A CLIMATE OF ANXIETY, FEAR AND HOPELESSNESS

According to many, the United States is experiencing its worst recession since the Great Depression. Nationwide, cuts to mental illness treatment services are the most extensive they have been in the last 30 years. Montana is also beginning to experience budget deficits. While politicians and public officials publicly assure us there has not been budget cuts to mental health services, mental illness providers tell their clients cuts to mental illness treatment are imminent. I have received calls from individuals suffering from severe mental illness who are extremely anxious about their future.

In my experience, individuals suffering from a severe mental illness almost always suffer from extreme anxieties. They are in fact sometimes paralyzed by fear and find it difficult to function. A diagnosis of severe mental illness is the quickest ticket to poverty I know. Hopes and dreams for a fulfilling, comfortable and rewarding life are blown out of the water. Because our culture does not readily accept people who live with serious mental illness, they are in most cases marginalized. They live on the fringe of everyday society.. Mental illness means that you usually live in substandard housing, rarely are able they to find meaningful employment, rely on the meager funding of Social Security benefits in order to live, access Medicaid for health care and medication, food stamps for food with very little hope of a rewarding future.

Individuals living with mental illness are extremely concerned about their future. Reductions in treatment programs frighten them. Losing access to life saving medications is terrifying. Many of them worry that they will not have any future. Reductions to mental health services will lead to increased hospitalizations at the Montana State Hospital, place a burden on law enforcement and our criminal justice system, some say suicides will increase. A number of years ago, one of my favorite legislators told me not so play the suicide care. So, I sent him a newspaper clipping monthly of obituaries of individuals I have known who lost their lives to mental illness and suicide.

I know mental illness treatment services will never be funded at the level I would like to see. I know that if people living with serious mental illness receive appropriate evidenced-based services, recovery from severe mental illness is possible. So what can we do in these difficult financial time. Several years ago the final paragraphs of Montana's Olmstead concluded there would probably never be the needed funding for mental illness treatment programs. However, what was needed was a change of attitude. Society must accept the fact that mental illnesses are real and treatable. They are no-fault brain disorders. We need to be more caring and compassionate to people suffering from these overwhelming disorders. And, we must not extinguish hope for the mentally ill. Because right now that is all many of the have. Compassionate mental illness providers and caring families must provide this hope.

If a society is judged by the manner in which we care for our most vulnerable citizens, we are not doing very well right now.

Dr, Gary Mihelish, Past-President
National Alliance on Mental Illness of Montana