It's a subject you hear about all the time these days, but not that long ago, mental health was rarely a public conversation.

One in five adults experiences mental illness and 1 in 20 adults has a serious mental illness. At least 17% of kids and teens have a mental health disorder, too.

Those are numbers Sue Abderholden, soon-to-be-retired executive director of National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI) Minnesota, wasn't afraid to share even when others were.

Abderholden was in college when she faced the subject that would guide her way.

"My first roommate in college had a suicide attempt, and then, of course, dropped out of school, so I had my own room for my first year in college," she said. "So it had been '72 and, yeah, no one really talked about mental illness back then at all. Af

See Full Page