I Wonder Why

If 1 in 5 people will have a mental illness at some point in their lifetime, why don't people see this as something that may or will, sooner or later, touch their family? Why aren't more people out there fighting for more than adequate care? My friend Jim McNulty once said, "Treatment works, if you can get it."

How many people who happen to have a mental illness can't get adequate care? Look at the Nebraska fiasco with such a high percentage of the kids being dumped, having a mental health diagnosis. Why do kids have to be abandoned to get treatment?

If, my friends are dying 25 years earlier than typical people then why don't people care enough to stop it? Are we a throw-away society?

Why if one of the primary reasons that we are dying 25 years earlier is that we are getting a disorder called metabolic syndrome, why aren't persons who happen to have a mental illness required to be tested for it in the very system where the problem is most portrayed, the Community Mental Health Systems?

Why aren't the people who happen to have a mental illness who are also often overmedicated and under treated otherwise, told which meds are most likely to cause weight gain and problems with metabolic syndrome?

If 44% of the cigarettes smoked (or 50-80% people smoking) are smoked by persons who happen to have a mental illness, then why aren't 44% of the tobacco settlement funds going to fund health, wellness and stop smoking programs? Or even on prevention programs?

Barring those funds, (in Michigan we are going to take a settlement on the settlement so the funds will be gone in three years), why can't 44% of the tobacco tax dollars go to helping people who happen to have a mental illness stop smoking?

Why, if smoking is proven to me more addictive for persons with ADHD and proven to have positive effects on persons who happen to have schizophrenia, why does the Michigan Department of Community Health (ttac anyone?) just put out stupid posters that say "quit", or say "you just have to quit", or give out community resources? Instead of dollars to actual assistance.

Marty
Recovery That Rocks