The United States is experiencing a mental health crisis. The programs we are implementing are not helping and in most cases are more toxic. We need to focus more on dual diagnosis as most people who have a mental illness attempt to self medicate through illegal drugs, which in turn I believe is why our prisons and jails are overflowing. Someone who has a mental illness and whom is also doing illegal drugs is not able to think rationally creating a danger to society as their actions are unpredictable and arratic.
We have tons of Mental health facilities that offer counseling and moderate the medications the patient is prescribed and adjust them as needed. The problem with that is there is no way to actually know if the person is actively taking the medication prescribed so they are playing a huge guessing game solely relying on trust that the patient is being honest. That to me is not a helpful treatment nor helping the patient to actually progress in life and be able to live as a functioning member of society. Instead it is helping us obtain the increasing number of mentally ill people whom are offered no way to learn how to properly treat there illness in a society that claims we are helping the people whom are mentally ill.
My husband was diagnosed in 2006 with schizophrenia and is now serving a five year sentence in an Oregon prison for his outbursts that stem from his mental illness. The system claims that they have tried to reform him however the extensive treatment for mental health he was receiving consisted of a visit to mental health once a month to ask how he was doing and a Starbucks coffee trip once a week to check in.
I feel like we need to come together and create some kind of program to not only manage and distribute medication daily for the patient but also some kind of program to teach them how to be a functioning member of society.
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