Hi, John Moe here. This is a special bonus episode of Depressmode. I'm glad you're here. I want to keep you updated on the situation that's going on here in Minnesota, where I live. And I want to be super clear.

Depression Mode is not a news show. We're a mental health show. And also, as well, the ICE activity, the arrests,

the deaths, the disappearing. It's a mental health story. It's a story about community mental health.

And it's weighing on everyone. It's causing depression and anxiety among people who have never

had a problem with that before. And for people already

experiencing mental illness, especially severe mental illness, this is disastrous. I'm far from

being the only person saying this kind of thing. A lot of people are, including the largest

mental health advocacy organization in the state, Nami, Minnesota. Nami stands for the National

Alliance on Mental Illness. Nami, Minnesota is the state organization. Marcus Schmidt is the

executive director and joins me now. Marcus, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks so much, John. Really

appreciate the opportunity. Marcus, you and I know each other a little bit, and we have been talking about the situation here and what we could potentially do about it.

You recently put out a statement from Nami, Minnesota, about the effect of what's happening, particularly among people with serious and persistent mental illness.

How is that different from the stress and

emotions that everyone's experiencing? Yeah. Well, we know that people who have severe and

severe persistent mental illness are folks who have already been navigating a lot of challenges

in their own lives and have experienced trauma.

You know, they might be carrying a lot of weight from previous experiences. And what has happened is this occupation just continues is symptoms are increasing,

intensifying.

A lot of these conditions are manifesting themselves into just people who

are in these states that they haven't experienced in a while. And as a result of that, we're getting more

phone calls, we're getting more emails. There's just an uptick in contact. A lot of our classes

and trainings are filling up.

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