Real-life conversations that NORMALITY needs to remain death, dumb & blind too? "Many people are all too aware of the shortcomings of our current mental health system. Depending on factors of economic privilege and cultural prejudice, people experience those shortcomings differently and are impacted by them with varying degrees of severity and significance. To psychiatric human rights activists, the mental health system is a cruel and harmful abuse of power for the sake of social control and corporate profit. For many workers within the system, it is a frustrating regimen of paperwork, policies, and feeling ineffectual in what one is able to do within the scope of a bi-weekly check-in. Often, for service users, in many ways the mental health system is simply an inaccessible insult, with scant appointments, callous and fatigued providers, and treatments that seem to cause more problems than they solve. While many have been helped by various individuals within the mental health system, people who went above and beyond their role as “staff” and approached their work with a genuine commitment to humanity; the mental health system has tragically failed a great many more, often in ways resulting in desperation, diminished potential, alienation and, all too frequently, untimely and avoidable death, often by suicide. In a recent article featured in O Magazine, in which radical mental health activist Jacks McNamara spoke about community support and alternative wellness, reporter Alissa Quart mused in closing that intentionally structured community support networks may be the “wave of the future” considering the failure of our public service system and social culture to meet even our most basic human needs for support. However, the challenges of community support are many. As one of the coordinators of a local radical mental health group, a person who works as a peer at a community mental health center, and a volunteer at a local safe space that serves the houseless, I encounter a lot of people who are struggling in various ways. Sometimes it strikes me as a little strange that some people can go through most of their lives and not ever be in a position of supporting someone who is experiencing life and death struggles. Personally and professionally, I end up spending a lot of time with people who don’t know how they are going to survive and with people who want very much to die. Interestingly, it seems that many people who experience crisis may not experience such difficult times if they receive support within their community when they begin to struggle with some aspect of their life or experience. While there are many current dialogues about “early intervention,” very few of them send the message that there are ways that family and friends can support people who are struggling, or that people can learn to support themselves through difficult times. Research shows that psychosocial support and caring relationships are vital to people’s wellness, but most media messages encourage people to simply call the doctor sooner. We do not see public service announcements designed to raise awareness of the fact that, for many of us, our families and communities are so stressed that they are not able to perform the primary function of human relationships, which is to support and care for one another. We are not informed of the view that, in regard to human distress, perhaps the strain on family and community networks has something to do with why so many people seem to be having a hard time within their lives. Psychiatry has, by and large, actively marketed the view that human struggle is a matter of mental disorder and mental disorder is not something that we can handle within our private lives. We are encouraged to approach supporting ourselves and other people as something that is beyond what we are capable of, something for “professionals” to handle. Psychiatry and the mental health industry has also expanded their definitive jurisdiction in determining the appropriately normal ranges of human distress or anomaly within experience and has established that even aspects of the human condition such as mild depression, anxiety, and grief are troubles that are best handled by professional agencies. We are led to believe that we, as family and community members, are not equipped to know what to do when we ourselves or our loved ones begin to show “symptoms” of being in a state which could be considered to be a mental disorder. Despite our knowing that other things may be occurring in our lives that could be causing upset or confusion, e.g. trauma, loss, life transitions, physical illness, social alienation, and occupational predicaments, we believe that if we begin to show signs of “not being able to deal with things” that we must seek professional help, either for ourselves or for our loved ones. Last week, I was watching a brief video clip of therapist and activist Will Hall talking about suicide and as he spoke about listening and about empowering people, I found myself thinking, “Yeah, but how…? A lot of people do not know how to do this!” Neighbors have traditionally helped neighbors, friends have helped friends. There is nothing new about people reaching out and trying to finding a hand to hold in some way. Why then does it seem so hard for some people to find the help they need?" _Faith Rhyne. Please read the first comment response to this post, which all too painfully, REAL? madinamerica/2013/08/suicide-community-and-the-challenges-of-support/
Posted on: Mon, 05 Aug 2013 00:31:10 +0000