Are we facing an imminent global mental health crisis?
In recent years, I thought my poor opinion of the mental health system is due to personal bias since my own experiences with it were overwhelmingly negative.
And I have another reason to be biased: years ago, something horrible happened to my best friend who tried to find professional help and (just as I did) gave up after repeatedly dealing with people who either didn't help or even made her problems worse (the condescending attitude towards intelligent adults in such situations can be mindblowing). A lot of regular people were just as unhelpful, basically thinking that enough time passed for her "to get over it" and it was her fault she couldn't. After more than a decade of this, she killed herself, something I don't think I'll ever be able to get over myself.
So I admit I'm angry and frustrated because of this, but given that I understand these are personal anecdotes (in the big picture of things), that it's been a long time since I had anything to do with the system and I also heard from people who had significantly more success, I thought it's reasonable to assume things are getting better.
This year, I've been trying to help another friend in a very critical situation navigate the system and find help. More than half a year later, the only significant help he's getting still comes from his partner and friends, including books and online resources we all put together for him and our personal efforts to assist and support him with processing the information and making some changes. This was supposed to be a temporary solution to tide him over until he gets access to someone who can help him with more than getting through the day. He can afford to pay privately, and yet the search is still ongoing because all he could find were "counsellors" who give generic, mostly shallow and fairly condescending advice as efficient as putting a bandaid on gangrene, then bill you 100 euros per session. My friend told me he got better-suited suggestions from his partner, myself and my wife than from any of them.
That's not even mentioning incredibly stupid and dangerous advice like "he needs to be put on medication immediately to spare him the pain of therapy" - yes, a mental health professional said this to me, without even seeing or talking to him. As if this kind of medication is a precise science and most people don't have to go through a process of trial and error with it too, sometimes with drastic and dangerous side-effects.
Paradoxically, someone who's so depressed they can barely function in everyday life needs to engage in a long term uphill battle to find help, while they can barely get out of bed in the morning. I wonder what happens to those who have no resources or friends and family to advocate for them and help with the legwork (rhetorical question, I already know exactly what happens).
I look around me and in the news and see how "normal" and trivial severe untreated mental health issues became, from mass murderers going on a spree every other week or so, various forms of terrorism, parents severely abusing or trying to kill their children, people who resort to violence against others for the most trivial reasons (Soho Karen), the woman on the plane who had to be duct-taped to her chair after biting a crew member and trying to open the emergency door mid-flight, the daycare owner who hung a toddler in the basement and ran over two people with her car in the same day and the list is literally endless.
Modern life, the unexpected effects of very fast technological development, the rampant decline of the education system and several other political and social factors seem to have led to a huge surge of severe untreated mental conditions in our population. It's not even a "few people falling through the cracks" situation anymore: running into someone who obviously presents a danger to themselves or others became a rather trivial occurrence and most of these people don't get the help they desperately need even when they're actively trying to. We mostly find out about it when it's too late.
The pandemic was the cherry on top of this festering mess and the news feeding into paranoid attitudes towards strangers, dissenters, non-conformists, neurodiverse, disabled or merely "different" people have exacerbated, normalised and even justify and promote a mix of partisanship, segregation and isolation reflected by a pervasive "us versus them" mentality, suspicion, open discrimination and hate, shunning and even punishing others "preemptively".
Meanwhile, the majority of the population seems to be struggling with various mental issues - some more serious than others - and people are left to fend for themselves or end up being offered expensive, ineffective and often dangerous "help", while bystanders are usually split between throwing stones and treating mental illness like a character flaw and those who go through extravagant mental gymnastics to justify and defend toxic and dangerous behaviours and actions.
TLDR: It seems to me that the mental health care system in the first world is turning into a colossal failure, coming back at us with a vengeance and most people seem oblivious or indifferent to how incredibly dangerous this is and how much it's affecting us both as a society and individuals.
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What got me thinking was what about those who have nobody, little resources and no energy and motivation left to persevere for months and months, against all kinds of odds and obstacles that shouldn't be there.
Because let's be honest: for many people, a free support/suicide line is not going to do much (definitely not in the long run), and neither is an otherwise sympathetic stranger who tells them to exercise, eat better and take vitamins. People who feel on the edge are really past this kind of thing.
And the current situation just took this mess to the next level - even at home, I started noticing how people - in general - are less polite and patient, more paranoid and generally acting like they're getting too close to the end of their rope. And things are even worse online where people use fewer filters.
Basically, everybody whom I talked to (from the US, UK, some other European countries) told me the same thing: they usually pay out of pocket and it took them a long time (sometimes years) to find someone who actually helped them.
And now we're all under a lot of pressure, more and more people start snapping, and from what I know, not one single government actually prepared for this in any (serious) way.
A discussion with Tem here started opening my eyes about how bad things really are and I've been thinking about it ever since, while the information I've gathered myself confirmed the gravity of the situation.
I'm truly concerned about the situation, even more so since none of our governments or our population as a whole seems aware or willing to acknowledge what huge risks we're taking by having such a cavalier attitude about something so serious and potentially dangerous.
And it always makes me angry to see problems that can be prevented being swept under the rug, I'm like this at work too.
But I can talk about the availability of services for the people with developmental disabilities, including autism.
There are some 30,000 people in the state of Florida who are on the program I contract with. There are also about 30,000 people on the wait list.
And even those on the program have difficulty getting services because each service has to be deemed medically necessary, and the standards to meet this criteria are getting stricter by the year.
I could not get emergency services for an autist child with severe, life-threatening behaviors until the parent tried to commit suicide.
I could not get services for someone with swallowing problems unless he first choked and had to go to the hospital emergency room. The fact that he didn't choke because he was closely monitored and assisted while eating did not count. The program wants him to choke and need medical care within the past 12 months.
And...shortly after I lost the appeal to get services for the individual above, another client actually did choke and died even with CPR, emergency services and ICU. This would be the second client I have lost to choking.
There used to be specialized mental health counseling for clients, but no more. They did away with that.
Anyway, I have a lot of mangos to process today, and none of us really needs to hear all the examples. We are primarily preaching to the choir.
I have no idea how to fix this problem. Here is the US it is primarily the fundamentalist Christians who turn their backs on people in need. It boggles my mind.
And people in the US also have gotten more rude and speak out more nasty things to others. But I thought that was a result of the Trump presidency.
Thank you, blaze, both for sharing your experience and that kind of data - I definitely want to hear such stories because they reflect reality, not what we want to believe. As I said, Tem also directed me towards such realities that opened my eyes, and I really appreciate it.
I can't imagine how you survived so many heart-breaking moments in your career, but I'm really grateful that many of these people had you to advocate for them. All my thoughts here came from a real concern for what happens to those who have no one, and how dangerous not getting help can be to either themselves or others.
Enjoy the mangoes, I love them in salsa or chutney!
I often wonder...how does anyone get through this with someone like me to clear out the obstacles? What about the 20,000 on the wait list?
It is not surprising that many people give up. Florida closed down all the institutions for DD and mentally ill people because "institutions are bad." And now all those people are on the streets.
I didn't find out it was common, until I had a clearness committee meeting (a Quaker process) with Friends, and one was a retired psychiatrist and he validated everything that had happened to me, knowing what he had learned over a half century of practice. Interestingly enough, he said that most women believe the sexual interacts were the woman's fault. Just like I did.
And just like so many other women from the me2 movement said.
I suspect that at least some of this is related to the societal/cultural stigma and shame still attached to mental illness.
I like Bronislaw Linke, I tend to associate him with Otto Dix, particularly his depictions of the first world war and its effects
I've never heard of anyone staying in a regular hospital and starting an affair with a staff member that goes beyond maybe flirting and I doubt it's common (outside of a porno).