Photo of Susan Hawk’s return from treatment last year, via Facebook
The neighborhood-based National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI) today was supposed to host a talk at the Dallas Public Library featuring Dallas District Attorney Susan Hawk, who, according to the original event announcement, “recently recovered from a very public mental health crisis and now uses her experiences to provide a voice for mental health awareness.”
However, Hawk was not in attendance at the event, which also featured a panel of family members of people with mental illness and representatives from Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance, Metrocare Services, Transicare, Inc. and the Dallas Police Department, and a press release from her office suggests she relapsed into mental illness.
The brief message begins as such: “According to a study conducted by the National Alliance for Mental Illness, 16 million people in the United States have suffered with major depressive disorder at some point in 2015. Judge Susan Hawk is one of those people, and has publicly battled and continues to battle this disorder, as relapse is common.”
It continues, “Currently, she is taking the necessary steps so that she can continue to serve the community. She is being proactive with her mental health plan and is determined to stay whole and healthy to insure that Dallas County is safe and thriving. The Dallas County District Attorney’s Office will continue to operate with a commitment to justice and public safety.”
Last November, D did a pretty extensive piece about Hawk’s struggle, wondering, “Is she up to the job?”
Here’s our story about one man struggling with mental illness who, along with his close family members, found help through NAMI.
