During an election season, it is common for interest in a wide variety of issues to increase as the populace gets activated by popular rhetoric used to mobilize their base and capture votes. In the past few months, the hot button topics have been immigration, economic reforms, and gun control. Each of these different issues is marred by sharp partisanship which divides the nation into two camps, often unwilling to compromise their position in order to arrive at real solutions. Even more important than these problems, in my opinion, is the lack of awareness for mental health services in the United States.
Earlier in the year, I was involved in a research program to assess the accessibility of mental health services for children in my hometown. What I discovered profoundly disturbed me. There was not a single medical institution in place which had a singular dedication to helping youths overcome their mental health problems. Instead, intermediary organizations had been set up to help facilitate the process of these individuals receiving care. Usually, this meant the parent would have to drive to a neighboring city where there were proper mental health clinics prepared to treat the child. Driving means gas and gas means money. Often, this type of arrangement isn’t possible and the child is forced to endure their mental health disorder without any treatment.
While I could fill up the rest of this article with proposals of how to mitigate the negative consequences of counties not being able to fulfill their duties in treating mental health problems, but I believe there is a more pressing concern which merits foremost examination. This country, for the most part, has a real problem with accepting the reality of mental health. There are adults who are unwilling to admit that they may have complications which require medical attention. I hold in distinguished disdain social media posts which assert that mental health disorders, such as depression, are not biological in nature and can be overcome by simply thinking more positively or through sheer willpower. Sadly, this is not the case. And while there are people who have successfully surmounted their mental health illnesses without the need for medical attention, there are many more who rely on prescription drugs to go on through their day. However, the biggest trouble is getting to this initial awareness that a problem exists. If adults are unwilling to accept the nature of mental health disorders, they will refuse to entertain the notion that the mental wellbeing of their children may be compromised.
Increased awareness for mental health services in society is so important because it has a spilling over effect. A majority of homeless individuals suffer from mental illness which prevent them from getting a stable job. Our prisons are replete with mentally ill individuals who would be better served in a capable hospital, rather than a metal cage. Drug addiction, a subset of mental health disease, warrants its own exhaustive commentary. To put it briefly, however, the so-called War on Drugs being pursued in the United States for the past several decades is one of the most colossal public health failures which has ever existed in any nation in the world. It is my great hope that the future brings with it a more understanding society, where stigmas against mental health are outright erased. I aspire for a more compassionate world, where children won’t needlessly suffer by a government which refuses to even acknowledge there is a problem.
