The statement is supported by a 1999 U.S. Surgeon General's report. Feigal, a former resident of Pine Island and Rochester, was diagnosed with depression when he was 13. As a teen-ager, he was hospitalized for a year for treatment. Now 45, he has battled depression all of his adult life. Feigal said depression is even worse than the multiple sclerosis he was diagnosed with 12 years ago.
Despair is the enemy.
Feigal, an actor, inspirational speaker and national spokesperson for mental health issues, lives in the Twin Cities. Feigal will perform tonight during a Tilting at Windmills production at University Center Rochester. Feigal works to dispel the stigma associated with mental illness. That stigma remains one of the barriers to diagnosis and treatment, Groat said. Patients might be embarrassed to raise the topic with their physicians, and doctors might be reluctant to discuss it, he said.