I'm not a politician. I'm not an accountant. I am, however, a paranoid schizophrenic with a long history of hospitalizations.
To a politician, mental health budget cuts means less taxes on the 99%. To an accountant, mental health budget cuts means more money in the piggy bank. To a person with depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety, ADHD, autism, or any other mental health diagnosis, the mental health budget cuts means a bleak future, no medicine, no treatment, possibly no work, and general misery.
In a way I am lucky to have been forcibly hospitalized so often because the county realized it is much cheaper just to put me in a treatment program and put me on pharmaceutical assistance programs than it costs to warehouse me like a piece of veal in a psych ward for a month every year. So I am one of the lucky ones that gets medication from a long-term care provider, and only because I've been deemed "institutionalized." Institutionalized means that I have been in the hospital so often that I've become almost dependent on the process of being 5150'd and locked up in order to recover.
The topic of recovery is a touchy issue for some. While there is no cure for paranoid schizo-affective disorder (schizo-affective=a combination of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia), there are medications that take away the positive symptoms such as delusions, paranoia, auditory hallucinations, visual hallucinations, and anxiety that results from experiencing these cognitive malfunctions. There is also behavioral modification therapy that focuses on re-integrating mental patients into society. These therapies, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, are sessions where a therapist asks about the persons life and tries to make the patient's outlook on his/her life to be more positive and productive.
For example, one of my goals in therapy was to become more social. My time in the hospitals made me feel like a freak, somebody nobody would want to associate with. My therapist reframed this idea for me by saying that I had a disability no different from a learning disability, and that a person's adverse reaction to my diagnosis did not reflect on myself. She also said that if I didn't feel comfortable telling people I am mentally disabled, I was not obliged to do so. Over time, I learned to manage my negative symptoms (negative symptoms=asocial tendencies, flat affect, indifference, lack of motivation). I smiled more, asked people about their days, made an effort to reach out with compliments, and pretty soon I had friends! Of course, none of them know I am schizophrenic, but that's because I am leery of telling the uninitiated about a disease barely anybody even understands. My point is that therapy provided a base to relay my fears about talking to people and through therapy, I was able to befriend graduate students and undergrads at my University without making a total ass out of myself. :)
Without the funding for outpatient services none of this would have been possible. I would be miserable, jobless, penniless, friendless, a drain on the welfare system, and hiding in my room all day, afraid of invisible assassins. The cost on taxpayers would be greater than it is now, and I'm not on government cash assistance! And if your answer is to say, just let them roam the streets and remove the burden off taxpayers---you're not thinking of what that entails. First, you probably know somebody who is mentally ill and you would probably prefer to pay 25 cents per paycheck rather than watch a loved one suffer. Second, think about the possibility of unmedicated psychotics wandering the streets wondering why you hate them so much---are YOU the assassin they're afraid of? Most of us aren't dangerous, but I'd be lying if I said NONE of us are dangerous unmedicated. There's bound to be some psychotics, depressives, manics, or whatever, out there who are unpredictable without the mind controlling effects of psychotropic medications. My point is, 25 cents isn't that much and it is worth it if it gets thousands of mentally ill people out of hospital beds and into jobs where they can be productive to society.
Thanks for reading!
To a politician, mental health budget cuts means less taxes on the 99%. To an accountant, mental health budget cuts means more money in the piggy bank. To a person with depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety, ADHD, autism, or any other mental health diagnosis, the mental health budget cuts means a bleak future, no medicine, no treatment, possibly no work, and general misery.
In a way I am lucky to have been forcibly hospitalized so often because the county realized it is much cheaper just to put me in a treatment program and put me on pharmaceutical assistance programs than it costs to warehouse me like a piece of veal in a psych ward for a month every year. So I am one of the lucky ones that gets medication from a long-term care provider, and only because I've been deemed "institutionalized." Institutionalized means that I have been in the hospital so often that I've become almost dependent on the process of being 5150'd and locked up in order to recover.
The topic of recovery is a touchy issue for some. While there is no cure for paranoid schizo-affective disorder (schizo-affective=a combination of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia), there are medications that take away the positive symptoms such as delusions, paranoia, auditory hallucinations, visual hallucinations, and anxiety that results from experiencing these cognitive malfunctions. There is also behavioral modification therapy that focuses on re-integrating mental patients into society. These therapies, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, are sessions where a therapist asks about the persons life and tries to make the patient's outlook on his/her life to be more positive and productive.
For example, one of my goals in therapy was to become more social. My time in the hospitals made me feel like a freak, somebody nobody would want to associate with. My therapist reframed this idea for me by saying that I had a disability no different from a learning disability, and that a person's adverse reaction to my diagnosis did not reflect on myself. She also said that if I didn't feel comfortable telling people I am mentally disabled, I was not obliged to do so. Over time, I learned to manage my negative symptoms (negative symptoms=asocial tendencies, flat affect, indifference, lack of motivation). I smiled more, asked people about their days, made an effort to reach out with compliments, and pretty soon I had friends! Of course, none of them know I am schizophrenic, but that's because I am leery of telling the uninitiated about a disease barely anybody even understands. My point is that therapy provided a base to relay my fears about talking to people and through therapy, I was able to befriend graduate students and undergrads at my University without making a total ass out of myself. :)
Without the funding for outpatient services none of this would have been possible. I would be miserable, jobless, penniless, friendless, a drain on the welfare system, and hiding in my room all day, afraid of invisible assassins. The cost on taxpayers would be greater than it is now, and I'm not on government cash assistance! And if your answer is to say, just let them roam the streets and remove the burden off taxpayers---you're not thinking of what that entails. First, you probably know somebody who is mentally ill and you would probably prefer to pay 25 cents per paycheck rather than watch a loved one suffer. Second, think about the possibility of unmedicated psychotics wandering the streets wondering why you hate them so much---are YOU the assassin they're afraid of? Most of us aren't dangerous, but I'd be lying if I said NONE of us are dangerous unmedicated. There's bound to be some psychotics, depressives, manics, or whatever, out there who are unpredictable without the mind controlling effects of psychotropic medications. My point is, 25 cents isn't that much and it is worth it if it gets thousands of mentally ill people out of hospital beds and into jobs where they can be productive to society.
Thanks for reading!
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