Fierce but compassionate mental health advocate will be missed

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes a mix of commentary online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

•••

I say this as a compliment. In more than three decades as a journalist, it’s the occasional phone calls from Sue Abderholden that have left me feeling the most frustrated and outraged.

It’s not because of any policy disagreement. It’s because of the ongoing stigma, discrimination and barriers to care that those with mental health conditions continue to face in Minnesota and elsewhere, a disheartening reality that Abderholden has relayed through the years.

Those running conversations and her relentless, round-the-clock advocacy are why Abderholden’s looming retirement from the National Alliance on Mental Illness Minnesota is such a bittersweet moment.

She’s been a powerful force for good for 24 years as NAMI Minnesota’s executive director. In that role, Abderholden, 70, typically works six days a week or more writing grant proposals, fundraising, leading a staff of 37, taking phone calls from anguished families, lobbying the Legislature and energizing public support.

If there are mental health care barriers or other problems anywhere in the state, she knows about it and goes into battle mode. That can include alerting journalists in hopes that spotlighting the issue leads to change.

Or, sending us emails when we’ve gotten things wrong. I remember getting a tough-but-fair email at 6:03 a.m. on a Sunday years ago when an editorial didn’t meet her high standards.

But this crucial crusade also takes a toll. After nearly a quarter-century, Abderholden has more than earned her retirement and the time that comes with it to take walks, take naps and travel. Part of that self-care will include continuing to grieve her husband, who died four years ago.

While I’m grateful that she’ll finally get some rest, it’s hard to imagine her absence during the 2026 legislative session and years to come. Still, knowing her passion inspires so many others brings confidence.

Whoever takes over her office at NAMI Minnesota’s St. Paul headquarters will face high expectations. But one of Abderholden’s finest legacies is a robust community of advocates — “Friends of Sue,” as I like to think of them — ready to help the new person.

Her successor will need this assistance. One daunting challenge: Medicaid, one of the nation’s safety-net health care programs, faces more than $700 billion in cuts if the U.S. House spending bill becomes a reality. That’s particularly problematic because Medicaid is the single-largest payer of behavioral health services in the United States.

“Part of me is like, ‘Oh you should stay and fight.’ But there are other people who can fight, too,” Abderholden told me, adding that she’ll continue to stay active on the sidelines. ”It was a really hard decision. I just want to do some other things and be less stressed.”

In a recent interview, Abderholden looked back over her long career. Medical school’s loss was public policy’s gain, with Abderholden intending to become a doctor after graduating from St. Paul’s Macalester College.

Things took a detour when she ran into that era’s gender bias. She wasn’t able to satisfactorily answer medical school entrance interview questions about whether she wanted to get married and have children. A “yes” indicated that she wasn’t serious about this demanding career. “Then I said ‘no,’ and they said, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ ”

On the advice of a medical professional and friend, she began working with children at a Dakota County group home, a pioneering alternative to putting developmentally disabled youngsters in a traditional institution. A plaque with the photos still hangs on her office’s wall.

When she applied to lead an well-known advocacy group for those with intellectual and developmental disabilities, the Dakota County home’s parents launched a “Hire Sue” letter-writing campaign. She got the job and began honing her formidable skills as a policy advocate. In 2001, she joined NAMI Minnesota.

Her long tenure is remarkable. Directors of NAMI’s other state chapters last an average of 18 months “because it’s a huge burnout job,” Abderholden said.

Among the advances she’s seen is a growing shift away from using disrespectful slang (think “nuts,” “cuckoo” or “loony tunes”) used to describe people with mental illness. Some might contend this is “political correctness” but, as Abderholden points out, there are real-world consequences of dismissing mental illness as something other than a medical condition.

“If you have a young person who’s hearing voices for the first time, they’re afraid to go see someone because people will think they’re ‘crazy,’ ” instead of thinking “Oh, I might have health care condition I need to get checked out,” she said.

Other improvements that Abderholden highlighted:

But Abderholden doesn’t sugarcoat that challenges that remain ahead. Some of her parting wisdom goes to those who lament a “broken system.” They miss the bigger picture. “You have to have a fully developed system in order to break it and we don’t have a fully developed system yet,” Abderholden said.

But Abderholden’s passion and sacrifices leave behind a solid and expansive foundation for the work to continue. Minnesotans owe her a debt of gratitude. While it’s clearly hard for her to pass the baton, there’s a readiness for the next chapter.

On the agenda: visiting a daughter who lives in San Francisco and has always wanted her to come during the spring, a season the daughter contends is the city’s most beautiful. Abderholden never could, because that’s when the Legislature is in session. Now, with Abderholden’s last day slated in October, she’s told her daughter “Next year, dear, I will be there.”