Wouldn’t it be Great?

My Passion concerning Mental Health Issues.

Photo courtesy: health.indiamart.com

(SALEM) - Once conceived in our mother’s womb our lives are charted, but how are we “charted?” Are we conceived as a “Rosa tableau”, a blank slate, or are we locked into the genes of our ancestors?

Does that one little egg or one little sperm carry our destiny as far as health and personality are concerned or does our health and personality form as we grow inside the womb being subjected to all that happens to our host – our mother.

How much of our health is determined by what she eats or doesn’t eat. How much she sleeps or doesn’t sleep. How much she worries or doesn’t worry. Does she drink alcohol or take drugs? Are we predestined by the genes of our ancestors or are we predestined by our environment happening not only outside the womb but inside.

However it is, we must, as a society, choose to acknowledge that sometimes this “environment” can create problems for individuals that is not fixed by “Band-Aids” or laws that only see things as black and white. The vast majority of life is in the “gray,” in-between the back and white, and this is the area that needs our immediate attention.

As a society we seem to be able to look at physical problems individuals may have and be willing and able to help fix them. It is so easy to feel compassion and so easy to jump on the bandwagon for the things we can see and we know can easily be corrected. It is easy to help someone as they struggle with a new prosthetic for a lost limb, after all no one asks to lose a limb.

It is easy to help the child or adult with a physical deformity because it is visible and we can address it openly and objectively and see the results as the mending takes place or the acceptance if there is no mending. It is not so easy to help fix or understand those areas we can’t physically see?

Mental illness is part of this “gray” area. As a society, we wish to sweep mental illnesses under the rug, hoping they who are deemed mentally ill will go away. Maybe if we come up with a drug for depression we can sedate the person to the point of not caring if they are depressed or not.

Maybe the voices that schizophrenics hear can be silenced by medication. If they keep taking their pills, they will be okay and we can just let them go home - back into an environment that doesn’t understand them nor understands how to help them.

We use a lot of terms to address mental illness: bipolar; manic depressant; paranoid schizophrenic; personality disorder; anti-social behavior; post-traumatic stress syndrome; ADD; ADHD. We are saying to our mental health professionals – “Please fix. Please come up with a new drug. Please take care of these people.” But, our system, because of laws and regulations passed by our legislature, has our system putting the mentally ill back on the streets with little or no resources. The mentally ill are being forced to face realities that can be distorted by their mental illness leaving them ill equipped to handle the realities of life as we know it.

They have little money for the medications that do help, no availability for resources to disburse medications on an instant need, and there are no immediate resources for shelter for the mentally ill. When they commit a crime, and usually a violent crime as a result of their illness, they are put in the system – but the wrong system! They are put in prison or jail.

I am proposing that as a society we need to take stock in how we cope with our mentally ill. We need to make sure the resources fit the individual and their specific problems. We need to provide a safe environment with up-to-date, state-of-the-art facilities that provide therapy, medication, life skills, housing, rehabilitation, and on-going case management.

There is need for more trained, caring professionals who have the tools at their fingertips to provide the services they have dedicated their lives to as a professional in social service and mental health fields. There needs to be laws that are direct, humane, and concise, not laws left to be interpreted by individuals as they see fit.

This means we not only need the short-term treatment/facility programs for those individuals who successfully complete programs but who also need support and assistance as they make the transition to a stabilized life.

There needs to be in place the availability for them to reach out instantly and receive the help instantly when there are setbacks. There also needs to be in place a long-term treatment/facility program for those who need the safe housing for quite possibly the rest of their lives. This housing and treatment should be maintained by modern humane programs with adequate staff. It is defeating the purpose if the facility is the greatest in the nation but is so understaffed that the ill still do not receive adequate assistance.

Mental illness is something that could happen to anyone of us. We most likely have been affected by someone in our family or our friends who have suffered this malady. Sometimes it is temporary caused by a sudden trauma in one’s life or even a “hidden” trauma that surfaces suddenly and without warning.

It may be caused by the genetic makeup we were born with and our destiny has already been proclaimed. It may be brought on by bad choices through drug/alcohol addiction. In either case, there needs to be provisions in place to assist the mentally ill, whether the illness is from chemical imbalances, from genetics, or drug/alcohol addiction.

We no longer can justify the “Band-Aid” syndrome our medical insurance companies/providers seem to have. You cannot send an alcoholic of 20 years through a 30 day program, send him/her out into the same world they came from, and expect them to have gained the strength to say “No!” to an offer of “Oh, just have one drink with me.” That is more the exception than the rule. We can no longer expect a person who has been diagnosed schizophrenia with psychotic tendencies to suddenly learn what to do if their medication runs out and they have no funds to obtain any or to know where the resources are to get the assistance they need.

Worse yet, they may not even be able to recognize they need to be getting the help.

Why is it when an addict finally does say “Enough, I need and want help!” there are no immediate facilities for him/her to get the in-house long-term help they need when they want it? Sure they can get band-aid “detox” facilities for a few days, but then are released back on the streets and without any medications, even if they are prescribed. Even more frustrating are the private facilities available for long-term treatment but demand the cash or medical insurance for payment. Tough luck if the addict has neither - and they usually don’t.

There lies the need for more efficient case management. There lies the need for more professionals as case managers. There lies the need for availability of resources – both medical and shelter. There lies the need for more moneys to implement all the above. And, there lies the quandary. Where does our society get the money for this? Gosh, what about not so many upper management persons and why not provide more professionals in the “ranks.”

Are the six figure salaries really a necessity for the big guys? Do we really need the insurance companies dictating to the professionals in the field as to “how much,” “when,” “where,” or even, “yes” or “no” when it comes to treatment for the mentally ill ( or for any of the medical fields for that matter). Why is it there is never enough money to provide the services to the ill, the poor, or the individuals facing life altering changes but always enough to talk about more prisons and more jails (ironically these can get built then left standing because there are not enough moneys to staff them).

I feel very strongly that the voting public does not really understand the intricacies involved with the treatment of mental illness or the world of addicts. More educational programs need to be in place to inform them of what is available and what is lacking. People need to be made aware that even though there may be agencies that appear to be in place to help but also that these agencies are sorely understaffed and under funded.

To do this, our government should work on a campaign of educating the public on the truth of the situation not on what they want the truth to be. Our government should make sure the measures that are being passed as law fully address the true needs of individuals in our society. Our government should understand that putting mentally ill people in prison with the general prison population is not a solution but just puts more strain on an already crowed and strained prison facility.

The professionals in mental health and social service professionals need to be able to have their voices heard when they say more professional staff, medical supplies, and facilities are needed. There is no way one professional individual can adequately assist in the multi-faceted world of the mentally ill when they have 60 to 200 plus people assigned to their case load.

There is a need for more educational programs that train people to be professionals either as a licensed professional or as a staff person who works in the “ranks”. It is imperative educational training incorporate understanding, compassion, empathy, and patience along with the technology needed to understand the science of mental illness and treatment.

It seems to make sense to me that if the needs are met by the availability of treatment, rehabilitation, counseling, and shelter for the mentally ill and addicts that the costs will go down for our prison systems as they would not have to provide “housing.”

Also, the cost will go down for our law enforcement agencies when they will no longer need to spend time in arrests and transporting of the mentally ill.

Would not it be great to have an arm of our mental health system that could be called to provide transportation for the mentally ill person who is in need of help and take them immediately to a caring, modern facility where help is genuinely given and there are enough beds, medicine, and empathy to go around.

Would not it be great that our professionals in this field of mental health could truly provide the care they were trained for with no strings attached to some financial statement that depicts what is given and what is not.

Would it not be great if the social workers could work hand in hand with mental health, law enforcement, the legislature and the families in providing for the mentally ill and the addicts and to know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel?

Would not it be great if just maybe some long-term healing will take place for the afflicted and for our society?

That is my passion and that is my frustration, because who am I to be asking of such things? Who am I but a tax payer, a citizen, a mother, grandmother, wife, sister and a human being who cares about such matters?