For the month of April I am participating in the annual A-Z Blogging Challenge. The Challenge was started by author/blogger, Arlee Byrd. http://tossingitout.blogspot.com
Each day of the month (except Sundays) we will post something based on that days correlating letter. Some of us chose a theme and others are winging it. My theme is the A-to-Z’s of Mental Health, Raising Awareness. It is a topic that is very close to my heart. I hope you find the posts interesting and you will comment and share the posts everywhere. To see a list of all of the participants or for more information-click on the badge over there to the right>
Today’s Letter is the Letter Z
Zee End of my A-Z’s of Mental Health
I believe we have a Mental Health crisis or more like an epidemic not only in America but Internationally.
Our local hospital emergency rooms, urban, suburban and rural, are being overused and over-whelmed. The police, first responders and family members are using them as the default-landing zone for those in mental health, addiction or homeless crisis. Our first responders are good people with big hearts. They want to help. We need to do better at providing them with realistic and safe solutions. Either these emergency rooms need to be equipped, trained and staffed to be a viable solution to this epidemic or we must demand their revolving doors be closed.
If we are going to have any chance of stopping or at least containing this epidemic we must each first examine the way we think about, react to and treat the most vulnerable in our society. Think back, can you remember the first time you encountered a homeless or a mentally ill person? It was not a problem in America until the early nineteen-sixties. Before the nineteen-sixties, families took responsibility for their own mentally ill, elderly and addicted relatives. They were cared for in our own homes, or they were placed into institutions.
The solutions will most likely be born from our collective hearts as we sit around our kitchen tables united as families, determined as communities to stop ignoring these atrocities. There has to be an answer somewhere between warehousing these human beings and continuing to put our society at large, in danger for the rights of one. Because of our fear of appearing politically incorrect, we have chosen to look past these human beings and do nothing. The change must start in our hearts. We must once again become responsible for our elderly, addicted and mentally ill loved ones and neighbors.
What do you think?
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12 thoughts on “The A-Z’s of Mental Health Awareness….”
The reason our hospitals are being overrun is because clinics no longer operate the way they used to. When I was a kid, if you got sick you called the doctor’s office and went in for an appointment within a couple hours. These days if you need to be seen, the only place you can get in same day is a hospital. I’ve seen clinics pop up that are supposed to replace what normal clinics did, but do they take the same insurance? Do you feel comfortable with the doctor? We just need to thrash and rehaul the whole system. (Says a doctor’s daughter/granddaughter.)
True Heroes from A to Z
You are right.
This has been a good and informative series that I’ve read every single day. Thank you.
Thank you so much for reading and for your support, Carol.
Great post – you bring up some interesting, thought-provoking points. This subject is dear to my heart too. I had a boyfriend who was bipolar, which really opened my eyes to the way those with a mental illness are treated in the healthcare system and in the community. Thanks for talking about this important issue.
Thank you so much for reading.
I agree that we need better solutions. I never realized how poorly prepared the “system” is for the mentally ill until my 77yo father with dementia was arrested and locked up in jail. Where he was given none of his medications. We had to fight with a lawyer for over a week to get him out. He did NOT belong there. Dementia alone is a huge epidemic, and there are so many other forms of mental illness. We need to get a grip, and fast!
Elizabeth that is horrible. With 10,000 people turning 65 everyday I think it can only get worse if something isn’t done now.
You think it’s bad there… our healthcare system is in a shambles!
Congratulations on crossing the A to Z finishing line, Doreen!
Our system was horrible and they are trying really hard to make it worse than a third world country.
I’d like to look upstream to WHY we seem to be having a higher incidence of mental illness (I know only anecdotally that this seems to be true).
I wonder if messing with our food supply — chemicals and genetically modifying DNA — are having unintended consequences.
Food for thought — pun intended!
I think food may have something to do with it but I also believe it is what I call the time -out generation. This generation was raised being called beautiful, amazing, they were given trophy’s whether they did well or not, their tantrums were excused etc…
Then they get out into the real world and everyone is a prince or princess, they actually have to compete and they don’t know how so they start to fail. They cannot handle it and they fall apart. I see it and it is so sad.