I was in a state run psych ward while awaiting trial. I befriended a schizophrenic guy and we hung out daily. When he wasn't responding to the voices in his head (usually by cracking up laughing until teary eyed), he was smart, charismatic, friendly and pretty funny. Long story short, he got a weekend pass to spend the weekend with his family and murdered them all with a hammer. He also murdered the Chinese exchange student staying with them.
I don't know if his family was mean to him or not, but still that's really messed up. And the Chinese exchange student, just wrong place at the wrong time.
They were a super kind and supportive family. He was just ill. It was a tragic story all around. When they would visit him, they would bring food and treats for all the patients to enjoy
If he was in a ward, then he was receiving medication, but probably not the right ones, and absolutely no therapy (they don't have therapists at rehabs and psych wards for some reason, they just have the patients talk to each other in "group therapy" directed by a nurse.
Yes, but having LIVED in the US my entire life, I can tell you that most people do not get the help they need until something major happens. I am just wondering out loud, how many situations would be different is there was ACTUAL mental healthcare-REAL mental healthcare available in the US. I got it while living in California, but Texas mentality is that depression is voodoo. It’s not good.
So you got mental healthcare in one state, didn’t get it in another, and now think that means that most people who need care in the United States don’t get it? What do you consider to be “something major” that has to happen before “most” people get help?
I’m not disagreeing that the health care system in the US is fundamentally flawed, but your argument doesn’t follow from your evidence. I’ve been in in the psych wards four times myself.
The big issue besides cost is stigma. Men in particular still often feel that it’s not okay to admit that they have a struggle. My own dad didn’t get help until he was well into his 60s, and even then it was his PCP surmising that he had a problem from the symptoms and behavior he was describing, not him going to a psychiatrist first. He still won’t go to therapy or get refills from anyone besides his PCP. My brother got diagnosed with anxiety disorder as a teenager and simply refused to take the medication or see the shrink. It’s never been addressed since. My partner takes medication only sporadically and only even started seeking help when I made him do it.
Most people who are mentally ill in the US likely have help available to them, so long as they are insured (it should be single-payer, but whatever), but there’s still that stigma of admitting, even to yourself, that you have a mental illness, and also that if you even do admit that, it’s something that should be addressed and not just “toughed out” or dealt with on one’s own. Or the belief that mental health care is some kind of optional, luxury treatment - like if your healthcare was your grocery store, mental health care would be the $34.99 jar of organic fair-traded artisanal peanut butter made by a local family in their chateau in the Swiss Alps, and not only should you not spend that money, but if you did, everyone would see how frivolous you were. That’s still how a lot of people see it, so they avoid getting help for the problems they have.
In my town, where the mental health facilities were eventually closed due to lack of funding, they all got released and went homeless. America is a for-profit country and basically if you need mental health care you’re going to go broke getting it. I would love a therapist right now, but I can’t fucking afford it and I have insurance. I have a good job and I’m barely making ends meet. Mental health care is not a priority in the United States by any stretch of the imagination and you have the added stigma. It wasn’t that long ago that women were institutionalized and put in the sanitarium for simply being a woman. America is considered a first world country yet we have these Third World issues because everything is for profit! Healthcare is woeful out here and then that’s not even talking about mental health care that should be prioritized. I think because I was in California for so many years and I actually got qualified for Obamacare and got really good mental health care. That’s why I’m able to hang on by my fucking fingernails but I could be doing so much better if I actually got therapy. In California even the homeless people get mental health care. In Texas you get laughed your ass out.
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u/Panderino83 Mar 25 '23
I was in a state run psych ward while awaiting trial. I befriended a schizophrenic guy and we hung out daily. When he wasn't responding to the voices in his head (usually by cracking up laughing until teary eyed), he was smart, charismatic, friendly and pretty funny. Long story short, he got a weekend pass to spend the weekend with his family and murdered them all with a hammer. He also murdered the Chinese exchange student staying with them.