"Encouraging words from beauty queen"
By CATHERINE WILDE
SPECIAL TO THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: May 24, 2004)

Beauty queen Jessica Lynch enchanted families and friends of people with mental illness at Rockland Psychiatric Center's ninth annual Family Day yesterday.

Lynch, 24, who was crowned The Miss America Organization's Miss New York in 2003, shared with the audience her own 15-year battle with depression and anorexia, recalling a poignant time in her life at age 9 when she awoke one morning unable to stop crying.

"My parents thought it was something that would pass, but for me it wasn't," Lynch told the audience.

When switching to an all-girls private school didn't work, her parents sent her to a psychologist, which helped with the depression but not her anorexia.

Lynch said that at one point, her father told her she had to start taking care of herself or she was going to die.

Lynch said she was "petrified" when her father explained that she would be forced into foster care because the family could no longer afford treatment. She had been taken out of a children's psychiatric hospital because her insurance had ended.

After this, Lynch decided to make an effort to get better, but still suffered bullying and trauma throughout her high school years, and felt compelled to deny that she had a problem to her peers.

However, through treatment and family support she managed to get her life in order enough to graduate 4th out of 425 students and get accepted into the University of Virginia, ultimately graduating in three years, while battling her illness throughout.

"People always ask, 'What does depression feel like?' " Lynch said, "and I always tell them, 'You really can't understand unless you've been there, but to me it feels like being in a fog. I can't see or think clearly, and I feel so hopeless and tired I just want to sleep.' "

After graduation, Lynch moved to New York with aspirations of becoming an actress. She has danced in the "Radio City Christmas Spectacular" and won the title of Miss Manhattan and Miss New York City before being crowned Miss New York in June 2003.

Lynch decided to make mental illness her platform, speaking at schools to raise awareness and fight discrimination against people with mental illness.

"I want to give hope and show that treatment can work and that being mentally ill does not mean you can't lead a productive and fulfilling life," Lynch said before yesterday's program.

She added that the important thing is finding what treatment works best for each individual, in her case a combination of medication and discussing the problem with an objective person.

The presentation hit home for one member of the co-sponsor, NAMI-Familya, an advocacy group for people with family members who are mentally ill.

Peggy Moran's son has suffered from schizophrenia for more than 20 years. Moran, of New City, describes her son as having led a "revolving-door existence," in and out of institutions until 1990, when medication became available to him.

Moran described schizophrenia as a "family disease" because the whole family is affected, but considers herself very fortunate that her son had a support system from her three other children.

"There is a silver lining in every cloud, and that was it," she said, adding that now her son is driving, working and doing very well.

"Absolutely incredible," Moran said of the presentation. "Everything she said was to-the-point and true, about the stigma and how families help. Her Miss New York state label meant nothing in there, she was just someone giving a message that needs to be given."

Lynch also is an advocate for Timothy's Law, a bill now before the state Assembly and Senate that pushes for adequate insurance coverage for individuals with mental disorders.