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Teen’s family aims to change perceptions about mental illness

The Winchester Star - 7/21/2017

The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — Like most teenagers, John David “J.D.” Ballard had lots of mood swings.

Like most parents of teenagers, Cathy Ballard was no stranger to weathering the emotional storms.

Ballard knew a statement like “I want to die” could mean that her son was terribly embarrassed about something, or he really wanted to die.

“It’s just so hard to tell the difference,” she said. “You just don’t know.”

Ballard’s answer came on Jan. 21 in the most horrific way imaginable, when J.D. lost a two-year battle with depression and took his own life in the Handley Avenue home he shared with his mother, father and three sisters. He was 15 years old.

Ballard and her husband, John T. Ballard, funneled their grief into creating the J.D. Ballard Teen Mental Health Fund to help other young people and their families who are coping with mental illness.

An immediate task, she said, is changing perceptions about mental illness.

“My brother-in-law spoke at the funeral and said, ‘You break your leg and people understand it. You have depression and they tell you to get over it,’” Carol Ballard said.

Ballard’s 90-year-old mother, Elizabeth Pulley, has late-onset Alzheimer’s disease and is under hospice care.

“I don’t think anyone thinks my mom is crazy. They realize her brain is not functioning properly anymore,” Ballard said. “She has this terrible disease and it makes her act in ways that are strange and not normal.

“We need to take what we’ve learned about understanding Alzheimer’s and apply it to other mental illnesses, like depression, so that people understand the brain is an organ and, sometimes, things don’t go right.”

Debbie Connolly, executive director of the Community Foundation of the Northern Shenandoah Valley, helped the Ballards establish their fund and works with them to raise money and awareness.

The Community Foundation is also the fiscal agent for Winchester radio station WINC-FM’s annual Chain of Checks fundraiser to support local nonprofit organization.

Connolly said she and Ballard “kind of led the charge” for this year’s Chain of Checks to benefit youth mental health services.

As a result, Chain of Checks founder and WINC-FM Wake Up Show host Barry Lee announced last month that the theme for the 32nd annual Chain of Checks campaign will be “A Stronger Me ... Developing Systems of Support for Teen Mental Health.”

Money raised in this year’s campaign will fund training for employees of Winchester and Frederick County public schools, at all grade levels, to recognize and support students who are battling depression and other mental health issues.

Lee said the extra training will help school employees spot the difference between typical teen behaviors and more serious problems.

“I’ve been to funerals where there was a suicide and people said, ‘Gosh, I wish I knew,’” Lee said on Thursday. “To know there are kids suffering in silence because they don’t know how to ask for help, it breaks your heart.”

“We would like Chain of Checks to be an educational opportunity for the community,” Connolly said. “Mental illness is a biological issue. It’s not something that’s taboo, it’s not something we shouldn’t be talking about. It’s a disease, and we need to be talking about that.”

Connolly and Ballard said they also want the community to understand the need for a local facility to treat young people who have mental illnesses.

“When someone like John David needs mental health treatment, they have to leave the community,” Connolly said.

In early December, Ballard said, J.D. was hospitalized after trying to kill himself. The closest inpatient facility was in Richmond.

“He would talk to me about how difficult it was, and all he wanted was his friends to come see him,” Ballard said.

The 2016 Community Health Needs Assessment published by Winchester-based Valley Health listed the local need for mental and behavioral health care as second only to access to primary and preventive care.

According to the assessment, “the community’s mental health needs have grown, while the mental health service capacity has not. The major concern mentioned by key informants [surveyed for the assessment] was the need for more providers to care for children with mental and behavioral health issues. The Winchester community has limited resources for this type of community need.”

In Virginia, there is an average of one mental health care provider for every 658 people. Winchester has an above-average ratio of one provider per every 204 residents, but the Clarke County ratio is one per 1,803 and the Frederick County ratio is one per 2,423, the assessment states.

When J.D. came home from the hospital, Ballard said she thought he was doing better. It turned out he was just putting on a brave face while desperately trying to cope with an illness that, a few short weeks later, claimed his life.

“Depression is a black, black tunnel, and you see no light at the end and no way out of it,” Ballard said. “What’s irrational becomes rational, and that’s what leads to a not-good result.

“That’s what happened to John David. The irrational, which was the only way out was to die, became rational.”

One of the goals of the J.D. Ballard Teen Mental Health Fund, which will not receive funding from the current Chain of Checks campaign, is to help fund construction of a local inpatient facility for young people in need of mental health care.

“This fund, in and of itself, is not going to be able to do that, but hopefully we can provide some impetus for some other community partners to start helping,” Connolly said.

The need is more urgent than people may realize.

According to the 2017-2020 United Way of Northern Shenandoah Valley’s Community Needs Assessment, 20.6 percent of middle-schoolers and 12.7 percent of high-schoolers in the Lord Fairfax Health District — which includes Winchester and Frederick, Clarke, Warren, Shenandoah and Page counties — have seriously considered suicide. The national average for students is 15.5 percent.

Locally, 13.2 percent of middle-schoolers and 12.3 percent of high-schoolers made a suicide plan. The national average for students is 11.9 percent.

The most alarming statistics are tied to the number of young people who actually attempted suicide. In the district, 6.8 percent of middle-schoolers and 5.3 percent of high-schoolers tried to kill themselves, which far exceeds the national student average of 1.9 percent.

Ballard said parents of children with mental health issues need support just as desperately as their kids.

“The study of mental illness is like rocket science, and none of us are rocket scientists,” Ballard said. “Teenagers don’t want to tell you anything. It’s a nightmare.”

Ballard said she believes she could have done more to help J.D. if she had better access to local mental health services.

She has committed herself to making sure no other family has to suffer the loss of a child to depression.

“I never thought this would be my life’s work, but it’s God’s plan,” Ballard said. “I hate it, it’s a bad plan, but here I am.”

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A planned fundraiser to support the J.D. Ballard Teen Mental Health Fund on Saturday at Veramar Vineyard in Clarke County has been postponed due to last-minute logistical problems. Tax-deductible donations to the fund may be made at http://cfnsv.org/w-funds/j-d-ballard-teen-mental-health-fund/

— Contact Brian Brehm at bbrehm@winchesterstar.com