Last modified: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 2:36 AM EDT MCT ILLUSTRATION Educator knows hardships of mental illness, seeks to help others BY SUSAN LaHOUD SUN CHRONICLE STAFF TAUNTON - Karen Kangus had, as she put it, a "wonderful career." She was married with two children and, after earning her doctorate in education, taught in Washington state and later in Hartford, Conn. Then came the hospitalizations due to mental illness. As a result, she returned to her native Montana because, she said, "it would be closer to my parents and easier for them to bury me." It was while she was the principal of a school in Montana that she had a "terrible episode" and was hospitalized again. The superintendent, she recalled, said that when she got out of the hospital, she would be fired. A psychiatrist told her, "Let me tell you now, you'll never work again." Her marriage was already ruined, her two children with their father in Connecticut. Now, there was the feeling of hopelessness, being told she would not work in the field in which she had trained. That's why there should be "recovery" programs versus treatment plans for mental illness, and more effort to remove the stigma attached to it, said Kangus, now executive director of Connecticut-based Advocacy Unlimited Inc., a nonprofit organization that helps people recovering from psychiatric disabilities or recurring disorders. Kangus recently spoke to social service and residential facility workers with Community Cares Services in Taunton, sharing her own experiences as well as ways to help people with a psychiatric disability or substance use disorder to reach a point of managing their illness to live a better life. An estimated 26.2 percent of Americans ages 18 and older - or one in four adults - suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Based on the 2004 U.S. Census, that would translate to nearly 58 million people. Mental disorders are the leading cause of disability in the U.S. and Canada for ages 15-44 and many people suffer from more than one at a given time, NIMH states. Kangus, who is bipolar, said that she has had experience with many medications. "They're very difficult to take," she said, noting the various side effects. She said she did well for an extended time on one particular medication, until it affected her kidneys. With the focus on medications, "the whole medical care of people has been forgotten about," she lamented. People who have a mental illness have "two pains," Kangus said. "One pain is inside - the illness itself. The other is outside pain - what if they find out? What if they know?" People treat victims of mental illness differently, she said, shying away from something as simple as getting them flowers during a hospital stay or while they are recovering from an episode. "We don't think to do what we do for other things," she said. She told of a psychiatrist who was hospitalized at McLean, a psychiatric hospital, and how people at her workplace were well-intentioned but unsure of what to do when she returned. "How about saying, 'welcome back,'" Kangus said. However, the woman was then having difficulties upon returning to work "because everyone knew" that she had a mental illness. Kangus referred to the "message" she got when the psychiatrist told her that she wouldn't work again. "Here I am, 25 years younger and he's telling me my life is over." Messages like that "instill helplessness, so that we then become helpless," she said. And she knows, after travelling and talking to others, she is not alone in this feeling. People with serious mental illnesses need advocates, but also need to be able to take actions themselves to lead better lives, she said. For example, her son is an attorney "and not just by coincidence." "If you have serious things like me, you need an attorney," she said. "How do you teach somebody to live better with mental illness? It's hard because we do laugh, but we cry, too - it's hard to try hard and not feel better and still remember to say thank you." "We have to work ourselves, we have to work with counselors, I have to know when it is I need a counselor," she said. Right now, at age 67, Kangus is managing. And as a grandmother, she's spending a lot of time with her twin grandsons, something she was unsure she would be able to do when they were born. "Two years ago, I was in and out of hospitals," Kangus said. "I wondered if my daughter would trust me to hold them." She worried about the prospect herself. "Not only did she let me hold them, but she asked if I would be able to babysit them the next night and again another night." "I probably spend more time with them than I did my own children. It's sad," Kangus said. SUSAN LaHOUD can be reached at 508-236-0398 or at slahoud@thesunchronicle.com.