Healing a life of sickness through film teacher produces documentary about mental illness.

Sunday, August 03, 2008 By BILL WICHERT
The Express-Times PHILLIPSBURG


Richard Patricia traveled across the state to ask people hundreds of questions about growing up with a loved one suffering from a mental illness. But telling his own story remains difficult for the Warren County Technical School teacher. Patricia's story is one of sometimes spending more time at Warren Hospital than at home. It is a story of losing one's home in the face of medical expenses. The healing is the part of the story that Patricia wants to share through a documentary he produced. "There are some things you just don't want to talk about," the television, radio and digital media teacher said. "You tend to try to forget about some things that have taken place in life and move to a bright future." Patricia's relative, whom he asked not be identified, has obtained a degree of self-sufficiency and lived alone the past 13 years. In his film, "Strive for Happiness," he tries to show how families overcome the challenges of caring for a relative with a mental illness. The interviews in the film bring out several common struggles, including financial hardships, the feeling of not knowing where to go for help and the need to allow a loved one to become more self-sufficient, Patricia said. "You have to see that person hit bottom to get better but always support the person," Patricia said. The Phillipsburg resident's film should help eliminate the stigma attached to the diseases, said Debra Wentz, CEO of the New Jersey Association of Mental Health Agencies.
"Ignorance breeds fear," she said. "I'm very supportive of anything that's so educational." Patricia said he began to notice signs of his relative's mental illness when he was about 12 years old in the early 1980s. A teenage Patricia was soon playing pingpong at the hospital on a regular basis, while his loved one lay comatose in a bed.
"I found myself in a situation where I had to grow up pretty fast," Patricia narrates in the film. "There wasn't a thing I could do for her. I felt pretty helpless." Patricia kept a journal while growing up and later penned a script for a class at Northampton Community College. About three years ago, sitting amid the Smoky Mountains on a family vacation, he sat down at night and returned to his story. Finishing the film has brought closure to that chapter in his life, he said. One of the film's lasting messages is that there's hope for families dealing with mental illness, Patricia said. "These folks need to be treated like human beings," he said. "The mentally ill are very much self-sufficient and need to be. "But they also need the support and they need the care and they need the love."

Reporter Bill Wichert can be reached at 908-475-8044 or by e-mail at bwichert@express-times.com.