Doris Fuller was introduced to mental health illness advocacy after her daughter Natalie, developed severe bipolar disorder with psychosis as a college senior.

When I first got sick, my mother somehow managed to mobilize school officials, the school psychiatrist, health and welfare officials, the police, the courts and, for all I know, the National Guard to get me help.

Natalie Fuller at 22

Eventually, Doris became a professional advocate for improving the public policies that often influence outcomes for individuals like her daughter. She joined the nonprofit Treatment Advocacy Center as communications director and soon became its executive director. In that leadership role, she established the organization’s Office of Research and Public Affairs and became its founding chief, a move that capitalized on both her reporting and advocacy backgrounds.

Natalie died by suicide in 2015. Doris’s story about her daughter’s terminal battle with bipolar disorder and psychosis was published by the Washington Post and read by millions around the world.

Today, Doris focuses on the advocacy and research topics closest to her heart — writing, speaking and giving public testimony about serious mental illness, suicide and other consequences of untreated and under-treated mental illness for those living with psychiatric diseases, their families and their communities.

Natalie lives on in the hearts and memories of all those who knew her and the millions who have met her through the story of her brave fight against psychiatric disease.