What the survey showed was that more than 2/3 of the mentally ill were "doing it" -- they were going about their lives on a daily basis; of the remaining 1/3 or so, about half of those were functioning, although not necessarily "doing it" and the rest were failures.
As shocking as this may sound, the 2/3 that were making it and living their lives as best they could did so without all of the goddam mental health experts and professionals interfering and mucking things up.
I have no idea where you are getting your statistical information, assuming you are getting it from somewhere other than your own opinion, but it's inaccurate to say the least. And it certainly begs the question of what you define as "doing it"......homelessness, wandering through the day in your bathrobe talking to yourself, being so delusional and psychotic that you can't keep relationships with others or get a job??? But, hey, at least they're not in a psychiatric facility
The VA has always been on the cutting edge, especially for mental health, and even more so from PTSD. So now there is something called WRAP --- the Wellness Recovery Action Plan -- and there is a specific WRAP developed by veterans for veterans and specifically for those who suffer from PTSD, depression, anxiety, sleep disorders and other mental illnesses that may or may not be combat related.
If you consider the VA to be "cutting edge", then I have ocean front property to sell you in Arizona. Granted, the VA tends to be good with PTSD, but again it all depends on what your definition of "good" is.....and that assumes that veterans can even be approved for PTSD programs. Many are not. I'm very well aware of how the VA operates and, for the most part, it is one of the most screwed up govt agencies out there. If you have found an outstanding example of therapy from the VA, hats are off to you. But most of the time, vets get turned away from treatment services for some reason or are given meds and told to "just deal with it". Small wonder that so many of them commit suicide, are homeless, get incarcerated, and/or become alcoholics and drug addicts. But, hey, at least they are not in a psychiatric hospital
Not true....free mental health services are available widely throughout the United States in all cities and counties.....sometimes through government, sometimes through private enterprise.
Not sure what planet you live on, but community mental health centers are severely underfunded which means that they are quite limited on how much treatment they can provide to people...if they can provide it at all. Just because these community based agencies are out there doesn't mean that everyone can access them, including those that need those services most.
You tried that -- - and you failed --- miserably --- time to move on.
The reality is that hospitalizing people is a necessity sometimes....unless you prefer to allow homicidal, suicidal, severely psychotic, severely depressed people to roam about without necessary treatment.
Mental Health Expert: We are the goddam experts here. We know how to treat your illness. Now, shut up and take your meds.
New Mental Health Professionals: Tell us how we can help you function best.
Sounds to me like you have "hate on" for mental health professionals if YOU don't have complete control over anything and everything. Sometimes other people DO know what's better for you than you, yourself, does. Everyone has blind spots about themselves.....you are no exception. People seek counseling services because they cannot "fix" the problem on their own, often after years of trying to do so. If you are intent on believing that you are the only one who has all the answers, then why go to therapy at all??
Save your money and time....
To suggest that schizophrenia, schizo-affective disorders, neurosis, psychosis etc are mental illnesses even remotely like depressive-anxiety disorders, PTSD and other illness is totally absurd.
Those are biological in nature, with a known or implied genetic predisposition. They will always require medication for the rest of their lives.
People with mental illnesses do not necessarily require medication. Assuming you don't have a Dinosaur ruining your life, and instead you have a true mental health professional, you're given only enough medication to alleviate the symptoms related to your disorder, then through therapy you attempt to discover those things that trigger your symptoms, you're given a tool-box of tips, tricks and ideas to help combat them, you use them, and through process of elimination figure out what works and what doesn't and then your mental health coach -- a better term actually --- coaches and guides you through this entire process.
You have no clue what you are talking about.
Uh, it's socialism if you incarcerate people in mental institutions or dictate to them from on high.
That is utter nonsense. People aren't "incarcerated" in mental institutions....they are found incompetent by a judge to meet their basic needs and deemed a threat to themselves and/or others. And once again, if these people were capable of making their own decisions, then they would not need to be placed somewhere that requires others to make treatment decisions for them.
There's nothing crazy about murdering people, hacking them to bits, and then storing them in your freeze so you can eat the body parts later, right?
If someone is completely psychotic, they have no idea that it's bizarre. If you have had ANY experience at all with people who have had psychotic breaks, then you would know that these kinds of things make perfect sense to them at the time. That is not to say, however, that they don't know the difference between right and wrong or that they should be excused for murdering people. They usually know that killing people is wrong, but may think it's perfectly sane to chop someone one up and eat their brains for dinner. Don't try to make sense of it.....they are, by definition, "crazy".
That's a proven fact.
Yes, good luck with that one.
You cannot do that for schizophrenics, schizo-affective, psychosis, neurotics and the others. They will require medication
and supervision at some level, for the rest of their natural lives, because they are not in control....that's the difference. Mircea[/quote]
Again, nonsense. If that were the case, nearly 3/4 of the population would be on court-ordered supervision.....neurosis FAR and above the most treatable mental health conditions out there. For as much as you talk about not wanting others to dictate to you about needing to take meds, etc.....you seem to have this notion that anyone who is bipolar or schizoffective, much less the neurotics, will require meds and supervision for the rest of their lives.....sort of like Big Brother and 1984. If you don't want someone watching over your shoulder telling you what you need to do, then don't expect to be able to do it for others.
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