Facts about mental illness

Each year Transitional Living Services serves more than 1,400 people with serious mental illnesses. Mental illnesses are health conditions characterized by alterations in thinking, mood or behavior associated with distress and impaired functioning. Mental illnesses include major depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

• Mental illnesses are biologically based brain disorders. Stigma continues to be one of the greatest barriers to this fact, and creates limitations to treatment and recovery.
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• Severe and disabling mental illness affects 5-10
  million adults in the United States.
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• Four of the 10 leading causes of disability in the United States and other developed countries are mental disorders.
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• A quarter of all hospital admissions in the U.S. are psychiatric admissions.
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• Nine million adults experience Major Depression each year. Depression is the leading cause of disability in the world (National Institute of Mental Health)
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• About one-third of the estimated 600,000 homeless people in the U.S. suffer from a severe mental illness, though most are capable of living in the community if they have appropriate, supportive housing.
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• In Wisconsin, approximately 200,000 people have a major, long-term mental illness. As many as one out of every five families is affected.