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Last Week Tonight - MeNtal Health Care

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Jaskalas said:
Given the absolute lack of mental healthcare, I might think the typo is more correct than it is wrong.

When considering the topic, I have vague ideas of what the the profession(s) are. But I have no real idea of what it is actually for, or what circumstances I would consider myself in need of it. Nor what positive results I could envision from it.

If I am physically injured or sick... I understand what a doctor and a hospital is for. And the outcome I would like.
Cannot say the same for mental health. Cannot say I even understand what it would be used for. Or when to know when there is a need.

Perhaps that is also how insurance treats it. As some frivolous optional vagary of undefined or... optional value. A needless expense that does nothing.

We could start by addressing such notions. If they are wrong, they should be declared wrong. The very ideas campaigned against. A proper frame of reference for mental health should be part of education and public awareness. If mental healthcare is a real service, our current system of neglect is likely a result of this information deficit.
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I'd say this theory/interpretation is more or less right.

When you have a broken arm, or a stab wound. it's pretty obvious what sort of care you need and it's awfully hard for an insurance company to deny, or even question, those claims.
With mental health, it's all more "subjective" (for lack of a better term?) Hell, I had the same mentality towards my kid for years - "Well, that's how life is kid. Stop being depressed. There's nothing to be worried about. Tough luck. GET OVER IT!!!' But then after yelling into a void for months/years you realize that not everyone is the same - just like I can't run a 4 minute mile, other people can't process "things" and events in their life the same way as everyone else. I'm not "broken" for not being able to run well, it's just not in my physical abilities. And others lack mental abilities... that's probably a horrible analogy, but I'm not retyping it all 🙂

And this doesn't even get into the actual chemical imbalances and deficiencies that can/do exist.
And this doesn't even get into the actual fact that you can heal a broken bone and you're "fixed"... there's a logical, reasonable repair process that's been established. But that's not how mental health works. Not to mention that nowadays when you break an arm, they tend do weeks/months of rehab on that arm to bring it back to full strength. But in mental health cases, even if the problem is "fixed", people don't except that there may be "rehab" that's needed for months/years/forever.

It's all so complicated and not black and white. And that's why insurance companies hate it -it's EXPENSIVE AS HELL. It never is really "cured". So, being for profit, they want nothing to do with it and are going to do everything to not help you with it.
 
2 of my brothers put guns in their mouths and pulled the triggers. They needed help, and failing to get proper care, turned to substance abuse/self medicated. A far too common tale from start to finish.

The part about Teflon is not surprising either. The damage lead exposure has done to us older generations is incalculable.

@Homerboy,

My heart goes out to you brother! Nothing hurts us more than when our children hurt. Doesn't matter what kind of hurt it is.
 
DAPUNISHER said:
2 of my brothers put guns in their mouths and pulled the triggers. They needed help, and failing to get proper care, turned to substance abuse/self medicated. A far too common tale from start to finish.

The part about Teflon is not surprising either. The damage lead exposure has done to us older generations is incalculable.

@Homerboy,

My heart goes out to you brother! Nothing hurts us more than when our children hurt. Doesn't matter what kind of hurt it is.
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So sorry to hear about your brothers. One is bad enough... but two? I can't imagine. And as you said, just too common and easy of tale
Thanks buddy. No doubt about watching your kids hurt in any shape way or form.
PLUS, as you know, we had the whole spinal fusion thing with our son too (who is doing very well, FYI. Hope your boy is still kicking ass as well.
 
Thanks for the condolences. :beercheers: They killed themselves about 3 years apart. I am still mad at them, so if I grieve, I have no idea when that starts? I have had a couple of friends and acquaintances pull the same shitty exit strategy. I am still mad at all of them. They all needed help they didn't get.That part I understand. But I will always consider it the most selfish act you can engage in. You get to leave all the pain behind, but you compound it exponentially, for everyone that cared about you. The emotional and mental damage they leave behind is their terrible legacy. Which is another part of the story you understand. That mental illness makes victims of everyone involved, not just the individual suffering from it.

I recall the pics you sent, your boy is in full beast mode. 😎 Hot take: Kids are resilient, your younger one will get better. A loving and supportive family is a great start. And getting them the help they need will hopefully do the rest.

Thank you for your kind words. My kid is doing great. He officially finishes his Bachelor's in Comp Sci tomorrow with a 4.0 GPA. He works around the spine really well BTW. It is weird to see him effortlessly do things without bending his back, like pop up surfing, or get his clothes out of the dryer, as he only has one disk free in the lumbar, and some of the thoracic is fused too. Poor bastard can already feel the weather changing "in his bones", the way us old folks do.
 
DAPUNISHER said:
Thanks for the condolences. :beercheers: They killed themselves about 3 years apart. I am still mad at them, so if I grieve, I have no idea when that starts? I have had a couple of friends and acquaintances pull the same shitty exit strategy. I am still mad at all of them. They all needed help they didn't get.That part I understand. But I will always consider it the most selfish act you can engage in. You get to leave all the pain behind, but you compound it exponentially, for everyone that cared about you. The emotional and mental damage they leave behind is their terrible legacy. Which is another part of the story you understand. That mental illness makes victims of everyone involved, not just the individual suffering from it.

I recall the pics you sent, your boy is in full beast mode. 😎 Hot take: Kids are resilient, your younger one will get better. A loving and supportive family is a great start. And getting them the help they need will hopefully do the rest.

Thank you for your kind words. My kid is doing great. He officially finishes his Bachelor's in Comp Sci tomorrow with a 4.0 GPA. He works around the spine really well BTW. It is weird to see him effortlessly do things without bending his back, like pop up surfing, or get his clothes out of the dryer, as he only has one disk free in the lumbar, and some of the thoracic is fused too. Poor bastard can already feel the weather changing "in his bones", the way us old folks do.
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Yeah - kids are resilient is an understatement. So awesome to hear your kid is crushing it. It is really amazing how they just "adjust" and get on with everything. I think my son's greatest compliant is having to put on socks - but his torso is so damned long, I don't blame him 🙂 My boy gave up the baseball too. Played two summers and did "ok" but realized it was just more work than he was willing to commit too and he had/has bigger fish to fry at this point. Will be starting year 3 in college going for a Bachelor's in Psych and then has eyes on medical school - so big goals for sure. Also crushing it with a 4.0GPA and living his best life to say the least (girlfriend, apartment with his buddies etc etc)

As I said earlier, life is hard and we all need some help here and there. It's important we all have access to that help AND we seek it.
 
Reading that put a big smile on my face! I surmise it was tough for him to stop playing. But he will always have the great memories of playing ball. I gave up fighting because life was calling. It sucks at first, but later you are just grateful for the time you had to do it. He can coach later, it's where we end up.

On topic: This country needs at least 2 generations before there is hope we can turn things around. I fear climate change will make everything else small potatoes though. 😕
 
DAPUNISHER said:
On topic: This country needs at least 2 generations before there is hope we can turn things around. I fear climate change will make everything else small potatoes though. 😕
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It is our culture that fails to prevent these tragedies, both by inducing scarcity / competition stress, and again by not developing and securing coping mechanisms for day to day struggles and failures that we are rarely prepared for, and that some bodies / minds are just not meant to handle. People could be taught / programed to cope better, to be provided better support structures that they may lean against in times of need. Then we might form a more perfect union where basic needs are not something we must beg for.
 
Jfc the stories in this thread! Ill add a short sunshine one, am single parent had a teenage girl dive into *deep* depression, wobbly couple+ of years, been on the right track for another couple of years and she is blossoming and being exactly what she's supposed to be right now, taking on life. Point being. There is light at the end of the tunnel, when you think you're beat, you go another round, then another, then another ... eventually you come out on the other end.
 
iTs MeNtAl HeAlTh

https://twitter.com/x/status/1575602024452096000

The House passed a bill on Thursday that seeks to address mental health concerns among students, families and educators aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which lawmakers say had a “severe impact” on those three groups.


The bill, titled the Mental Health Matters Act, passed in a largely party-line 220-205 vote. One Republican, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), joined all Democrats present in supporting it.
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thehill.com

House passes bill addressing mental health concerns among students, families, educators

The House passed a bill on Thursday that seeks to address mental health concerns among students, families and educators aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which lawmakers say had a “severe impact…
thehill.com thehill.com
 
cytg111 said:
Jfc the stories in this thread! Ill add a short sunshine one, am single parent had a teenage girl dive into *deep* depression, wobbly couple+ of years, been on the right track for another couple of years and she is blossoming and being exactly what she's supposed to be right now, taking on life. Point being. There is light at the end of the tunnel, when you think you're beat, you go another round, then another, then another ... eventually you come out on the other end.
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Underneath this Amarillo sky

ElFenix said:
iTs MeNtAl HeAlTh
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Can't have nice things.😉

www.nbcnews.com

Parents protesting 'critical race theory' identify a new target: Mental health programs

Groups have voiced opposition to suicide prevention programs, mental health coordinators and social emotional learning, claiming they are being used to indoctrinate students.
www.nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com
 
News today: State of Oregon gets 3 million for school safety.

Me immediately: oh great, more reactivate measures

News: It's to be used for increased school counseling, access to mental heath care, and training to recognize depression and anxiety.

Well at least we are trying to get it.
 
The issue with mental health that makes it so hard to fix is that nobody wants to know why it is hard to fix. We would rather die than know what we feel, that we feel like the worst person in the world and the fun part is that not a word of it is true.

But imagine if you grew up in a world where knowledge about the sickness that haunts us were widespread, that we live in a state of denial there is nothing wrong with us but that we feel there is. What if everyday in the news the stories were about people who had gone into a form of psychotherapy that encouraged us to feel what we feel until the feelings came out so real they took us back to real childhood traumatic events and as a result of the realizations so obtained people regained their mental health. Maybe in such a world the need to deny what we feel might decrease and that the road to mental health is just a matter of self empathy for the massive grief we carry. All we ever wanted was to be loved unconditionally and all manner of strings were attached. We do not need to follow those rules. Those strings are unconscious beliefs that are lies we were told.
 
Moonbeam said:
The issue with mental health that makes it so hard to fix is that nobody wants to know why it is hard to fix.
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No, the real problem with mental health is that we can't fix it, and everyone wants to think that we can.
We simply do not understand the brain well enough to know how to fix the vast majority of cases.
While in most cases can't fix mental health, we can manage mental health in many cases.

But that is a lifelong process. You don't take a pill and get better. You take a pill and make it through today.
Therapy does not fix your brain. It teaches you ways to cope with your mental issues. You have to use the things therapy taught you every day for the rest of your life.
Neither of them work fast. It can take years to dial in the right types and dosages of drugs, or teach them the right coping mechanisms to handle a mental illness. Few people want to give it time to work, and for profit insurance is not willing to pay for it. My Insurance lets me see a mental health professional 6 times a year. What they hell good is that going to do?

The real problem with mental healthcare is that people want it to do be like fixing a broken arm, use the right machine, give the right drug, and it will be fixed and you get on with your life. Mental health is not like that.

People want it to do something it is not capable of doing.
 
SMOGZINN said:
No, the real problem with mental health is that we can't fix it, and everyone wants to think that we can.
We simply do not understand the brain well enough to know how to fix the vast majority of cases.
While in most cases can't fix mental health, we can manage mental health in many cases.

But that is a lifelong process. You don't take a pill and get better. You take a pill and make it through today.
Therapy does not fix your brain. It teaches you ways to cope with your mental issues. You have to use the things therapy taught you every day for the rest of your life.
Neither of them work fast. It can take years to dial in the right types and dosages of drugs, or teach them the right coping mechanisms to handle a mental illness. Few people want to give it time to work, and for profit insurance is not willing to pay for it. My Insurance lets me see a mental health professional 6 times a year. What they hell good is that going to do?

The real problem with mental healthcare is that people want it to do be like fixing a broken arm, use the right machine, give the right drug, and it will be fixed and you get on with your life. Mental health is not like that.

People want it to do something it is not capable of doing.
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What am I supposed to do with this. I just said, "The issue with mental health that makes it so hard to fix is that nobody wants to know why it is hard to fix.", and here you are telling me it can't be fixed. Well, you say that because you don't want to know why it's hard to fix not because it can't be fixed. The belief it can't be fixed is why it can't be fixed because you don't want to know how to fix it. Its a self fulfilling prophesy.

The path offered by psychotherapy to mental health is simply to feel what you really feel. That will take you back to reliving some traumatic childhood experience in which you were put down and made to feel worthless. The now conscious memory of the experience and surviving it allows for the realization that what transpired was that you were forced to believe a lie.

Religions, that open the heart to love, that train the body to be in the present and not feel fear, or meditation practices that stop thought offer a bridge to step right over the negatives. The objective is self realization via the death of ego. Mental illness is the loneliness of a self that can't trust because of profound childhood betrayal. But for those who are completely self defeated a door can open to Grace. Grace is the result of total surrender, compassion for the defeated.

That's my opinion.
 
SMOGZINN said:
No, the real problem with mental health is that we can't fix it, and everyone wants to think that we can.
We simply do not understand the brain well enough to know how to fix the vast majority of cases.
While in most cases can't fix mental health, we can manage mental health in many cases.

But that is a lifelong process. You don't take a pill and get better. You take a pill and make it through today.
Therapy does not fix your brain. It teaches you ways to cope with your mental issues. You have to use the things therapy taught you every day for the rest of your life.
Neither of them work fast. It can take years to dial in the right types and dosages of drugs, or teach them the right coping mechanisms to handle a mental illness. Few people want to give it time to work, and for profit insurance is not willing to pay for it. My Insurance lets me see a mental health professional 6 times a year. What they hell good is that going to do?

The real problem with mental healthcare is that people want it to do be like fixing a broken arm, use the right machine, give the right drug, and it will be fixed and you get on with your life. Mental health is not like that.

People want it to do something it is not capable of doing.
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I don't think that's a problem. Rather the problem, which you see, is that people think that's the problem when it isn't. So then you're stuck having that stupid, pointless conversation instead of even addressing the actual problems.

But, people have those same misconceptions about physical health as well. They want doctors to fix things permanently and that's often not the case, and doubly so for things that aren't really fixable (especially things that happen due to age), so then they complain about their doctors. But they'll do that, while they do nothing to change their lifestyle habits for the better in order to feel better, then wonder why docs just prescribe medicine (because they see that those people won't make changes). Its a vicious cycle and the docs get beaten down seeing people so unwilling to change to improve their health so they stop wasting their time trying to help people as much. Which in turn fuels them coming off as uncaring pill pushers to patients.

Its why universal health care is so important. It will drastically alter the situation where people then go in for routine check ups, which will both help with preventable issues as well as catch more serious stuff earlier (when less will be needed to manage it). And if you grow up being able to get such, you're much more likely to continue it. It removes the stigma of stuff (which played a role in say vaccinations).

Mental health should be part of that. People don't want to talk about how the physical stuff also affects the mental as well. Like not getting enough sleep, not eating or eating just constant garbage food and then wondering why you feel like shit.

Its all health, its all related, and its all being mishandled. People want to blame the industry, which absolutely has major issues, but they don't want to admit their role in it having got this way.
 
I have very confused, conflicted, opinions about this. In diametric contrast to those Republican parents mentioned in the article above, sometimes I see the mental health industry as being a tool of the right. Much of it seems intended to locate the source of all problems and distress in the minds of those suffering from them, while diverting attention from real material problems outside people's minds that cause those problems. Much of it seems to be just formalised victim-blaming.

In that respect it's partly about propping up the status quo and maintaining a Panglossian pretense that this is the best of all possible worlds.

CBT, most of all, seems to exemplify that. And I don't think its coincidental that a right-wing Tory government here instigated a mass program of cheap, script-driven CBT, as a solution to all mental health issues.

It seems like a companion to the 'work program' that they came up with at the same time. Just as that assumed that the cause of all unemployment is the wrong attitudes of the unemployed, that need to be corrected by hectoring the individual unemployed person (rather than the problem being anything structural in the economy), CBT seems to be based on the idea that all unhappiness or dysfunction is due to the individual having mistaken ideas about the world and, basically, being insufficiently bourgeois, and not thinking like a mid-20th century middle-class white American.
 
Hey there! I totally get where you're coming from. I caught John Oliver's latest episode, and man, he hit the nail on the head regarding mental health and the messed-up state of insurance companies. It's frustrating to see how little progress has been made in the past decade. My own family has also been dealing with mental health challenges, and it's been a rollercoaster ride navigating the system. It's disheartening to hear that even doctors and practitioners are feeling the impact. We need better support for everyone, regardless of their neurotypical meaning.
 
YvonneClark said:
Hey there! I totally get where you're coming from. I caught John Oliver's latest episode, and man, he hit the nail on the head regarding mental health and the messed-up state of insurance companies. It's frustrating to see how little progress has been made in the past decade. My own family has also been dealing with mental health challenges, and it's been a rollercoaster ride navigating the system. It's disheartening to hear that even doctors and practitioners are feeling the impact. We need better support for everyone, regardless of their neurotypical meaning.
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ChatGPT is that you?
 
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