CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCE CENTER Read More
Add To Favorites

National View: InsideSources Many suffer with improper mental health treatment

Standard Times, The (New Bedford, MA) - 6/26/2016

S ay “mental illness” and a lot of other words come to mind: depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, anger, suicide, crying, hopelessness. I should know. I’ve spent a life living with bipolar disorder and a lot of adjectives that describe this mental illness. But there are three words I’ve yet to see mentioned in my years of reading blog posts and medical journals: Waste. Of. Time.

Time takes on an entirely different meaning when your mind isn’t working right. I used to have mood swings, get cross with people, lose friends, then go into damage-control mode, trying to repair relationships. Just think about those who are homeless, often because their mental state prevents them from working. They lose their job, their house, the car they can no longer afford, the good credit they once had. All these things can take months if not years to get back. When you’re just trying to find a place to sleep, shower and get something to eat — the basic necessities to exist day to day — it’s time that would have been better spent trying to get out of your predicament. Often homeless people have to line up outside an overcrowded shelter hours early, even by 1 p.m., just to get a place to sleep that night.

Many mentally ill people in need of psychiatric care end up instead lying in a hospital emergency room, waiting to get transferred to a proper mental hospital to get the care they need from specialists. ER doctors are not psychiatrists. So someone with acute depression can spend endless days in an emergency room with nothing to show for it. Often their symptoms worsen, requiring more time to get better.

I’ve spent a lot of my time trying to understand what my brain was going through. Fed up with feeling blue, I saw a psychologist when I was a college senior.

I spent nearly a year visiting her office weekly, paying her $90 in cash per session. She never once took my history to learn if anyone in my family had mental illness, often a sign that the patient may have it as well. She never sent me to a psychiatrist when I didn’t get better, to see if antidepressants could help me, although that is standard procedure within the practice of psychology. She just kept telling me to come back, and I just kept trusting her.

A year later, I graduated from college, no better off than when I started, a heck of a lot poorer and having wasted a lot more time.

For years I kept going to psychologists, trying to figure my life out. They welcomed my visits and my Visa card. But in the end I found out I needed medication, not a Freudian analysis.

When you have problems of the mind, it’s like living with a continuous Humpty-Dumpty syndrome: You’re constantly falling off walls, trying to put yourself back together again, climbing back up, only to fall off the wall again. Everything takes time and physical and mental energy. Everything is a “project.” It’s common to lose your self-esteem in the process and experience a lot of stigma-related problems, so then you end up back in therapy, spending more time, years even, trying to feel good about yourself again.

And it feels like an enormous amount of wasted time.

Some issues, like the overcrowded ER, are problematic nationwide, and patients can’t do anything about their city’s lack of mental hospitals. But there are ways to deal with it. There are many seasoned mental health support group leaders from advocacy groups like the National Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health America who can help patients navigate the complex world of mental health care and even be an advocate for them. I am a firm believer in second opinions, whether it involves a consultation with my primary care physician, who, like some, is knowledgeable about mental health issues, or getting consult from another practicing psychiatrist and psychologist, who can offer up an expert opinion as to the effectiveness of my mental health care.

Patients often understand this second-opinion practice when it comes to issues like cancer or heart problems. But when it comes to matters of the mind, many don’t always think to do this. Many (and sometimes those in the practitioner world) believe that mentally ill people are supposed to suffer for long periods, that it’s normal to be depressed, for example, for months on end. I prefer therapists and doctors who don’t believe this, because neither do I. Living with mental illness is manageable. It’s never easy, but I can live with it. No one should be depressed for months.

Patient education is also a way to cut back on time wasters. Some medical providers are up to date on continuing education and do their best to inform patients, but that’s not always the case. I’ve largely had to understand my mental health issues on my own and with the help of my family. I’ve made a lot of mistakes and learned to forgive myself. Still, it seems that every birthday I wish the next year will be better.

I’ll never get my years back. There’s no fountain of youth in this world. For quite a while, I was angry at how much time I’ve lost, but there’s no point in looking back because I know for sure that next year will be better. I’ll make sure it happens.

—Kim Palchikoff writes about mental health for the Las Vegas Sun. Readers may write to her at palchikoff@gmail.com or visit her website at www.palchikoff.com. Distributed by InsideSources.com.