Let's put aside all arguments about whether or not there is a clear
statistical relationship between mental illness and violence for a
moment. Doesn't it bother anybody besides me that no one gives a damn
about the mental health care "system" until they need someone to blame
for a tragedy? Then we all start talking about how to strengthen the
rules on involuntary detention and commitment, how to identify
"dangerous" mentally ill people and do something or other with them, how
to increase "access" to mental health treatment (which often does not
exist) and somehow restrict access to guns by scary and dangerous
mentally ill folks whose futures we have foreseen to feature acts of
violence against others and/or, secondarily, themselves.
We die too.
I
live in the state of Virginia. After the Virginia Tech massacre in
2007, in which 32 people died and 17 were injured, Virginia pumped $38
million into the mental health care system, a relatively large boost but
not massive. Seven years later that's all drained away and things have
returned to how they were before that tragedy. Until now. New bills will
ramp the funding back up and try to "fix" the broken mental health
system. Why? Because two months ago a prominent state senator, Creigh
Deeds, was stabbed by his son, who then killed himself.
We die too.
This
incident is tragic. Mr. Deeds is a fine man, who has now lost a son as
well as suffered an injury. Today he acknowledged publicly that "the
system failed" his son. He is right. And in response, bills to change
and fund the mental health care system are on the table again. A large
portion of them address the specific procedures, programs and legal
restrictions that resulted in Mr. Deeds' son being released after two
hours because he was not deemed a danger to himself. Those aspects of
the mental health care system are some of many that are "broken." But
there are others.
And we die too because of them.
Those
failings and inadequacies of the system kill many more people than the
ones in high profile tragedies. Mentally ill people do kill, as do
people without mental illnesses. But mentally ill people themselves also
die in droves -- by suicide, by illness-related disease, because of
homelessness and victimization resulting from their illnesses, because
of family dysfunction their illnesses contribute to -- and many of those
lethal conditions are directly caused by a lack of basic mental health
care.
Those are tragedies too.
Mentally
ill people are dying by the thousands everyday but no one pays
attention because they have not injured or hurt anyone else. Suicide
killed 35,000 people in 2007. We are dying too, on a very large scale.
And that is tragic too.
Yes,
we should increase funding for the mental health system. We should make
access simple and immediate, we should give special attention to anyone
showing signs of violence -- we should do all of the things Virginia is
talking about doing, but we should do it not just in the name of the
victims of high-profile shootings and assaults. We should do it in the
name of the mentally ill who suffer greatly from their illnesses every
day and seldom become violent. Yet violence is done to them every day by
their illnesses, silently and invisibly. Their minds, their hearts and
often their lives fall victim to painful and incurable illness.
We die too. And those deaths are tragedies. They are tragedies too.
I'm beginning to see that it's not really such a good idea to remove
practically all consistent stressors from your life when you're bipolar (if you are
incredibly fortunate enough to do that). Your brainbody (just invented
that word) recalibrates to the new baseline level of stress and
freaks out when you exceed it, just like it does when your baseline is high and
you exceed that. In other words, it takes much less to overwhelm you.
I'm thinking what I need is to exercise my stress muscles. Raise my baseline
level of stress so it isn't so low I'm barely functional. I lowered my baseline drastically two years ago when I had a severe episode and landed in the hospital. Afterward, I couldn't get through half a day alone just doing nothing. Yes, being alone in my house doing nothing was too stressful for me. Now, I can handle that, and some more stressful things as well, but not nearly as much as before I had the episode. Many of the stressors I eliminated when I was sick I still avoid. I'm afraid I'll freak out again and end up back in the hospital (or sitting alone in my house too stressed to get dressed).
But I need to start exercising my stress muscles again. Take on some more stressors, a little at a time. Stop hiding out in the house. Try a new experience: ride the subway to a new station, drive 95 (with a companion just in case), take an adult education class again. Stop
handing off stressful tasks to others or leaving them undone. Don't
depend on my family for so many things. I'll just tone my stress muscles, but not overdo it and tear one so I'm back to (safe but fragile) square one.
I'm thinking I'll have to tackle these one at a time. One at a time....Then maybe one more. ... Then see if another...And so on.
Reps, it's all about reps.
We should all speak up about stigma as far as we're able and whenever we find it. It's a matter of self-respect as well as social change.
Some people challenge the idea that there even IS stigma surrounding
mental illness; I can only assume those people have no mental illness,
have never known anyone with mental illness, or will only open one eye and "look on
the bright side."
Stigma is on the dark side. With stigma, the old slogan is so true: "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem."
End of speech.
