Well, that's a relief

CNN.com - Pizza pal tipped police to Ohio suspect - Mar 18, 2004

Isn't it time we rethought how we treat mental illness in this country? It used to be that people were locked up for years, sometimes just because no one else wanted them, rather than because they were truly a danger. Then things flip-flopped and it got to be almost impossible to keep anyone in inpatient treatment for very long. The mentally ill swelled the ranks of the homeless. They slipped through the cracks.

I know of one person who desperately tried to keep her father in a psych ward but he was released, and then had a psychotic episode where he killed her mother--after decades of marriage.

It seems over and over we hear about someone who has a history of mental illness going off (often with a gun). Here in Lexington we recently had a paramedic killed by a man who had been hospitalised over 25 years ago who killed his wife, shot the first responders, and then holed up in his house ranting about alien clones.

These people are sick. They need help. Their families need help. The sad thing is that with proper treatment, many come back to themselves and realise what they've done. Think of the young woman who drowned her children in Texas. It's a terrible thing where your life is caught between psychosis and being sane and realising the full horror of your actions. I can't help feeling sorry for these people. I know what it's like to be depressed and anxious, even suicidal. When I look back at what I was thinking at the time, it seems so...alien. With psychosis, it has to be so much worse. I don't know what it's like to be suffering from psychosis--and I hope never to--but it does seem in hindsight that some of these acts can be prevented--before more lives are destroyed. I'm not an expert on how to do that. But there are experts out there. But we need support from taxpayers and the authorities to make it work. Most people say, 'I don't want to pay for so and so.' I wonder how they would feel if someone came from the future and showed that by doing so, by paying for so and so's treatment, that they prevented, say, the death of a loved one. I think they'd change it to 'I'd pay anything.' But people don't think that way, unfortunately. They don't see mental illness as a society problem, just an individual one. But it's hard for an individual to bear mental illness without any real umbrella or system of support. It's a cold hard fact of mental illness that it pushes a person to the outside, away from the friends, family, and other people who could help. It's hard to take medicine regularly. It's harder to take medicine that seems to suppress some of the perceived benefits of mental illness (like the creative side of mania, for example). There are valid concerns about over-medicating the population, too.

It's hard for people to recognise their own problems, and hard for others to face the reality that a child, spouse, friend, etc. is terribly sick. And even if that reality is faced, it's even harder to get the right treatment for someone, at least until he or she truly becomes a danger to self or others. A lot of people feel that medicine is a crutch, that mental illness has to do with lack of strength or some flaw in the person's character. These are outdated ideas. Every person I have ever known who has experienced mental illness--and received treatment--is stronger because, not despite it. It takes a huge amount of courage to admit a problem, to face it fully. I am resigned that although my depression has remitted, the chemical imbalance that causes me to have anxiety disorder is such that I will probably be on medication for the rest of my life. But on the other hand, the quality of my life with medication makes it so worth it. It's something my body needs, like any other sustenance. It's not quite on the level of, say, nitro glycerin or albuterol. I could live without it, but I would not live fully.

There's something wrong when I can get asthma preventative care better than someone can get the treatment needed to lessen the downward spiral into mental illness. Things are changing, at least. When I was dealing with depression, it cost more for mental health appointments and not everything was even covered, and even now things like therapy are covered under a different branch of my health insurance than medical. That's wrong. Health is health. There shouldn't be a stigma or extra hurdles to seeking help for mental illness. So much of mental illness is actually physical; whether it's someone with schizophrenia, bipolar, depression, or anxiety spectrum disorders, we're realising that it really is a matter of physical brain chemistry.

I was lucky. I had insurance. I was able to get the treatment I needed, we found the right combination of treatment quickly, and now the depression is a distant, if painful memory. I can participate more fully in social interaction. I'm able to focus more on living my life than trapped in some sort of spin inside my head. That's what OCD does to me without the medicine...it's like I'm trapped in a loop and can't get out of bed, can't make a move without the thoughts racing in circles, or without doing compulsive actions like checking the stove or hoarding my things. That, with the social phobia and panic issues, could literally leave me as some shut-in with lots of cats and a house packed to the gills who refused to ever come out or let anyone in. I could see myself as one of those people who make it into the news as they're dragged screaming from a condemned building. But I'm lucky...I got the help I needed.

A lot of other people--if they're treated at all--have to rely on overworked public health systems, get labelled as if they're damaged goods, and a few go on to drop out of life altogether--either literally or figuratively--or turn on others.

Also, we're finally beginning to understand how men and women deal with mental illness differently. Women tend to internalise it, for example. They become physically sick. They may act out in self-destructive behaviours like starving themselves, cutting themselves, racking up debt, stealing, property damage, etc. Men tend to deal with things more outwardly. In depression, instead of being 'sad', men often express it through anger. They may become more violent, dealing with the overwhelming frustration on a slow boil until it all comes out at once. That's where you get people shooting in standoffs, for example. Not everyone expresses depression according to gender lines, but it is a tendency...which means that a lot of people locked up in prison are actually victims of mental illness, and that incarcerating them without treatment and then releasing them to society is not dealing with the underlying cause of the problem.