People with Mental Illness are Not Stupid

There, I said it.

You think of a psychiatric hospital and images from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Next" come to mind.

People with mental illness are not stupid.

So, I plead with the mental health care system and professionals, please stop treating them as such.

The goal these days with Managed Care  in mental health care facilities is "Stabilization."

When asked what "stabilization" meant, the psychologist at a Michigan Mental Health Hospital said, "Stabilization means that the person no longer shows him or herself to be a threat to self or others."

Okay, Doc... you are saying that after three short days of inpatient, group therapy, yoga classes, taking away all weapons, closely monitoring and removing all triggers.... that you have determined, in your expertise, that this is enough to say, "The patient is stable, send them home."

Then if they "decompensate", including behaviors such as not taking their medicine, harming themselves, threatening suicide, etc, they may be readmitted.

Stabilize. Readmit. Stabilize. Readmit.

This is a vicious cycle.

People that don't want help can talk their way out of it, they are not stupid. There is a reason they have come for a psychiatric counseling session or evaluation. There. Is. A. Reason. Most people don't voluntarily give up a weekend for a stay in the hospital.

People with mental illness can be charming or manipulative. They can be astute and perceptive or have a distorted view of reality, but again... There is a reason they have come for a psychiatric counseling session or evaluation. There. Is. A. Reason.

Don't be fooled because in addition to having a mental illness, they are polite, well-spoken, and kind.

This is not surprising because THEY ARE PEOPLE! They are made out to be social outcasts, but they are NOT! They are talented, amazing people who happen to have a struggle no one can see!

People with mental illness are doctors, businessmen and women, teenagers, dancer, artists, musicians, actors... Mental Illness does not discriminate, but because it is the unseen plague, it doesn't get the attention, concern, and compassion that it warrants.

When a person seeks intervention in the mental health care system, they may not appear on the outside to need any help at all. They may seem perfectly charming and even happy. But without the proper evaluation including receiving input from/interviewing this person's family or friends, one on one therapy sessions, etc, there is no way to determine stabilization.

No way at all. There has been no observation of this person in their regular environment with all the triggers that cause this person to struggle day to day with the thought of living and not self-destructing.

And as someone who has sat in proximity watching this system dramatically fail someone in my life, I see them turn away someone with a slow bleed... I have painfully realized...

My love is not always enough to convince someone that their life is worth living.

My love is not always enough to convince someone that they are lovable.

And that is when it's time for the professional medical counselors, doctors, and therapists to help the person sort out the medical and psychological issues hidden beneath the smiles that are sometimes easier to show than the wounds.

That is when it's time for the spiritual health professionals, priests, ministers, etc, to step up and share the love and mercy of God so that the patients understand their suffering in the context of a hope that can lead to the next day, and the day after that.

That is when it's time for family and friends to wrap this person in love and prayer the best that they allow you to love them.

When someone's appendix has burst, they aren't turned away from the hospital because they "seem" ok or because they are a "nice" person or given a prescription for the pain and sent home. They are given immediate and proper medical care even in the less prestigious hospitals. Only in the mental health care field are people turned away the instant they seem ok, turned away because they are nice and outwardly well-adjusted, and given a prescription for the emotional pain and sent away.

Managed Care is an insurance objective. Not a people objective. Managed Care rushes the patient out the door because of the expense of care. The more doctors and hospitals are complicit in this, the greater the chance that it is at the more costly expense of a life.

I wish the doctors we have encountered in these recent days showcased their concern for the psychological health of their patients over the rules and requirements of insurance.

This is the first of many blogs to come...