When I realized I wanted to serve in the realm of mental health, I had no idea what I was really getting into.
No, I’m not talking about the stereotype that every person who receives mental health treatment is “scary”, “messy” or “depressing”. Because they aren’t. Sometimes life is scary. Sometimes life is messy. Sometimes people can feel depressed. But people are so much more than those labels. And it’s not always the people that are the hardest part.
Sometimes the hardest part is knowing that there are no services currently available to a client. There’s endless automatic thoughts that people often have about those who receive mental health services. Sometimes as a society we think that people with mental health needs don’t get services because they don’t qualify (their mental illness isn’t really THAT serious), or because they’re lazy, or because they’re homeless, or broke, or…or…or…fill in the blank.
It’s not always those things. Most of the time, it isn’t those things. I have seen many people not be able to receive services because of their insurance. They are in-between plans, with neither one being active, and they don’t have money to pay out of pocket. Or they chose not to enroll in insurance, which was never a problem until now, when their best friend died and they developed a need for counseling. Sometimes they have insurance that promises to offer them access to services, but those service carriers have impossible barriers. Sometimes it is 30 minutes of sitting on hold, just to be directed to an answering machine. Sometimes these services are booked up to 6 months out from the date that the client begins trying to seek services.
They’re eligible. They are willing. They are motivated, they recognize their need, and they have real symptoms. Some of the symptoms are severe externally, keeping people from work or from social relationships. Some of the symptoms are severe internally, making these precious, beautiful people feel like they are absolutely worthless. Absolutely alone. Absolutely crazy for experiencing mood swings the way they do. It can be a harsh prison of absolutes for these people.
And the system is absolutely broken. In our country, we value the speed in which someone can apply for and receive a credit card over the speed at which someone can begin receiving mental health services that they both want and need. In a country so obsessed with immediate gratification – getting what we want, when we want it – it is crushing to know that receiving mental health services is anything but immediate. The process of beginning services can be anything but gratifying. For people who are experiencing symptoms of anxiety, depression, trauma, irritability, hopelessness, etc., etc., hitting wall after wall simply plunges them deeper into their frustrations, their fears, and their pain.
It’s horrible. It’s horrible because if it’s not a crisis, there’s nothing that can be done. People should not be kept waiting, daily limping through daily tasks. Their symptoms make it challenging to function, or to feel like themselves. People should not have to feel isolated because engaging in relationships feels impossible. People should not have to be brought to their very lowest point to be able to get the help that they want, need, and deserve. People should not have to wait to start receiving the support that they deserve. That’s right, every single person deserves it. Every. Single. One. Because let me say this loud and clear: mental health services are a right, not a privilege.
MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES ARE. A. RIGHT.
In a perfect world, the system wouldn’t be broken. In a perfect world, we probably wouldn’t even need mental health services to begin with, because in a perfect world there would be no ailments of any kind. But this is where reality is so helpful to move us to action. As we start to recognize that this is not a perfect world, we can recognize that this is a broken world.
The sooner we recognize that this is a broken world, the sooner we can move into the understanding that we are operating in a broken system.
Of course people will experience brokenness. Of course humans are complicated. Of course there will always be things that we do not know, do not understand, have not discovered yet. The human experience is dynamic, it experiences ebb and flow as we walk through different stages of societal development and as people interact continually with the multi-faceted and ever-changing cultures around them.
Just because people experience brokenness does not mean that they should be expected to navigate and be content with a perpetually broken system.
I don’t have any brilliant policy proposals to revolutionize mental health care (yet), and I don’t have endless knowledge and experience about this topic. I recognize that alone, I will never have the kind of extended, diverse insight required to make significant changes in a system so complex. Mental health services have one foot in the pool of its past – the very medical, clinical, diagnostic-focused models – and one foot in its future – the innovative, creative, revolutionary aspects of treatment, therapy, and theories that are breaking ground and making a difference in the lives of so many people.
Because mental health supportive services make a difference. Period. It doesn’t matter if someone is experiencing a short-term battle with depression in response to a large loss in their life, or if they have struggled with psychotic symptoms for what seems like their entire life. People deserve support. People deserve to have the ability to navigate these parts of their life with ease. People deserve to feel individually valued in the process. And people never, ever deserve to feel like they should just give up on trying because services are so challenging to find, secure, or maintain – whether it’s the waiting period, battles with insurance, struggles with transportation, or fear of being stigmatized as “crazy”.
I don’t blame them if they do feel this way, though. The culture we live in right now has made many positive shifts in the past few years, but there are still many (seemingly endless) challenges that people face as they enter the sphere of mental health services. Our culture likes putting people in boxes. We are the kind of America that cultivates fear for the things that we don’t understand, and gives ourselves permission to be ignorant because something is “complicated” or “confusing” or even “scary”.
I want to work harder every day to humanize these people. It’s not easy. Somewhere along the line in our lives, we’ve all got an idea of what “mental health” is, and usually those ideas are so wrong that it’s actually harmful. We need to learn. We need to be willing to ask questions about things that are confusing. We need to recognize that the world is broken and the system is broken, but that PEOPLE experiencing brokenness in no way deserve to be asked to endure the hardships of that broken system. We need to do something. And doing something starts with humanizing them, with hearing their stories, and with developing a better understanding and hopefully a passion for these issues.
We need to remember that these are people. These are our family members, friends, neighbors, co-workers, religious leaders, professors, judges, police officers, doctors, armed forces. The chef at our favorite restaurant, the person who works at the grocery store, the CEO, that one actor we really love. They are children, and young adults, people who are middle-aged and people who are elderly. They are all people. They are us.
They are us. Once we start taking ownership of our society, and viewing all humanity as brothers and sisters, we can recognize the call to action. If they are us, then we have some buy-in as to whether they survive tomorrow or not. We have some skin in the game if someone slips between the cracks. We are not in a perfect world, but I want to see us be in a world & system that extends hope to people. Hope that tells us that life is worth living, and that a 6 month wait isn’t what’s to be expected when we reach out. Hope needs to be readily available always, as never-ending as sand on a beach, and everyone should know how completely deserving they are.
No conditions. No questions. Just hope. Just us.
august laperche 