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...

I. AM. LIVID.

Please, please share this blog. We HAVE to get the word out. 

WHAT is wrong with our mental health care system?

Too afraid of being sued?

Don't know how to handle extreme behaviors?

Overbooked and low staffed?

I need answers.



During my time as a Coordinator of Youth Ministry at the parish level, I encountered on several occasions students with extremely serious behavior issues -- serious as in a threat to themselves or others. I followed appropriate protocols, reporting to the proper authorities and every channel told me,

"There is nothing we can do until this person actually does something."

You have GOT to be kidding me!

It may be too late!

Now more than ever, teens and young adults are facing the potentially devastating effects of mental illness and addictions. We can play the blame game... lack of father involvement, sexual deviancy resulting from pornography, availability of drugs, family of origin issues, genetics, etc. In the end, though, once the problem exists....

IT IS TIME TO DEAL WITH THE PROBLEM!

Sorry for all caps. I am definitely yelling.

My ministry focuses heavily on these issues, especially as they stem from self-hatred, insecurity, suicide, and self-harm. While surely God can heal these wounds and certainly has redeemed these wounds on the cross, He has gifted us with mental health study and the ability to seek healing through various therapies and treatments.

But if for whatever justifications, the struggling person is left with, "Take two and call me in the morning" which is LITERALLY what is happening to someone I know right now, we know this system is FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED.

This person was hospitalized, voluntarily seeking help.

Y'all I'm practically bawling right now...

This person had the COURAGE to know they needed help and they went in VOLUNTARILY to be HOSPITALIZED.

And they were put in group therapy and yoga/coping classes.

What. The. Heck.

People can't even share their faith in a small group, how the heck are they going to share their deepest wounds and struggles in a few days in a group of people they just met?

And based off of that, this hospital can make the assumption that because this person has seemed okay for a few days, they are fine to go back to life as usual, with the suggestion that weekly therapy appointments be made.

I am speechless.

No, no I'm not.

I'm livid.

You can't possibly know the extent to which someone needs psychiatric care from a few days.

Read, Columbine the book. Eric and Dylan were masterful manipulators at their weekly appointments because they probably had a serious personality or antisocial disorder which enabled them to not appear the stereotypical "crazy". They wrote in their journals, bragging about how they were able to say what the therapist wanted to hear.

I know that testing is expensive, but a brief interview of family members and close friends should provide enough evidence to determine who needs to go through psychological examinations and who really just needs some talk-therapy sessions and who is just stressed.

Many, many professions require psychological examinations, but here, at a mental health HOSPITAL, someone realizes they need help and comes as a desperate act for care, knowing potentially it could be their only outreach, you had DANG well better take that with the utmost seriousness and exhaust every resource available.

Robin Williams had just gotten out of rehab.

What does that tell you?

We need major, major help in reforming and supporting mental health care professionals to do their jobs and at the very least, refer more extreme patients to the experts who actually CAN help. Not every therapist or hospital is right for every circumstance, but there should be a process of helping that person find the right care for them.


Really mad.

Please Pray.

The Casualties of Suicide

This is probably the most passionate article I have ever and will ever write. I have perused the threads on this topic, in the larger context of Robin Williams' death until I've been physically ill over the comments and debates. It is almost impossible to not offend someone when commenting on the sensitive issues of depression and suicide.

I am someone who has been on both sides of the issue and just feel the cathartic need to share some very important thoughts - thoughts that are rarely considered in the debates that I have been witnessing, and it is truly a tragedy in and of itself that such an important topic has become laced with anger and division. We are speaking of life and death, and the utter war people wage on a daily basis between the two.

From the inside, suicide is never an act of free will unless it is in the context of suicide bomber. It is a result of the devastatingly painful loss of hope. When I was a teenager, suicide seemed like the only way. I felt I had no options and I lived in a very, very dark place in my heart. I was scared I would go to hell if I killed myself, and that ultimately saved my life, but I do wonder if had I not had a life-changing experience of the love of God at a retreat, if I would have cared about that at all. For the seriously depressed, it is the legitimate belief that the world would be better off without you. It is the legitimate belief that people will not care if you are gone. It is the legitimate belief that the pain will all be over soon. It is not a rational thinking process. There is no weighing of the pros and cons.

Many, many medications that are supposed to control these desperate feelings actually contribute to them. I remember someone very close to me would one second be a zombie, and the next completely unhinged. I looked up the medications and found that manic episodes was a side effect. Being on a medication doesn't necessarily fix the problem. Many counselors, psychiatrists, and psychologists through no fault of their own struggle to understand the depth of the issue. Depression is a physical ailment, a disease, much like cancer. It is a cancer of the mind but people who suffer it are often ostracized because it can be draining to be around someone with depression. It can be maddening to have to excuse certain behaviors because of mental illness and the inability to reason with that person. It is frustrating to not be able to heal it quickly or in a specific time period as you would heal a broken leg. It is the unseen blackness that spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and sometimes even physically kills.

From the outside, suicide is a selfish, abusive act. It is something none of us who know people who have killed or tried to kill themselves can fully understand. The anger and volatile grief that arise from the living victims of suicide are just as legitimate as those of the person who lost the will to live, and we must not forget that. Those loved ones that discover in shock the body of a friend or family member will forever have that last image etched in their mind. Those loved ones who will forever live with the guilt that maybe they could have done more even if nothing more could have been done will find it hard to move forward. Those angry and disillusioned feelings are entirely valid and should be given the same respect as those who are suffering the depression themselves. Even Scripture says that when one part of the body suffers, the rest of the body suffers.  Most of the people I know who struggle with depression are aware of the sad reality that it affects all of their relationships. There are others who don't, because they legitimately cannot feel empathy in the midst of their own struggles. There are those who care deeply for those who struggle with depression but have no idea how to help.

People struggle on different levels with depression and so our experiences vary greatly, but I will never, ever, ever, ever tell someone that their feelings on that matter are not valid. That would be like telling someone who has stage 1 cancer that they can't possibly be as scared and suffering as someone with stage 4 cancer. Everyone's individual experience is valid, it is their own, and not one of us has the right to tell someone otherwise.

What we can do is pray, reach out, come forward with our struggles, seek help, advocate for help for others, and do our best to just be present to those who need us, even if by their own choice in suffering, they have isolated themselves.

Don't ever, EVER tell someone they don't understand. Because some things, we just don't know.

Every life has worth. Every life is worth fighting for, and God proved His love in showing us that every life is worth dying for.

And as I finish writing this very emotional post, I ask for prayers. As we speak, someone I love very much is in the ER for a mental health related issue.

Thank you and God bless.