Something I've been meaning to ask about America -

[Random_Australian]

Upon seeing another news headline that more is going to be invested in mental health here in Australia ( http://www.usyd.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=1607 )

I wondered how often mental health comes up in America in politics, and what the attitudes to it are by the various politicians, and most of all, if a politician in America resigned due to an onset of depression, how would he (or she) be treated?

(As in, what would the media and the other politicians say about them)

That actually happened here, and there was warm bipartisan support. No biting or stabbing or bile.

Furthermore, the news story I referenced is a long term thing - rather than just politician pork-barreling - gives me hope that things will get better here.

Unfortunately, given what I have heard about your health system, I can't say I'm optimistic about the answers I'll receive, but oh well.

Comments from other countries are most warmly welcome.

[Droopy]

1. I do believe something like that has happened

and the results were that the person resigned. It's just a vague memory. Maybe someone will come along with the details.

About the closest thing I can fully remember about that is that Al Gore's wife wrote a book about her battles with depression. I think it was a best seller.

[mopinko]

2. george mc govern's running mate- thomas eagleton

it was leaked that he suffered depression, and had had ect. he made a tearful speech, left the race, and mc govern was sloughtered at the polls.

[EFerrari]

3. But the ignorance was all 'round. The man was bi-polar

before there was effective treatment for bi-polar. No one recognized it and that is amazing to me.

It was a mess and I only hope that he got some peace before he died.

[EFerrari]

4. Mental health doesn't come up in American politics because

we are in the process of becoming Guatemala.

Let me put it this way: the world's biggest provider of mental health services is Los Angeles County Jail. And they suck.

We are on our own for now, just like the folks of the Gulf Coast.

[hunter]

5. Mental health issues can make a person uninsurable.

The usual health insurance plans in this country severely limit mental health, vision, and dental coverage, even though these things are a very important part of a person's overall health.

My uninsured mental health care costs are hundreds of dollars a month. It's my good fortune my wife and I can afford that, otherwise I'd probably be a divorced and semi-homeless.

My wife and I can't buy individual insurance in our state, my wife for injuries she suffered in accidents (that were not her fault, for any anti-universal healthcare ignoramuses who are reading this) and me for both medical and mental health issues. We either have to go uninsured, work for an employer with a group health plan, or do this:

http://mrmib.ca.gov/MRMIB/MRMIP.shtml

MRMIP is a drag, but sometimes that's all there is if you haven't decided to give up, get rid of your assets, and stop working.

Currently we have insurance through my wife's work, but it has a very high deductible and many exclusions.

Every financial problem my wife and I have ever had has been the direct result of medical expenses. For almost twenty years now my wife and I have been in a position where we can't immediately pay medical bills. There is always something ugly hanging over our heads, and nasty surprises in the mail when insurance companies deny something.

Some people don't fight. They simply give up and die, or they become homeless, or stop working and sit at home collecting disability.

[hashibabba]

9. Sometimes mentally ill people don't do well in a work situation.

If there's someone who will go postal on you, I, for one, am glad they're *just sitting around collecting disability.* There are other reasons, too.

These types of generalizations are what contribute to the misunderstanding of the mentally ill in our society.

[hunter]

10. Huh?

Just sitting around collecting disability is a bad thing.

What did you think I meant? In your mind is the opposite of "sitting around" employment?

There's lots of things people do besides work, but it's an empty world for the mentally ill who can't work.

I can't imagine why you would complain about my response using the term "go postal????!!!!!"

:yoiks:

[hashibabba]

11. I apologize Hunter. It took me a while to get back to this forum

to respond to you, so I've already sent you a PM. I didn't read your post closely enough and I'm sorry if I offended you.

Hashi

[undergroundpanther]

6. Ever hear of the"new freedom initiative"

Mental health in america is being addressed in a fascist way by Bush and a liberation oriented way by the consumer rights movement.

Nami is funded by big pharmacy and is trying to co opt the consumer rights orgs.

There is alot of stuff happening just under the radar.

Here are some links
An org I highly recommend
http://www.mindfreedom.org/
About Bush's new freedom initiative
http://www.cchr.org/index.cfm/8030
More..
http://www.iahf.com/20040719a.html
Aimed at kids, teen screen
http://www.psychsearch.net/teenscreen.html
http://www.newstarget.com/001688.html

An article I wrote about Bush's new freedom initiative
http://www.unknownnews.net/040712a-upits.html

On our own & Consumer run orgs..
http://www.onourownmd.org/
http://www.heartsandears.org/
http://www.survivorlink.org/

How bush fucked the psych survivors over, and still does
http://namiscc.org/MentalHealthRecovery/PeoplesTrueFreedomCommission.htm
http://www.activist-trauma.net/survivingclassstruggle.htm

More on that monster Sally sadist Satel.And yes I hate her guts. She is a fascist pig of the most vile sort. And yes my hate of her is personal.She wants to pretend trauma does not leave scars..And..She chickened out on a speaking engagement Q&A session with On Our Own,when Bush was trying to sell the idea to the psych survivors that the new freedom initiative wasn't a fucking scam, I got there early sat in the front row with a bunch of my Maryland OOO cohorts, and I had written a tasty list of hardball questions to pose to Satel that would reveal the real agenda of the "new freedom initiative" but in true fascist pig style she chickened out and ran away from a real face to face confrontation and sent us a mealy mouthed video of herself ,Behavior typical of a scared bully.
Read more about this creep Bush put to"lead" the advisory board of mental health.
http://www.counterpunch.org/willson03182006.html

And here is another link on her
http://namiscc.org/Editorial/2003/ForcedDrugging.htm

Satel is a bully to the core She wants to claim pstd isn't really a problem, she hates victims that been through abuse,she thinks war vets claim PSTD to get a "free ride" ..This monster is straight out of AEI. The neocon fascist"think tank"..More like skank tank to me.
http://psychservices.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/52/5/691-b

[hunter]

8. Sally Satel is going to lock you up and teach you to fly by your bootstraps!

Who's bat shit crazy? I'll tell you who. All these Ayn Rand Republicans flying around in stolen airplanes dropping shit on people and claiming that Liberals are "eroding self reliance" and other nonsense.

The people on the ground, standing tall and demanding very basic human rights, know mean-insane when they see it, and Sally Satel is bat shit, over the top, dropping poison from the back window of someone else's stolen airplane, AEI intellectual whoring, bootstrap yanking insane.

The secret whiny battle cries of these Ayn Rand Republicans is "It's not my fault!" and "It's mine, mine, mine, I'm entitled to it, I earned it, I deserve it," even when you see them stealing it. Look at Bush prancing around as President. Strings were pulled so he could be a military pilot, he fucked that up, strings were pulled so he could be President, and he fucked that up too, all his life he's been a mean-insane fuckup, but it's not his fault.

They can get drunk, run over your grandmother in a crosswalk, send you a bill for car repairs and demand an apology from your family. Or shoot their friend in the face... Or send young people to a place where they get their brains and bodies get broken, patch them up, and then kick them out on the mean streets without adequate support, and many lame platitudes about "self-reliance."

By the way, did anyone else see what Jon Stewart did to Bob Woodruff? Stewart wasn't mean, but I think he was picking up on some of Woodruff's deficits and treading very, very lightly. There was something very disturbing to me about it. Whether or not I'm right about that, I think this administration latches on to apologists like Sally Satel to cover up the atrocities they are responsible for.

[EFerrari]

12. For the culturally impaired, who is Sally Satel?

She sounds horrible.

[Forkboy]

7. We don't take kindly to the mentally ill 'round heah.

Especially the poor ones...who needs them?

(for once..and one time only..I'll use the :sarcasm: icon)