Marcus Schmit remembers his reaction when he heard that Sue Abderholden, the longtime executive director of NAMI Minnesota, decided to step down.
“I thought, ‘I feel sorry for whoever’s going to follow Sue,’” he said.
Throughout Abderholden’s 24-year tenure, she built a reputation as a tireless and effective advocate for Minnesotans with mental illness. Her successor, Schmit figured, would need just the right combination of commitment and experience to keep the organization moving forward.
Then a recruiter called. At the time, Schmit was the executive director of Hearth Connection, a Twin Cities-based nonprofit that advocates for people experiencing homelessness. He decided to take a deep breath and apply.
“My background is in public service,” he said, detailing a career as a congressional aide for now-Gov. Tim Walz, an assistant commissioner at the Minnesota Department of Corrections and the director of advocacy for Second Harvest Heartland. “The through line through all of this is mental health. Maybe I’m just who they need.”
NAMI’s board of directors agreed. This fall, they named Schmit their next executive director.
Mental health insiders say he was a relatively low-profile pick, but that suits them fine.
“I’m terribly excited that he’s coming from housing, an area where there’s a huge void for people with serious mental illness,” said Mindy Greiling, a former state legislator and the president of NAMI Roseville. “Everyone I know who knows him speaks well of him.”
“This change feels positive,” said Jode Freyholtz-London, executive director of Wellness in the Woods, a nonprofit dedicated to improving access to mental health and substance use recovery services in underserved areas of the state.
Just a few weeks into the role, Schmit said he’s feeling good about the strength of NAMI’s staff and the organization’s place in the community. Still, he knows there will be some turbulence amid the changes.
“I bring my own style and my own set of experiences,” he said. “I think that transition and new perspectives are really, really healthy for organizations — and good for the work.”
Bipartisan ambitions and a statewide reach
Schmit, 40, credits Abderholden and NAMI colleagues with establishing the importance of mental health among Minnesota’s lawmakers. “And I know it will continue to get that attention because it impacts everybody,” he said.
Largely bipartisan support for good mental health policy has led to significant legislative advancements. Schmit promises to continue to promote collaboration amid political division. “In some ways, maybe [mental health] is the last bipartisan issue,” he said. “And I take that really seriously.”
Schmit, a Red Wing native, said he is interested in further expanding the organization’s reach into Greater Minnesota. “Where I see a lot of value is really returning to our roots. What I mean by that is getting back to communities. One of the things that NAMI has done well and I have experience doing is getting into communities — getting out of St. Paul and maintaining and building those relationships where the politics aren’t as hot.”
He is also eager to support the mental health workforce, including care professionals in group homes. “It’s already challenging work,” he said, adding that providers are often “overworked and underpaid.”
“We’ve seen a mass exodus in direct-service providers, particularly in Greater Minnesota,” Schmit said. Even in the face of an uncertain economy, those jobs have remained hard to fill. He hopes to pressure lawmakers to improve pay and working conditions for direct-care mental health staff. “I think that’s an issue that everybody at the legislature should care about.”
Speaking out, finding help
A personal connection to mental illness also drew Schmit to NAMI.
For most of his life, Schmit said he struggled with intense mood swings but never sought treatment, choosing instead to power through rough periods, and chalking up even the toughest situations to stress or difficult transitions.
“Probably since high school, early college, I’ve always been dealing with what felt like a roller-coaster, something that’s unpredictable,” he said. He assumed everyone felt extreme emotions, but just didn’t talk about them.
There were times when mood swings consumed his life. “How it manifested itself for me was this period of a lot of energy, of intense productivity,” Schmit said. “It could be 24, 48 hours of not sleeping. I’d be reading books, getting homework done.” Sometimes Schmit, an athlete, channeled those intensely energetic emotions into periods of excessive exercise.
The manic periods would be followed by “really intense lows,” he said. “They wouldn’t last super long — sometimes a day, sometimes a few days.” But even as he took note of his emotional cycles, Schmit kept them to himself.
As he aged, Schmit noticed a change. “These events happened more frequently and they were just more intense. Two years ago it finally hit me: I knew I needed help. I remember pulling over on the side of the road on my way to work one day and I was just paralyzed. I called my wife and told her I needed help.”
With his wife’s encouragement, he began taking his condition seriously.
“She was the one who gave me the confidence to reach out, get connected to a therapist and explore conversations with my primary doc about, ‘What is this?’” Schmit said. A diagnosis of cyclothymia, a mild form of bipolar disorder, followed, along with medication and therapy.
“I wish I would’ve done this 20 years ago,” Schmit said. “It’s totally changed my life and made me so much more confident and comfortable with myself. It’s made me a better partner, dad and friend.”
While Schmit said his personal journey with mental illness helped prepare him to lead NAMI, at first he felt uncomfortable speaking out about his diagnosis. “It’s something I’ve wrestled with over the last couple of months — coming to a place where I’m comfortable talking about it.”
But as someone in a leadership role, he decided it was especially important to share his story. “I feel like I need and want to use the platform to share my experience, to invite more people into the conversation, to get the help they need that will really change their lives and to encourage people around them to help them get that help,” he said.
Schmit told his NAMI colleagues about his diagnosis at a team meeting on his first day. Others came forward to share their stories, too. “Their response was so uplifting,” he said.
A ‘serial optimist’
In the face of budget cuts, political infighting and changes to key federal benefit programs, hope can be hard to find for people who care about mental health. But Schmit said that in his first few weeks on the job, he’s found bright spots.
“I’m a serial optimist,” he said. “It’s important for me as I steward this team through this new transition to do my best to set a positive tone. The work is hard enough.”
One reason for hope, Schmit said, is the strong reputation that NAMI has built at the Capitol. He is optimistic that alliances forged around mental health legislation will continue.
He also commended NAMI’s “committed team of humans who are driven by the mission, many with their own experience with mental illness,” for their work to advance support groups, educational programming and community connections statewide.
“More and more people like me are sharing their story,” Schmit said. “People like me are raising kids who are going to see that Dad got help, or my aunt got help, or my friend got help. People are continuing to encourage their loved ones to get the help they need. All of that gives me hope. I don’t know how it couldn’t: The conversation around mental health and mental illness continues to head in the right direction.”
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