[Serious] The Mental Illness Crisis in America

[T.J.]

This has became an issue near and dear to my heart. Right now the biggest providers for the mentally ill are jails and prisons. This tells me that there is something seriously wrong with the way we approach mental illness in this country. In Kansas it's especially bad, with only two major hospitals for people to go to, and that's only when you're already in the system. If you don't have health insurance a lot of places won't accept you, and some don't get the help they need until they're already locked up.

What can we do to improve the quality of help for the mentally ill?

[onlinebiker]

Most don't get help if they do get locked down.

They just end up doing lots of time.

[brewer]

This has became an issue near and dear to my heart. Right now the biggest providers for the mentally ill are jails and prisons. This tells me that there is something seriously wrong with the way we approach mental illness in this country. In Kansas it's especially bad, with only two major hospitals for people to go to, and that's only when you're already in the system. If you don't have health insurance a lot of places won't accept you, and some don't get the help they need until they're already locked up.

What can we do to improve the quality of help for the mentally ill?

This is the result of best intentions gone wrong. There was a large movement (political?) to deinstitutionalize people with mental health issues in the 70's and 80's because the psych hospitals at the time were see as punishment and evil, every bit as much as prisons. Unfortunately community based treatment alone could not address all the needs for many mental health conditions. Pharmaceutical treatment at the time was seen as a more cost effective magic bullet. Add in the "not in my neighborhood" attitude for community based treatment centers. And treatment of the mentally ill has never been a popular political issue because people with serious mental health issues carry a stigma in our society.

I don't personally have an answer but do think that we need to bring back more institutions for long term care, both hospitals/inpatient and community/outpatient based. Unfortunately I don't see this happening until it can be seen as cost effective, it's understood that medication is only one tool in the treatment bag and the stigma of mental illness is addressed. 

Treat until stabilized then discharge is not working.

[Rev. Rye]

It’s a shame that the only way politicians can actually be bothered to care about the lack of mental health services in this country is to use it as a distraction against gun control.

It’s a shame that the push to do away with mental institutions didn’t actually try to take the stigma against the mentally ill with it. I strongly suspect that the people with the power to do anything about it care far more about how trying to fight these problems make them look than actually trying to fix anything.

[T.J.]

Yeah, Republicans will usually bring it up to distract from Gun Control talks, and I haven't seen the Democrats give this much thought either.

Edit: I stand corrected: https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/p...arity-laws

[Belacqua]

Yeah, Republicans will usually bring it up to distract from Gun Control talks, and I haven't seen the Democrats give this much thought either.

Edit: I stand corrected: https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/p...arity-laws

Not a Democrat, I guess, but one of the few politicians who thinks it would be good to help non-rich people. 

https://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-o...tal-health

I grew up in Kansas, by the way, and still have family there. Did Brownback's tax craziness make the mental health care situation worse, or was it already terrible?

[T.J.]

Yeah, Republicans will usually bring it up to distract from Gun Control talks, and I haven't seen the Democrats give this much thought either.

Edit: I stand corrected: https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/p...arity-laws

Not a Democrat, I guess, but one of the few politicians who thinks it would be good to help non-rich people. 

https://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-o...tal-health

I grew up in Kansas, by the way, and still have family there. Did Brownback's tax craziness make the mental health care situation worse, or was it already terrible?

Thanks for that. I was looking up Sanders, Waren, and Biden's stances on the issue as I only knew Trump was talking about it, and I don't trust Trump to do anything that would actually benefit the mentally ill.

And I have no idea, but probably.

[The Valkyrie]

I can’t speak for the US.

I know for some, they don’t seek help because of stigma attached to mental illness.

There’s also plenty of misinformation and outright lies out there about mental illness.

I see it improving where I am, but there’s still a lot of improvement to be made

[Shell B]

Deal with the opioid epidemic so the institutions we do have aren't filled with people who are detoxing. Just for a start.

[AFTT47]

This is a problem of our time. We know it exists but we haven't figured a way to effectively deal with it yet.

I don't have any answers here but I think the solution would come quicker if we looked at this as a clinical problem and completely removed the stigma of mental illness. Then we could deal with the problem rationally rather than with reactionary emotion.

On the positive side, pharmaceutical solutions have improved dramatically in my lifetime.

This is another side-effect of civilization and compassion allowing the survival of people who would have died before reproductive age in less civilized times.

Monty Python Scenario:

"Her own father, who, when he seemed about to recover, suddenly felt the icy black hand of death upon him.
[Scuffle at the back]
Wedding guest #2: [Shout from back] Oh, he just died!"

We'll get better.