When Emma Gerber's daughter was diagnosed with mental illness in 1974, she remembered thinking:

"Good grief, what is mental illness?"

An answer to that question was hard to find, the Sharon woman said. She had no one she knew of she could talk to about her daughter's diagnosis for schizophrenia, a library visit turned up only two reference books, and her daughter had a textbook for a college class called abnormal psychology.

"It scared the hell out of me," Ms. Gerber said.

As her daughter underwent electroshock therapy, suffered relapses and eventually ended up in a catatonic state for six months after her fourth relapse, Ms. Gerber searched for any information she could find about her daughter's condition.

Thanks to Ms. Gerber's doggedness, Mercer County families these days have the opportunity to find information about mental illness much more easily.

Ms. Gerber, 77, recently received Community Counseling Center's Advocacy Award for helping found a Mercer County branch of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in 1987.

"Most of the time I'm fighting for the rights of the mentally ill," she said. "It's been a work of love."

The more she has learned about mental illness, the more Ms. Gerber said she has determined that "People who are mentally ill are us, and we are them."

"I feel that mental illness has had a bum rap for too long."

Through NAMI, Ms. Gerber, who lives with her daughter, helps those with mental illness and their families learn about their conditions, find people with similar questions and experience for support and guidance, and wade through the legal guidelines concerning mental illness.

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