One of our nation’s greatest shames is the number of homeless people adrift in the streets and parks of our cities.
And of the estimated 744,000 people who are homeless on any given night, 40 to 45 percent of them have a serious mental illness. Most of these mentally ill people go untreated, and unable to work, live a hand-to-mouth existence out on the streets.
Senator Pete Domenici says,
No vision haunts America’s conscience more than the sight of the street people… The irrationality and anguish that grip so many of these individuals leap out during any encounter, whether in Washington or Albuquerque.”
This post, in response to Blog Action Day’s call to write about poverty on October 15th, gives an overview of the crisis of the homeless mentally ill. This post covers the following topics:
- How many homeless Americans are there?
- How many of the homeless are mentally ill?
- Why are there so many mentally ill homeless people?
- Most mentally ill homeless people are not being treated
- What’s to be done?
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Anxiety Disorder,
Homeless,
Mental Illness
There are all sorts of reasons for people to quit smoking, and for people with mental illnesses, there are even more.
Smokers with mental illnesses are at an accelerated risk of diabetes, heart attacks, and stroke. In addition, smoking has adverse effects on many of the most common psychiatric drugs. The negative effects of nicotine and other substances in tobacco smoke are little understood, but research is turning up many ways in which they are thought to be harmful to the body and mind.
Evidence is rapidly emerging that smoking may actually cause mental illnesses such as depression and Anxiety Disorders. It can greatly multiply the risk of panic attacks and other common mental conditions.
This post is the second in a 2-part series concerning smoking and mental illness. Part 1 discussed why people with mental illnesses smoke up to four times the rate of the general populace, along with findings about the higher rate of mental illness among smokers. This part deals with the following topics:
- Why Should Someone With a Mental Illness Quit Smoking?
- Can smoking cause mental illness?
- In Summary
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Anxiety Disorder,
Mental Illness,
smoking
Smoking and mental illness are tightly bound together to a surprising degree.
People with mental illnesses are up to 4 times more likely to smoke than the general populace. And people with mental illness smoke much more than other smokers.
Nicotine provides a long list of positive benefits for the mentally ill, which encourages them to start and keep smoking.
And there is a growing body of evidence that smoking can actually cause mental illness, particularly the more common ones such as Anxiety Disorders and depression.
This post is the first in a 2-part series concerning smoking and mental illness. This part deals with the following topics:
- People with mental illnesses smoke at up to four times the rate of the general population
- People who smoke have a higher rate of mental illnesses than those who don’t
- Why Do People With Mental Illness Smoke?
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Anxiety Disorder,
Mental Illness,
smoking
It’s hard to know what to do when a friend or family member has a mental illness.
All of us know that the support of family and friends is an essential element in the recovery process.
But how to give that support is outside the experience of most people. We want to do something, but we feel our hands are tied.
Actually, there’s a lot you can do. This post is rather long, but it offers a wealth of information to help your friend, your family member — and you under these headings:
- How it feels when you first learn of your friend’s or family member’s mental illness
- Do not abandon your friend or family member in their time of crisis
- How to talk to your friend or family member about mental illness
- Support strategies you can use
- What to say if your friend or family member is unreasonable or delusional
- When your friend or family member is not manageable or is out of control
- For more information
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Caregivers,
Family Member,
Friend,
Mental Illness
This is Mental Illness Awareness Week, a time when we pause to reflect on the state of mental illness in America.
Congress authorized Mental Illness Awareness Week in 1990 as the first week in October in recognition of the National Alliance on Mental Illness’ (NAMI) efforts to raise mental health awareness. In NAMI’s words,
Real recovery from mental illness requires community action, understanding, and teamwork. Recovery is possible because of improved science, better community supports, and reduced stigma. But significant barriers still exist. Services are at risk, insurance can be insufficient, and stigma, though less today than when Mental Illness Awareness Week was founded, is still prevalent.
You can learn more about Mental Illness Awareness Week by visiting NAMI’s website. Another worthy organization is Mental Health America. Both are grassroots organizations that fight for the rights to compassionate, non-discriminatory treatment of the mentally ill, and against the stigma of mental illness that still imprisons them.
Please join with me in both celebrating the advances in treatment of mental illnesses and thinking about the barriers to treatment this week.
Tagged as:
Announcement,
Mental Health America,
Mental Illness,
NAMI
The stigma of mental illness continues to a shocking degree throughout the world.
A new study has detailed the stigma of mental illness in Canada. Its results are unsettling, to say the least. Here are some of the findings:
- 46% believe that a diagnosis of mental illness is merely an “excuse for poor behavior and personal failings”
- 10% think that people with mental illness could “just snap out of it if they wanted”
- 42% would no longer socialize with a friend diagnosed with mental illness
- 55% would not marry someone who suffered from mental illness
- 25% are afraid of being around someone who suffers from serious mental illness
- 50% would not tell friends or coworkers that a family member was suffering from mental illness. 72% would discuss cancer, and 68% diabetes.
- 50% think alcoholism and drug addiction are not mental illnesses
- 11% think depression is not a mental illness
- 50% think that depression is not a serious condition
There is no reason to believe that attitudes toward the mentally ill are any better in the US. Experience shows us that they may be even be worse. To my knowledge there have been no comparable studies of mental health stigma in the US, amazingly enough.
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Canada,
Mental Health,
Mental Illness,
Stigma
A new report shows that one-fourth of all stays in U.S. community hospitals are for mental health disorders.
These included depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, Anxiety Disorders, other mental health disorders, or substance use related disorders.
The study was made from an analysis of hospital data from 2004. It comes from the Health and Human Services Agency of the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
The study is the first documentation of the full impact of mental health and substance abuse disorders on U.S. community hospitals. According to the report, about 1.9 million of the 7.6 million stays were for patients who were hospitalized primarily because of a mental health or substance abuse problem. Of the 5.7 million other stays for other conditions, many were also diagnosed as having a mental disorder.
One-third of the stays for mental health issues were for uninsured patients. The remaining two-thirds were paid by Medicare, Medicaid and private insurers.
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Anxiety Disorder,
Hospital,
Mental Illness,
Substance Abuse
Do any of these attitudes seem familiar?
- Nearly 6 out of 10 people describe a person with a mental illness as “someone who has to be kept in a psychiatric or mental hospital”
- One third of people think that those with mental health problems should not have the same rights to a job as everyone else
- Only 31 percent of people think that mental hospitals are an outdated means of treating the mentally ill
- 1 in 8 people would not want to live next door to a person with a mental illness
- 5 out of 10 people believe that the mentally ill are violent and a threat to society
These findings are from a poll released by the U.K.’s Department of Health in May, 2008. There is ample evidence to show that the same stigma attached to mental illness in the U.K. is just as operative in the United States.
Other research has found that nearly 9 of 10 people with mental health problems have been affected by scapegoating, stigma and discrimination. Two thirds of the mentally ill say they have stopped doing things because of the stigma they face.
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Mental Health,
Mental Illness,
Scapegoat,
Stigma
