Starting new thread as to not derail other threads on crime, homelessness, etc.
Did not put in to R&P straight away but we can if we have to.
I would propose calling it "Health Care Crisis" but I understand your point. Who helps people who cannot afford mental health care? There is still a stigma in come circles that mental health issues are somehow the fault of the people affected.
Quote from: DoctorQuest on April 25, 2018, 10:36:53 AM
I would propose calling it "Health Care Crisis" but I understand your point. Who helps people who cannot afford mental health care? There is still a stigma in come circles that mental health issues are somehow the fault of the people affected.
I think it depends on what he means by "mental health crisis". Seems that it could be argued that a mental health crisis is different from a so-called "health care crisis". It is debatable whether either exists, and depending on context, they both have different needs and require different solutions.
It's a difficult business, balancing the rights of the individual against the best interests of society. Take the Toronto van killer, clearly a person dealing with mental illness, along with other stuff (no doubt). If they guy were to admit to a mental health professional, that he has concrete plans of murdering someone; (as far as I know) he could be legally detained. But if he keeps those thoughts to himself and/or stops taking his meds, there isn't much that a free society can do. It's not against the law to stop taking your meds, unless you've been court ordered to take your meds (again, as far as I know).
I work in social welfare, and there simply isn't enough effective mental health services available to deal with all the needs. We deal with literally thousands of people who (perhaps) could be productive members of society if they had access to the right kind of treatment (therapy, counseling, medication, etc.) when they need it. But we also can't force people, who are in denial about their mental status, to get treatment (when it is available) unless they are uttering threats of harm to themselves or others.
Quote from: Centurion40 on April 25, 2018, 10:47:21 AM
... there simply isn't enough effective mental health services available to deal with all the needs. .
What do you consider to be the root cause of this part of the issue?
Quote from: DoctorQuest on April 25, 2018, 11:59:45 AM
Quote from: Centurion40 on April 25, 2018, 10:47:21 AM
... there simply isn't enough effective mental health services available to deal with all the needs. .
What do you consider to be the root cause of this part of the issue?
Money.
Yeah, money and willingness to invest/spend that money (either by government or insurance companies). There could also be an insufficient number of qualified practitioners.
We had a M.Sc. level Psychologist immigrate here from Israel. Before coming here she had worked for the IDF and in the Israeli hospital system. Her specialization was PTSD. I met her when she was working in an employability project, helping to assess welfare recipients' psychological state and to help counsel them towards being able to participate effectively in the labour market (we have lots of Mcjobs here, along with 10s of thousands of welfare recipients and most are not diagnosed as being permanently disabled). It was a new approach with which we were experimenting, hoping that by attempting to treat the underlying psychological causes of unemployment (in a labour market with opportunities, where farms and food services have to import workers from the 3rd world).
So I asked her which patient is more challenging: the Israeli soldier returning from a battlefield, an Israeli citizen trying to overcome the trauma of a bus bombing/ terror attack, or a Canadian on welfare saying that they are willing to work and trying to get a job. She said the Canadian. She told me that the Israeli is usually dealing one instance of severe trauma; which is easier to treat. But the Canadian welfare recipients (with whom she was working) had a tangled mess of smaller compound traumas related to family histories of poverty; family violence; physical, psychological & sexual abuse, addictions and more. She said that some carried life-long attachment disorders related to broken homes, and that it all blended together to produce adults with a wide range of psychological disorders. Furthermore most were unwilling to accept or address their disorders. So they sit on public assistance as the stereotypical lazy "welfare bum", as they are truly unemployable- having failed so many times that they've truly stopped making a sincere effort to improve their circumstances within societally acceptable means.
Quote from: Centurion40 on April 25, 2018, 12:13:59 PM
...There could also be an insufficient number of qualified practitioners.
I think that goes back to lack of money again....
My wife suffers from depression and attempted suicide. Thankfully I had come home in time, and I literally had to untie the noose she had tied around her neck.
Insurance will only help with so many visits to therapists before you're on your own. You won't even get a year's worth of help from insurance for therapist visits. There's also the issue of the utter lack of therapists available, and we live on the outskirts of the largest city in the state.
Mental health issues are some of the worst things someone can suffer from. I'd be willing to venture a lot of people would take some physical ailment or mental health issues.
Holy shit man! I hope that you were able to get some counseling too!
Quote from: RommelFox on April 25, 2018, 12:33:13 PMI'd be willing to venture a lot of people would take some physical ailment or mental health issues.
I can personally attest to this one
Quote from: bayonetbrant on April 25, 2018, 12:46:14 PM
Quote from: RommelFox on April 25, 2018, 12:33:13 PMI'd be willing to venture a lot of people would take some physical ailment or mental health issues.
I can personally attest to this one
100% Physical ailments are considered to more legitimate and less stigmatized. One of the reasons I like Bell's "Let's Talk" campaign.
https://letstalk.bell.ca/en/
http://kios.org/post/insane-americas-3-largest-psychiatric-facilities-are-jails
We have largely cut funding in terms of mental health facilities in beds. That just leads to us asking cops to have to serve as essentially frontline mental health personnel, which is of course ridiculous.
Quote from: DoctorQuest on April 25, 2018, 04:43:46 PM
http://kios.org/post/insane-americas-3-largest-psychiatric-facilities-are-jails
I can't imagine what sort of intensive treatment regime would be required to effectively treat an adult who smears their own feces or gouges out their own flesh! The cost of personnel and facilities is obviously prohibitive, hence the jail-like settings. Yikes.
I saw all that and more in my 35 years in Mental Health including those behaviors listed in mentally ill juveniles. It doesn't help that the lawyers are involved start to finish along with bureaucrats and overly educated professionals( Psychologists in particular) none of which work directly with the patients and usually have no clue what works and doesn't work with the mentally ill. It usually boils down to medicate them or lock them down. Or both. I could go on a real rant about this but it's a battle that's no longer mine to fight so I'll shut-up about it for all our sakes. :clap:
If you can't vent about it here...
My good friend Johnnie Cochran told me, "If you want to vent... take it out to da tent". Also, "Nobody wants to hear you cry, so go bake a pie". He was a hard man to carry on a conversation with. But a danmed-good lawyer.
You won't vent but you'll quote Johnnie Cochran??
Ok...if the dude won't vent I must relent, I guess.
If you have to guess, better let it rest.
Some mental illness is treatable, other is not. The more of these issues you have, the harder it is to treat. That is similar to a lot of medical conditions.
Second problem, the person has a diagnosed illness, the meds work, and they stop taking them because they "feel better."
Third problem, people who are looking for an out to be on the dole and use mental illness as an excuse.
I have three chronic conditions that I have to medicate:
diabetes
high cholesterol
depression
I take meds for all three. I'll be taking meds for these conditions until I die. If I stop taking the meds for the diabetes or cholesterol, I'll die pretty fast. I take my meds and I stay healthy. All three conditions are genetic and all three can be treated. I'm no more "upset" about having depression than I am having diabetes. For both I do the daily living stuff that helps mediate the situation, but I have to take medical treatment or its game over.
Those of you who have met me know I'm pretty thin and in reasonable physical condition plus I get regular exercise. I still have diabetes and high cholesterol. It is what it is.
Healthy attitude AB.
Sir S, in a way I'd like to hear your venting... but I also don't want to open Pandora's Box!!!
But I will take the liberty of asking you a couple questions. If you mind, please take the liberty of ignoring me!
1. Do you think that some are incurable, and if "yes" were the front-line staff pretty-much able to identify which cases had hope of improvement and which did not?
2. In the dark humour of the lunch room, was there ever joking about installing a wood-chipper?
Yes to both Centurion. Mental Illness can't be cured, just managed with meds and counseling. I don't know how many times I heard some new drug sold by a Drug Company Dealer to a Psychiatrist as 'The' drug that would cure mental illness. Some worked very well, or worked very well for some clients, but almost all in time worked less well the more it was used and had unforeseen side effects in time. That said meds are essential in treatment and that's where I came in. As a ward nurse it was my job to get the meds in the patients and watch for effect, good and bad.
When I was assigned to 'my' ward, the ward I worked most often, being around the same patients every night I could tell when somebody wasn't acting to their normal, usual behavior-- maybe too quiet or too talkative or withdrawn or even up later than they normally would be. Sometimes this was just a mood thing and then sometimes it was a precursor to a more serious behavioral episode, self injurious, violent or assaultive. And if you could move quickly enough to get them something to get ahead of the episode then things usually turned out fine. But the increasingly bureaucratic system was often too slow or didn't trust the guys on the front lines to make that call and then bad things happened. And usually to the good people I worked with, staff and other patients.
It became very frustrating and particularly because the emphasis was so strong to get our patients stable and then discharged, they rarely stayed out very long and just came right back to us and then we started all over again, like Ground Hog Day. But to answer your question, we usually could tell who did and did not belong in our facility and felt bad for the clients who were forced to deal with the clients who really needed to be there. And dark humor was always a part of my work and relieved so many frustrating situations.
Sir Slash is correct in that the powers that be have no clue how to handle mental health. That includes many of the professionals.
One night had a scare where the wife took off, and it ended with the police taking here to a hospital, where they put her under watch in a special section. They then proceed to treat her like she's a waste of time, drugged her up to help her "sleep", and generally treated her like she was a waste of space.
Thankfully I was able to get her out in less than 24 hours, because if you want to make the situation worse for a depressed person, throwing them to the hospital is a bona fide way to to it.
I can relate Fox. My wife's sister was a long term alcoholic that needed to be committed often but nowhere was allowed to keep her longer than it took her to dry-out even if she was a threat to herself. Fortunately we found a local religious based private facility that did take her. She was able to stay there and complete their program and was discharged but, ultimately went back to drinking again. But the average person who needs a help with a loved one gets doped-up and shuffled to the back. And the costs of Psych meds are prohibitive. :arr:
How difficult is it to get someone committed these days?
Quote from: Gusington on April 27, 2018, 12:50:52 PM
How difficult is it to get someone committed these days?
Let me guess...you're asking for someone else? :P
Of course...
Uh... why are you all lookin' at me?
No reason.
Stagger, please come sit here in this nice chair with the leather seat belts on it. They're not for you, they're for somebody else but he's not here right now so it's OK for you to use them. See? We're all friends here, right? :idiot2:
Riiiight
Quote from: Sir Slash on April 27, 2018, 11:55:46 AM
I can relate Fox. My wife's sister was a long term alcoholic that needed to be committed often but nowhere was allowed to keep her longer than it took her to dry-out even if she was a threat to herself. Fortunately we found a local religious based private facility that did take her. She was able to stay there and complete their program and was discharged but, ultimately went back to drinking again. But the average person who needs a help with a loved one gets doped-up and shuffled to the back. And the costs of Psych meds are prohibitive. :arr:
That is definitely not a fun situation. And as others have said, the stigma associated with mental health makes things worse for everyone involved. Saying my wife has cancer would be met with offers of help and sympathy, but saying she has mental issues will make the room so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
I agree with the sentiment expressed here - there is a large stigma around those with poor mental health. Its a huge problem and people are not completely aware of it.
Friends, family coworkers and complete strangers struggling with poor mental health impact you and your loved ones probably on a daily basis. Asshole coworkers, under productive coworkers, family members with substance dependencies, teachers, police, healthcare professionals, the sullen unhelpful retail employee, jerk drivers - hell I could go on.
Its not a distant problem that doesn't affect you and your family because every single person you and your family deal with are healthy, we just don't readily recognize it - we right them off as just jerks, weirdos and wildly incompetent.
My Step-Mother just passed recently but before that was in an Alzheimer's place. My Sister, Brother-In-Law and I went there to see her several times and they both were VERY uncomfortable being in that environment with her and the other clients. It is disturbing but the care there was good and the staff efficient but some people just cannot handle those situations. I don't blame them for that but people need to understand that Mental Illness can be very ugly and difficult to deal with for everyone. Hopefully more successful treatments lay ahead in the future.
^Good posts above.
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I can totally admire how difficult it is for someone to deal with mental health patients while also admitting that I would run screaming in the other direction if anyone ever asked me to do it
https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/993193709180276737