An article for the Los Angeles Times, entitled “His 83-year-old Wife jumped to her death from a Kaiser clinic- why?” tells the story of Barbara Ragan who stepped off a roof in front of her mental health clinic with traces of Xanax, Prozac and an antidepressant in her blood. Her son complained that she did not receive adequate treatement. “All they do is distribute drugs,” he said. “She was upfront with them and gave them every opportunity to help her out, but it was just, ‘This is all we’re going to do for you and we hope it works.'”
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This was so familiar to me when I read it. The times that I tried to deal with the community mental health clinic in the city where I live I was given anything but the help I was asking for. It was if the staff there tried their best to not help me and all the rest of the people sent to them for “care”. When I stated to their faces that what they were pushing as “help” was not help at all and was unacceptable a social worker basically told me what this article stated. “If you don’t like it then too bad because this is all you’re going to get!” Lower level staff later came to me and quietly told me to keep forcing their hand until I had to be helped.
So this is the kind of treatment the “mental health community” is handing out as “help” and “treatment”?!!! Totally unacceptable but if you raise any complaints they just shrug and go on about their business, which totally has absolutely nothing to do with caring for and helping people. What is wrong with this picture? And this is what the Murphy bills in Congress are supporting and pushing on our society?
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This isn’t about Kaiser alone. This is about pushing prescription drugs that are not only vastly ineffective, but are given as the only “real” treatment. This woman and millions like her are given a pill(s) by a providers and turned out and why? Because it’s more profitable than sitting with someone and actually getting to know their struggles and treat them like human beings. This is mental health inc. towing the line and in denial about the amount of help they are actually giving (very little).
In all fairness, the system has done little since 1980 to do much more than push pills and conspire with big pharma to create new ailments for pills that needed to be pushed. The only people winning in this situation are those on the profit side (drug companies, medical groups, psychiatry, psychology, school systems, social services, universities that benefit from NIMH grants, NAMI, etc). A system this corrupt and this dysfunctional can’t help anyone. When does the insanity of this unfit “helping/treating” system end so that people can recover and lead good lives? Decade after decade psychiatry proves it can’t manage the task so why do so many still think it’s a legitimate approach to human suffering that will “fix” things? -
Billions and billions of dollars and all the massive mental ‘health’ system seems to provide is the same old DSM labels and bottles of pills.
Meanwhile Alcoholics Anonymous helps millions of people and funds itself passing a basket people put dollars in.
Someone should start like depression and anxiety anonymous of some sort where people can get together and help each other out. Without multi billion dollar companies and politics and everything else mucking it up
“They” are never going to get this DSM based billing label and drug thing to work, its a failed experiment. Its so very expensive and not very effective and never will be.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
But WTF try some more funding and keep doing the same things. Get corporate on it ASAP or pass some “legislation” LOL
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Psychiatric treatment at it’s best. Her son has nailed it, it’s sad that only after he lost his mother.
