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Karla Smith Foundation Extends Services
July 17, 2008
By Steve Berry
O’Fallon Progress
When 26-year old Karla smith ended her life in 2003 with a self-inflicted gun shot, she left bhind family and friends who needed help with severe grief.
Karla’s family say they needed guidance and support even before the suicide, as Karla struggled with bipolar disorder for seven years.
The Shiloh family formed the Karla Smith Foundation (KSF) two year after her death. This summer KSP has extended its family support services to include some home visits in the metro-east. The new program called “Visits with Families” is aimed at providing support for friends and family of patients associated with behavioral healthcare services.
The Visits with Families with Family program intends to help friends and family of loved ones with mental health problems who many not otherwise attend a semi-public support group meeting for fear of being stigmatized.
“this is a program that we are just starting,” said Karla’s mother Fran Smith. “That is if someone is maybe not well enough to come to a support group, or if some people don’t like support groups, we are willing to visit families in their homes. We will go to them.”
Karla smith’s mother Fran, father Tom Smith and twin brother Kevin are the founders and directors of KSF and said they are working to decrease stigma associated with mental health issues and suicide.
“A lot of the times with mental illness there is such a stigma that no one wants to come out and say they have a loved one who has a mental illness, or their uncle committed suicide, or their father committed suicide,” Kevin said.
Fran said KSF grew out of their own experiences.
“Karla died in January of 2003 and very soon after her death the three of us –Tom, myself, and Kevin her twin brother – wanted to see what we could do to help others who had someone who was mentally ill in their family or had someone who died by suicide because I guess when we were facing our problems with our daughter we felt pretty alone,” Fran said. “We didn’t know where to turn, we didn’t know where to get help and yet all three of us are college educated people, but it just shows I think because of the stigma…people don’t talk about mental illness, they don’t talk about suicide.”
The Karla Smith Foundation is co-sponsoring a conference on Friday and Saturday August 22-23, at the National Shrine Our Lady of the Snows in Bellevlle called “Erase the Stigma of Mental Illness.
Karla’s family described Karla as a compassionate engaging, collegiate scholar.
“We were twins I was the older twin by 10 minutes,” Kevin, 31, said. “We had a very close relationship growing up, but we were very opposites. She was into drama, English and poetry. I was always more into math and sports and business, but I think in a lot of ways our differences’ growing up probably also kept us pretty close because we just sort of had a natural bond that I think any sibling would have, but probably even more so as a twin.”
“The Smiths lived hear Tulsa, Okla. From 1978 until 1999 where they raised Kevin and Karla. After high school Karla attended Oklahoma State University and Kevin attended St. Louis University.
Karla had a 4.0 grade point average at Oklahoma State University where she was nine credit hours away from graduating when she died. Karla was later awarded an honorary posthumous degree. She was studying English and co-editor of the university’s literary magazine.
“She was a prolific writer,” Tom said. “She was in the process of writing her memoirs.”
The Smiths said Karla was interested in outreach.
“One of her main goals in life was to educate people about what it felt like to be bipolar and she was writing a book called “Glue,” the glue being the medicine that held her together between her manic phases and her depression phases,” Kevin said.
Tom said as Karla was growing up the two often discussed the humanities.
“Her thing was English, literature, history, theology, and philosophy and she would just love to discuss issues related to that,” Tom said.
Karla’s family said she bough food for the homes and befriended the downtrodden in society.
“I remember her smile and both her inner beauty and her outer beauty. As Kevin said she had a heart that was bigger than her body,” Tom said. “She had a preference for people who were on the downside of society. That showed up in many ways from childhood through high school to her death. She just always had a way of trying to seek and relate to people who were forgotten and neglected by society.”
Karla’s dad tom was raised in Belleville, he and Fran moved back to the metro-east in 1999. Around the kitchen table in the retired couple’s Shiloh home, Fran reiterated Karla was very sympathetic.
“I have cancer right no and that’s one of the things I miss – having her around, because I know she would be very compassionate,” Fran said. “If anybody had an ache or a pain she would be there to take care of them. Her compassion is perhaps a big part of what we are trying to do right now with the foundation.”
The Karla Smith Foundation’s mission is to “provide hope for a balanced life to family and friends of anyone with a mental illness or who has lost a loved one to suicide.”
On the first and third Thursday of each month the nonprofit organization sponsors a support group meeting for friends and family of those with mental illness. On the second and fourth Thursday of each month they host a support group meeting for people who have lost a loved one to suicide.
All groups meet from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Peace Chapel, 10101 W. Main Street, Belleville
In addition to counseling and education, KSF networks with area mental health resources including the St. Clair County Mental Health Board and have the ability to connect struggling family members with area counselors. KSF’s services are exclusively for family and friends of loved one with mental illness rather than the person with mental illness.
Karla’s dad Tom is the President of KSF. He has written two books inspired by Karla’s death.
The first book, called, “The Tattered Tapestry: A Family’s Search for Peace with Bipolar Disorder,” was written within six months of her death. The book contains writings by Kevin and Karla composed before Karla’s suicide.
Tom’s next book “A Balanced Life, Nine Strategies for Coping with Mental Health Problems of a Loved One,” will be published in September.
“Grief is work, and unless you put in the grief work you probably don’t progress too well,” Tom said.
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