness

"Stigma is really rooted in an ignorance and fear. When people encounter something that they don't understand, they seek to make sense of it in the best way they know how. If somebody's had one exposure to someone with a mental illness, particularly if it was a bad encounter, then they walk away with a [bad] caricature of what mental illness is. And that's how stigma persists."

Chapter 6 - Recovery and Wellness

"Psychiatric illness is not a cycle of sickness and health. It is a journey always going forward. Symptoms aren't barriers to recovery. They merely influence our recovery strategies."