World Mental Health Day - The Reality Of Pyschiatric Services and How We Need To Embrace Our Mental Health and Let Go Of All The Stigma!
Before I became a mum, I worked in mental health. A profession that I both loved and hated. I loved the people I met and helped, but hated the system I worked for. I spend 10 years working in community mental health and in all that time, I experienced such inner turmoil. I worked so hard to help keep people out of hospital, trying to empower them and be an advocate for them. But I was still working for the system, they paid me my salary at the end of the day.
But because of that job I got to see the reality if how people were treated, how pharmaceutical companies pushed their new medication on doctors, with such wonderful incentives. They would come to my workplace and host these extravagant lunches, dishing out free merchandise that promoted their drugs and keeping the health staff sweet. There were also conferences held and weekends away especially for those higher up in the profession.
So many people are put on medication trials by their doctors, yet another medication added on top of the huge amount, that they were already taking. In the end they are human guinea pigs, where they would are under strict observation, so that any effects and side effects are recorded. I witnessed people having to be admitted to psychiatric hospital, because of the reaction their bodies had to this new medication.
The side effects of psychiatric medication, are really what causes a lot of the stigma that people experience. Certain drugs affect the way you walk, they can make you appear to look spaced out, they can can cause weight gain and affect your speech. Some really affect your sleep, causing nightmares and increased levels of anxiety. So then other medication needs to be prescribed to deal with those side effects, they may reduce the severity but they never get rid of them completely.
It always angered me that medication is the first line of treatment especially when you use public health services. All they really do is try to deal with the symptoms and in the end just end up creating more problems, with so many people now on highly addictive medication of the rest of their lives. I really hope that things change, that their is more of a holistic type of care implemented.
The majority of people that I worked with, were very sensitive, they felt things so deeply and they often felt the pain of others so strongly. They did not understand why the world is the way it is, with so much suffering going on. Their sensitivity spread to how they would feel in artificial settings, feeling completely over stimulated in shopping centres and city centres. Becoming so anxious and stressed out by where they were living, by what they were witnessing. So why are they then treated in hospitals, in an environment that triggers their suffering?
I can personally identify with how they were feeling, and at times wondered how I didn't end up in that same situation. (That answer is for another post.)We all suffer with our mental health at different times throughout our lives, there is no need for so many people to become ostracized from society. Because that is what happens, people are hidden away in hospitals, removed from all that they know, from where they feel safe and secure. Ending up in a cold building where they are told when to sleep, when to wake up, when to eat, they are punished because of their suffering.
How did we get to this?
Why are so many, made to feel so embarrassed and ashamed about who they are and how they respond to life?
Why is something that is actually a gift, been treated like a curse?
Why is our physical health, deemed more important then our mental health, when they are connected, you can not have full health, if either is suffering and they usually mirror one another. Yet this disconnection remains. It is so important to spread mental health awareness, to educate our children and ourselves. To speak about these things openly and honestly, if everyone started a discussion about mental health, if everyone talked about the importance of self care. If we all began to reach out to others who are suffering.
We always jump to help those who are physically sick, but what about those that feel depressed, who really struggle to get through the day. Why are we continuing to turn a blind eye to their suffering, why must they suffer in silence. Community is so important, connecting with people, supporting people, watching out for people, these are the things that can help lift others up. That can help stop this spiral of ill health. Why are we all not doing more?
8 Pillars of TribeSteemUp
Really we haven't changed much since the days of locking people away in Bedlam. If someone is struggling to adapt, we don't assist them, we just lock them up in medication instead of an asylum, to make them easier to deal with.
I recently learnt how much childhood trauma can affect the mind, even into adulthood. I wonder how often that sort of thing is looked into as part of the treatment.
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yes exactly, medication instead of asylums and straight jackets. Everything goes back to our childhood and also to our birth, so many experiences imprinted on our mind and yeah treatment is to patch up and brush off xxx
I like what you are pointing out here. Medication can be very helpful in certain situations, but often there are twenty other things that can be done to prevent a person from needing medication. To me, it feels like giving medicine to someone is the easiest way, when sometimes all they really need is someone that is there, to listen, to talk to them, to give them a hug when they feel like they are all alone. I'm pretty open about my own mental health issues, but I still notice that a lot of people don't know what to say when I tell them about it and then they get a kind of awkward. Hopefully one day, a broken leg and mental illnesses will no longer be treated that differently.
thank you for your lovely response @lackofcolor, we certainly are far to reliant on medication when really we need more promotion of self care and also in building and maintaining community. It is so true so many just need to be heard and understood and to be given wonderful healing in the form of human contact and touch xxx
I can relate to this in so many different ways. Although I like to say that I'm not depressed anymore, every single day is somewhat of a struggle ( some more than others ). I also had to think a lot of my father and the medication / drugs he has been on for the last 25 ( anti depressants ) and especially the last 10 years ( too much to go into detail here ) as well as of his mania leading to a psychosis, after receiving too much morphine during and / or after his open heart surgery.
I resonate with this a lot, as well as with the community part.
Thank you for your thoughtful words, as always. You're such a valuable asset to this community and the planet
xx
thank you Vincent, I really do hope to see an end to people suffering in silence, we need to use our voices, to advocate for those who have lost their oin their struggle. Love to you my friend, you are doing wonderfully xxx
Hear! Hear!
And thank you for your kind words :>)
xx
I appreciate hearing your first hand experience of the tragedy of Big Pharma abuse and the corruption of the medical profession by these parasitic and greedy people who prey on the sick, make them more sick and destroy lives for personal profit. The world has been taken over by greed and has lost its humanity when the most educated people are killing for profit.
Upvoted and resteemed.
thank you @julianhorack, it is always good to connect with those who are awake to what is happening xx