Mental healthcare must be addressed
Mental healthcare must be addressed
Our family recently lost a member. He died as a direct result of the failing first world mental healthcare system. He lost his long battle with being marginalized and deprived of basic human needs due to mismanaged mental health. It’s a cascade of events that lead many down a familiar path. Lack of acknowledgment that they are afflicted because of the deeply ingrained stigma and cultural attitudes that come with mental illness which leads to isolation, leads to hopelessness/psychosis, leads to un-employability, leads to homelessness, malnutrition and all throughout, the strong possibility of self medicating with alcohol and drugs.
Just in time for the holidays, the CDC came out with some pretty grim statistics. Death rates in our country rose 10% from drug overdoses and 4% from suicide, in one year and are steadily climbing. Affecting rural communities the most, like us here in Kauai. The holiday season, a time when those that don’t have connections become more isolated. A time when those who are susceptible become depressed and suicidal. This is also a time when not only depression occurs, but mania and psychosis can also be triggered. Unfortunately we all know someone who fits the bill. The fact is that in our community, and in our country, we lack the support that can help us and our loved ones through these difficulties.
My hopes are that we initiate a solid plan in the way we treat those that are struggling everyday with voices, addictions, PTSD and chemical imbalances. We need to start addressing mental health in elementary school, have it be part of the curriculum in hopes that we can lift the shame of mental illness and the fear of asking for help or recognizing the need for help. Lets start there, and continue towards building a system that catches those that are at risk of falling through.
Belgica Heredia, RN, Kapaa
Subscribe today for unlimited access.
Already a subscriber?
Login
Not ready to subscribe?
Register for limited access.
If you have a print subscription but require digital access,
activate your account.
The public schools on Kauai provide mental health services.
I am sorry for your loss.
The mental health system in the US is definitely in need of a overhaul. People who need and WANT help find it extremely difficult to weed through the network of doctors and insurance companies. Those who don’t want help are just left on the streets to roam and fend for themselves because the government isn’t allowed to step in.
I am not sure what the answer is, but it is NOT the schools. Teachers already have enough on their plates, adding mental health to their overburdened schedules and curriculum is not going to help. It may take away future shame, but people need help NOW.
Maybe if the government would shift those millions of dollars they want to use for homelessness projects and put it into mental health help, they wouldn’t have the homelessness in the first place? Just a thought……
We? What about your family taking some responsibility for this?
RG DeSoto
What a sad story! It’s happening far too often in our society! Unfortunately, the author has the wrong fix. The cause is complicated, but much of it can be broken down to the following: Broken families, both legal prescriptions and illegal drugs flooding into our neighborhoods, selfishness and a lack of self worth experienced by our young adults and citizens, a society more interested in destroying a belief in things higher than ourselves, and too much welfare, government bailouts, and a government that forgot that self worth is obtained by building character in the form of striving for success through hard work and sacrifice. Belgica sounds like someone who came from a Socialist Country that has grown to expect Government to solve all of their family, neighborhood and lifestyle problems? Just another symptom of a slide to the destruction of a Constitution and the strong independent hard working people who used to admire it. The same people who voted for Donald Trump in spite of his “personality” that is so distasteful to the snowflakes and shallow among us! The problems are real, the causes are real, and it’s time to look in the mirror and admit that we’ve brought it on ourselves!
Aloha Kakou,
Sad But True, mental illness, now being called BROKEN BRAIN, as well as massive increases in opiate addiction and overdoses, suicide, and so many old and new flavors, brands, types, styles, and the many body locations of cancer, the increase in heart attack disease, vascular blood and other bodily fluid vessel diseases such as strokes, clots, high blood pressure, and aneurisms, plus the epidemic levels of obesity and diabetes, and a large list or other diseases all on the increase…and all we get is new multiple ineffective treatments with the Chemical Chaos of medical drug ills and lethal side effects…
…and Sad But True our Health (Disease) Care System, and the people working for that system, working so hard on the one hand but unwilling to see beyond the rut we are in, and still willing to continue the same old wait for the people to become sick, and run an ineffective after-the-fact Disease Mill, endlessly treating people with no return to health only using the same old ruse that if your symptoms improve that the disease is getting better, when in fact, the Cause that makes the sickness or disease is still there in that person’s body and life, causing an internal continual ongoing of the Cause and thus the disease or illness being treated…often the drug treatment being for the rest of the patient’s life as is too often the case with diabetes and high blood pressure and heart disease and stroke. But never mind the Cause just keep taking the petrochemical prescription drugs, that also in fact perpetuate or internally continue the disease while the cause of the disease is being ignored.
Sad But True, the Disease Care System is, in an overall view, letting the majority of us down; and We Deserve Better and it’s time We Demand Better.
The Signs and symptoms of Diseases are EFFECTS OF A Cause. To restore our health we must spend more time on determining the
Causes of the Effects of Disease.
Identify the Causes of Disease, announce the Causes to the people, and educate the people as to the CAUSES, and REMOVE those Causes from exposure to the Public. This is the SANE to do. Not to do this, and continuing the same disease ridden system of petrochemical treatments, fulfills the definition of Insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome, like health but that does not happen, Disease just keeps going on and on.
Ignoring the Cause of Disease is a disservice to people. We pay for Disease Care but the number of diseases, and the number of people with diseases are getting worse. 55% of American are currently taking 4 prescription medicines, and some of those are taking more in Over The Counter medicines…that is not only a national embarrassment, but a national weakness of the majority of our population, and a SHAME on the overall disease care system, and anyone else who is willing to sit back and accept this low level (America is ranked 37th in the world for quality of Health CARE) of Pseudo Health Care.
Identifying the Causes of the Big Money Diseases, and removing those Causes is imperative even if it means shifting the money being spent on Disease, and reducing the $4 Trillion Dollars a year spent on ineffective Disease Care.
One thing is known for sure, that while the amount of sick people and the amount of diseases are expanding (as well as individual people, LOL) and increasing as to numbers of people with Disease, one of the apparent causes is that the common thing among sick people is that they EAT, AND THEY Eat the Same Foods nationwide.
The sick and diseased and obese people eat daily at the same Nutrition-less Junk Fast Food (nation wide and state wide chains of…) brand name restaurants and grocery stores, the supply of which are controlled by huge international and national corporations known now as Big Food and are Corporations that make, for example in one case, billions of boxes of breakfast cereals per year and endless amount of other foods low in human life value and high in petrochemicals, and also worthless habituating sugars.
Sad But True also, adding to all that is the enormous increase in the use of chemicals that are petrochemicals, meaning chemicals made from oil, just like the same oíl you put in your car or truck. That oil through modern chemistry is converted from barrels of crude oil from oil wells and refined in laboratories and made into the cancer chemicals they put in our food, and the Cancer chemicals that are made into our medicines.
Read the food labels, nearly all food has many petrochemicals in them. These petrochemicals are by virtue of being made from oil, mean that they are Carcinogenic, or Cancer causing. Read the labels, because if you Remove the Cause of Disease it will eliminate the Effects of Disease. These Effects are known as medical signs and symptoms. “Signs” are what the doctor can see doing testing like blood tests and x-rays, etc., and Symptoms are what you can see on yourself, like lumps or skin disorders, or that you can feel, like pains. These are effects and it makes only sense to remove their Causes…which can restore normalcy and part of what makes us Healthy.
And fresh foods, like fruits and vegetables, while are often not in packages, they have often been sprayed with petrochemical poisons, or treated with petrochemicals that are Cancer causing. Example would be the Agricultural petrochemicals sprayed on crops worldwide, or even gassed like bananas coming all the way to Hawaii from South America as much as 15,000 miles when bananas easily grow here already.
Add to that insult, the fact that the County of Kaua’i denies Agriculture Agreements to small farmers even when they are obviously farming just to get higher property tax, the cost of which kills the ability to farm live natural food on Kaua’i due to rules made up by non farmers but instead tax collectors; making no sense whatsoever. Over taxing the small farmers, and then bring a poison gassed banana 15,000 miles from South America, does not make a whole lot of sense, but does stupidity. Plus imported fresh foods runs the risk of importing foreign bacteria and bugs detrimental to our food and environment.
AMERICA has greater problems than just other countries possibly meddling in our economy and elections, we have more problems with farming, food, and a Disease Care System becoming more and more every year, more dependent on petrochemicals in and on our food and put directly into our bodies in the form of medicines…and it’s for the most part cancer chemicals…too many and too much of which are used and consumed here on Kaua’i and lost in the soil and surface and ocean waters.
And the sick, obese, and diseased people are not stupid, they are just sadly oblivious and ignorant of what is going on. But you cannot blame these people as they have not been educated. How can people know, if not told and shown, that the fat in their steaks and burgers, and the fats,in the other meat of cows pigs, goats, and sheep, (and some birds and fish more than others), provide the grease, fat, and lard that makes heart attacks and strokes…?
And same about the chemicals that cause cancer in humans, like Glyphosate in the weed killers, and chemical hormones given to animals to increase their growth and weight and sale value, the same growth hormones that make human tumors grow, or the protein in dairy that turns our cells, and childrens’ cells into cancer cells and thus the tumors that are effected by synthetic growth hormones in the animals we Eat.
Converting cancer causing crude oil into food additives and poison chemicals to put into and onto our food, has been a departure from relying on Mother Nature, but mostly only for about less than 100 years; compared to mankind’s reliance on Nature for the entire prior time mankind has been on earth.
It’s and idea whose time has finally returned, and that is to rely on Nature instead of so called Modern Chemistry which seems to be bringing us Global Warming and the bad side effects of same.
Petrochemicals are pollution wherever you use or put them…! Let’s identify and remove these causes from our precious Earth and our Lives.
Mahalo Charles
Aloha Kakou,
Sad But True, mental illness, now being called BROKEN BRAIN, as well as massive increases in opiate addiction and overdoses, suicide, and so many old and new flavors, brands, types, styles, and the many body locations of cancer, the increase in heart attack disease, vascular blood and other bodily fluid vessel diseases such as strokes, clots, high blood pressure, and aneurisms, plus the epidemic levels of obesity and diabetes, and a large list or other diseases all on the increase…and all we get is new multiple ineffective treatments with the Chemical Chaos of medical drug ills and lethal side effects…
…and Sad But True our Health (Disease) Care System, and the people working for that system, working so hard on the one hand but unwilling to see beyond the rut we are in, and still willing to continue the same old wait for the people to become sick, and run an ineffective after-the-fact Disease Mill, endlessly treating people with no return to health only using the same old ruse that if your symptoms improve that the disease is getting better, when in fact, the Cause that makes the sickness or disease is still there in that person’s body and life, causing an internal continual ongoing of the Cause and thus the disease or illness being treated…often the drug treatment being for the rest of the patient’s life as is too often the case with diabetes and high blood pressure and heart disease and stroke. But never mind the Cause just keep taking the petrochemical prescription drugs, that also in fact perpetuate or internally continue the diseasetatiojs while the cause of the disease is being ignored.
Sad But True, the Disease Care System is, in an overall view, letting the majority of us down; and We Deserve Better and it’s time We Demand Better.
Mental Illness, or its new name Broken Brain, and it’s many manifestations, are another “spoke in the wheel” of poisonous petrochemicals gone wild in the food industry, making what we eat a major contributor mental illness, or Broken Brain.
The Signs and symptoms of Mental Diseases are EFFECTS OF A Cause. To restore our health we must spend more time on determining the Causes of the Effects of Disease. Every Effect has a Cause, and the Cause is there. A lot,of evidence points to the modern changes in how food is grown, manufactured, laboratory altered, chemically treated, genetically controlled, and poisoned from its very seed of birth.
Identify the Causes of Disease, announce the Causes to the people, and educate the people as to the CAUSES, and REMOVE those Causes from exposure to the Public. This is the SANE to do. Not to do this, and continuing the same disease ridden system of petrochemical treatments, fulfills the definition of Insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome, like health but that does not happen, Disease just keeps going on and on.
Ignoring the Cause of Disease is a disservice to people. We pay for Disease Care but the number of diseases, and the number of people with diseases are getting worse. 55% of American are currently taking 4 prescription medicines, and some of those are taking more in Over The Counter medicines…that is not only a national embarrassment, but a national weakness of the majority of our population, and a SHAME on the overall disease care system, and anyone else who is willing to sit back and accept this low level (America is ranked 37th in the world for quality of Health CARE) of Pseudo Health Care.
Identifying the Causes of the Big Money Diseases, and removing those Causes is imperative even if it means shifting the money being spent on Disease, and reducing the $4 Trillion Dollars a year spent on ineffective Disease Care.
One thing is known for sure, that while the amount of sick people and the amount of diseases are expanding (as well as individual people, LOL) and increasing as to numbers of people with Disease, one of the apparent causes is that the common thing among sick people is that they EAT, AND THEY Eat the Same Foods nationwide.
The sick and diseased and obese people eat daily at the same Nutrition-less Junk Fast Food (nation wide and state wide chains of…) brand name restaurants and grocery stores, the supply of which are controlled by huge international and national corporations known now as Big Food and are Corporations that make, for example in one case, billions of boxes of breakfast cereals per year and endless amount of other foods low in human life value and high in petrochemicals, and also worthless habituating sugars.
Sad But True also, adding to all that is the enormous increase in the use of chemicals that are petrochemicals, meaning chemicals made from oil, just like the same oíl you put in your car or truck. That oil through modern chemistry is converted from barrels of crude oil from oil wells and refined in laboratories and made into the cancer chemicals they put in our food, and the Cancer chemicals that are made into our medicines.
Read the food labels, nearly all food has many petrochemicals in them. These petrochemicals are by virtue of being made from oil, mean that they are Carcinogenic, or Cancer causing. Read the labels, because if you Remove the Cause of Disease it will eliminate the Effects of Disease. These Effects are known as medical signs and symptoms. “Signs” are what the doctor can see doing testing like blood tests and x-rays, etc., and Symptoms are what you can see on yourself, like lumps or skin disorders, or that you can feel, like pains. These are effects and it makes only sense to remove their Causes…which can restore normalcy and part of what makes us Healthy.
And fresh foods, like fruits and vegetables, while are often not in packages, they have often been sprayed with petrochemical poisons, or treated with petrochemicals that are Cancer causing. Example would be the Agricultural petrochemicals sprayed on crops worldwide, or even gassed like bananas coming all the way to Hawaii from South America as much as 15,000 miles when bananas easily grow here already.
Add to that insult, the fact that the County of Kaua’i denies Agriculture Agreements to small farmers even when they are obviously farming just to get higher property tax, the cost of which kills the ability to farm live natural food on Kaua’i due to rules made up by non farmers but instead tax collectors; making no sense whatsoever. Over taxing the small farmers, and then bring a poison gassed banana 15,000 miles from South America, does not make a whole lot of sense, but does stupidity. Plus imported fresh foods runs the risk of importing foreign bacteria and bugs detrimental to our food and environment.
AMERICA has greater problems than just other countries possibly meddling in our economy and elections, we have more problems with farming, food, and a Disease Care System becoming more and more every year, more dependent on petrochemicals in and on our food and put directly into our bodies in the form of medicines…and it’s for the most part cancer chemicals…too many and too much of which are used and consumed here on Kaua’i and lost in the soil and surface and ocean waters.
And the sick, obese, and diseased people are not stupid, they are just sadly oblivious and ignorant of what is going on. But you cannot blame these people as they have not been educated. How can people know, if not told and shown, that the fat in their steaks and burgers, and the fats,in the other meat of cows pigs, goats, and sheep, (and some birds and fish more than others), provide the grease, fat, and lard that makes heart attacks and strokes…?
And same about the chemicals that cause cancer in humans, like Glyphosate in the weed killers, and chemical hormones given to animals to increase their growth and weight and sale value, the same growth hormones that make human tumors grow, or the protein in dairy that turns our cells, and childrens’ cells into cancer cells and thus the tumors that are effected by synthetic growth hormones in the animals we Eat.
Converting cancer causing crude oil into food additives and poison chemicals to put into and onto our food, has been a departure from relying on Mother Nature, but mostly only for about less than 100 years; compared to mankind’s reliance on Nature for the entire prior time mankind has been on earth.
It’s and idea whose time has finally returned, and that is to rely on Nature instead of so called Modern Chemistry which seems to be bringing us Global Warming and the bad side effects of same.
Petrochemicals are pollution wherever you use or put them…! Let’s identify and remove these causes from our precious Earth and our Bodies and Lives.
Mahalo, Charles