Everyone Who Has Mental Illness Matters

I have been so conflicted over whether or not to write a post reflecting on the death of actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman due to a possible heroin overdose after 23 years of sobriety. He was a fantastic actor and his loss is felt by many people for how he touched their lives through his acting. Not very different from when Glee's Cory Monteith died last year also from a heroin overdose. Depending on your age, you may have felt a connection and deep sense of lose with the death of both of these actors. I have also written about other celebrities and mental illness such as the suicide of Lee Thomson Young.

When I write about these celebrities it is often to help raise awareness about mental illness. The stories of these celebrities remind us that mental illness is a very common illness but also one that we try to hide all the time. However, when we speak up, we help bring it to light. As more people can identify with those of us with mental illness, more compassion can be created, and the more people will want to help rather than make fun of or hide the illness.

For some reason though, even with how much I like Phillip Seymour Hoffman, I felt like I did not know what to say, until I read an article by actress Jamie Lee Curtis on the subject of Hoffman's death and addiction in general. In it she says: "What we rarely talk about are the deaths of the unknown soldiers and civilians, the non-famous. Their deaths, no less sad and tragic, their families' grief, any lesser."

I could write about another celebrity and have a call to action through compassion and better care for those of us with addiction and mental illness. However, I have done it so many times before. What makes the stories of the celebrities any more important than the many people who die daily of overdose and suicide? Furthermore, I feel a bit like I am almost exploiting the deaths of these celebrities by using their death as a way to call us to action. Would they want their death to be used in that way? I did not ask them. Am I using their celebrity status for an agenda rather than seeing them as just another human being who struggled to live well on this earth, just like all the rest of us?

The truth is, everyone who has mental illness matters. None of these celebrities are any different than the rest of us. Yet we keep writing these stories because it's sensational yet a few months later we forget and nothing changes. In the mean time, people with mental illness are dying every day and we never mention them and never write about them. In fact, we cover up the reason for their death. In the mean time about 58 million people in America are living with a mental disorder and we do not do much about it.

How about now we do something about it instead of only talking about it when a new story comes out?

Here are some suggestions of what we can do:

• Learn about mental illness and the effectiveness of different types of treatment.
• Read stories from people living with mental illness.
• Ask a friend or family member with mental illness how we can support them.
• Advocate for more advanced treatment options.
• Volunteer with an organization that helps people with mental illness. 

Blessings,

Rev. Katie

Another Shooting, Another Discussion of Mental Illness

After the shooting at the Navy Yard this week, of course the media turns to mental illness as a cause. Unlike many of the other recent shootings, there is documentation that the shooter, Aaron Alexis, probably had some form of mental illness. He did report hearing voices and other paranoid beliefs weeks prior to this event. However, for me, the key is not that there was documented possible mental illness (he had never been officially diagnosed) but that he also had documented past gun offenses and more importantly, he received poor mental health care. (I wonder why a person with previous gun offenses even had a gun, and those offenses apparently occurred before he ever reported experiencing paranoia or any mental health issues.) It is not the mental illness alone that causes an event like this, it is a combination of factors.

Apparently Alexis had spoken to police weeks before about hearing voices through the walls and the police reported it to the Navy and nothing was done. Then Alexis went to the Veterans Affairs ER twice for insomnia but did not mention the paranoia, and he was given sleeping pills. To give sleeping pills to someone with possible mental illness is just wrong. Clearly there is something wrong in the system that Alexis was given those pills, on two separate occasions, even though police had reported that he was experiencing paranoia. Some sleeping pills can increase risks of suicide and depression. Many medications can interact with mental illness negatively, such as how antidepressants trigger manic episodes in people with bipolar disorder. You have to correctly diagnose the mental illness before you start perscribing medications. To me it seems that previous issues with violence and gun offences combined with poor regulation of medicine is more of a possible cause of this shooting than just blamining it on mental illness alone.

When we just look at mental illness in general as a cause, we promote the idea that all people with mental illness are as much of a risk to society as Alexis was on that day. We assume if we never let anyone with a mental illness have a gun, there will be no more shootings. This is not true, especially since most shootings are not committed by people with mental illness. There are many factors which go into creating the perfect storm that lead to an event like this, and possible mental illness is one factor for this particular situation. However, I know many people who hear voices, think they are being followed, and have paranoia who are not violent, have never used a gun, and have never committed a crime.

I think we also need to look at the fact that the stigma against mental illness is terrible in our society, but especially bad in the military. This means most people do not even seek treatment for mental illness. We know that people in the military are not able to ask for help with mental health issues for fear of loosing their job, even for very mild mental health issues. Maybe Alexis could have gotten help earlier if he would have felt safe enough to get mental health care much earlier when mild symptoms probably presented themselves months ago, if not years ago. 

I just wish we would look at each of these cases individually and not lump violence and mental illness into a category together which stigmatizes all people with mental illness. We need to look at each person individually.

Clearly we need better mental health care, not only because of events like this where poor mental health care is very likely to be a factor, but also for the 1 in 4 Americans with mental illness who need better care- and most of them are not violent. The need for better mental health care is not because of violence, it is because people with mental illness deserve good care and a chance at the best life possible.

Blessings,

Rev. Katie