The Westport Teen Awareness Group is offering a free screening of the documentary No Kidding, Me Too! on Tuesday, April 28th at 7PM in the Staples Auditorium. There is no admission fee and seating is on a first-come basis. The documentary was produced and created by Emmy Award winning actor and Wilton resident, Joey Pantoliano. “Sponsored by TAG, the goal of the viewing of the documentary is to increase mental health awareness and help erase the stigma association with mental health disorders,” said Butler. “One in five people will be diagnosed with some form of mental illness in their lifetime and affects not only the person diagnosed, but also family and friends.”

The documentary highlights the personal experiences of eight people – four adults (including Pantoliano) and four teens – each of whom shares their struggle with depression, symptomatic risky behavior such as substance and alcohol abuse and self-injury, and the improvement in the quality of their lives once they received help. "I was diagnosed with clinical depression three years ago and after I was diagnosed, there was this euphoric feeling that it was not my fault," Pantoliano said. "I thought it was important to talk about and come out with my own mental illness and in doing that, I realized it's not a minority of us; it affects so many Americans." Pantoliano believes that parents and kids between the ages of 14 and 21 years old will benefit from seeing the documentary as they are a rising population affected by mental health disease. He recently visited the Teen Awareness Group at Staples to ask for their help in sharing the documentary with their peers. The viewing will be followed by a question and answers session with Pantoliano and a panel of local professionals.

Panelists will include Dr. Katie Liebenberg, director of adolescent services at Positive Directions; Dr. Tait Michael, Chair, Department of Psychiatry at Norwalk Hospital; Dr. Hilary Blumberg, professor of psychiatry at Yale University and NKM2 advisory board member. There will also be representatives from the Renfrew Center and Staples High School’s Pupil Services staff.

For more information about No Kidding, Me Too! visit www.NKM2.org. Questions about the April 28 event, contact Chris Lemone at 341-1285, or TAG at AskTag@aol.com