I am a seriously mentally ill man. I wish to inform Harvard students of general information concerning mental illness.

Today, roughly one in four families have a mentally ill person as at least a relative. But this fact is not realized by the general public largely due to the fact that people do not talk about their problems related to mental illness.

Mental illness is the hidden health malady of America. Although quite prevalent, nobody wishes to talk about it. Consequently, the general population is largely ignorant of issues related to mental illness.

There are, generally speaking, three varieties of mental illness. There are depressive illnesses, psychosis-related illnesses and obsessive compulsive illness.

Depressive illnesses affect a person's mood and consequently affect every facet of a person's life. A depressed person sees life much as being a hopeless endeavor offering little avenues for meaningful reward. The depressed become lacking in motivation, have trouble concentrating and sometimes become suicidal.

Psychosis-related mental illness is one that causes a person to no longer see the same reality everyone else sees. The psychotic experiences departure from reality. He or she experiences hallucinations including hearing voices in his or her mind that he or she has no control of. Speaking to an untreated psychotic can be much the same as speaking to a nonsensical person. Because the psychotic has departed from reality, he or she may make little sense.

Obsessive compulsive illness is one where a person becomes obsessed with something to such a degree that he or she can think about nothing else. Such people may insist on washing their hands repeatedly, all day long, or mopping the floor over and over again constantly.

Young people in college today are vulnerable to all three varieties of mental illness described. Mental illness strikes many college-aged people.

Perhaps the most widely heard of mental illness is schizophrenia. This is a psychosis-related illness. Its most common trait is that a person becomes overtaken by hallucinations. One out of every 100 people is stricken by schizophrenia. Furthermore, schizophrenia strikes without warning to people generally between the ages of 17 and 30.

When a person is beginning to become psychotic, he or she will notice everything around them taking on new meaning. The television and the radio will become meaningful in bizarre ways. Also, the person will likely experience audible uncontrollable voices in his or her mind.

Today, unlike in the past, there are many very effective medications available for mentally ill people. Many seriously mentally ill people, with medical treatment, can recover to a degree that allows them to function adequately in mainstream society. The mentally ill are no longer people requiring quarantine from society. Mentally ill people, with the benefit of medication, can be indistinguishable from normal mentally healthy people.

It is this understanding that I wish for Harvard students to appreciate. The mentally ill can no longer be humanly justified to be ostracized by the population.

Hollywood, in its drive to make shocking, profitable movies, has described mentally ill people in a manner that has caused the population to have unjustified fear of mentally ill people. Generally speaking, mentally ill people are not dangerous. Even the vast majority of medically treated psychotics pose absolutely no danger to anyone.

With these facts appreciated, perhaps Harvard students should pay a visit to the mentally ill in their community and learn more about this mysterious illness. --Joe Kinney   Plainfield, IN