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Christina Rossi, "Chrissy"
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Christina Rossi was an extraordinary young woman who courageously lived with a major mental illness. Her story is also the story of a loving family that would do anything to lessen the suffering and loss that come with mental illness.
Chrissy was diagnosed with serious depression at age 13 and with bipolar disorder in her early 20s. Her formative years were disrupted with hospitalizations and trying various medications, none of which brought relief, only unbearable side effects.
Although Chrissy was bright, perceptive and personable, she struggled to complete her studies and had difficulty working and holding jobs.
Even with her problems, Chrissy loved people and went out of her way to help others. She accompanied a cousin with cerebral palsy to his school prom. She worked with children and mentally disabled adults, and loved every minute of it. She always had a smile, said her mother, who called her “the glue of the family.”
As vibrant, compassionate and lovable as she was, Chrissy felt defeated at every turn by her illness and her inability to control it.
For Chrissy’s family, an unspoken fear became reality when Chrissy committed suicide in July 2006. She was just 26 years old.
Chrissy’s mother, Linda, talked with us about her daughter’s death and the effect it had on her family.
“I knew one of the things we wouldn’t do was hide our heads in the sand,” she said. “We wanted people to know that Chrissy was a great person who had an illness that was terminal.”
In packing up Chrissy’s apartment after the suicide, her family found 100 or more medical and mental-health books she had read and highlighted. Chrissy was trying on her own to find the answers to her illness.
“She was looking for a cure,” said Linda. “She was looking for anything that could make her feel better. That’s when I knew we had to help find a cure.”
Within weeks, Linda was on the phone with NARSAD to find out what she and her family and friends could do to help increase research on mental illnesses like Chrissy’s.
Last summer, on the first anniversary of Chrissy’s death, they held a community golf tournament and raised nearly $60,000 for NARSAD. Every penny from the event has gone directly to fund research on mental illness.
In just 20 years, through the generosity of thousands of donors, who like Chrissy’s family want to find better treatments and cures, NARSAD has become the leading charity dedicated to research on mental illnesses.
Every day, NARSAD-supported researchers are bringing us closer to finding the answers to such illnesses as bipolar disorder, depression, schizophrenia, anxiety and a range of childhood disorders. Their progress gives us hope that one day we will see the end of these diseases.
“We’ve got to find a cure,” Linda said. “That’s my quest, and that’s why I’m going to be working with NARSAD until the day I die.”
Like Chrissy’s mother, there’s nothing we want more than to make life better for our mentally ill loved ones and to spare others from the suffering and loss that come with mental illness. Each and every one of us is part of this quest. Only by investing in research will we reach our goal.
You can make a difference. Please take this opportunity to make a generous gift to NARSAD to accelerate the search for cures.
Click here to make your donation to NARSAD. |
Linda and Mario Rossi
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