I took a day from writing yesterday to attend an all-day symposium in Washington D.C. that was entitled LOST: Dollars, People, Hope. The keynote was given by Tipper Gore, a long time advocate. The thrust of her speech was that we needed to tie mental health to bigger issues that are important to all Americans if we want to stop Congress from cutting federal mental health funding. Her first example was war.
Gore said that 18 veterans die each day by their own hands, an alarming statistic and an example of why we need a better mental health care system. If we just complain to politicians about mental health care cuts, she said, we probably will be met with deaf ears. But if we explain that those cuts are going to penalize veterans who are suffering mental health problems because of their service to our country — then Congress will be more likely to authorize funding.
described how important the HOPE Clubhouse in Ft. Myers was to her recovery. As with so many of our young people, Jourdan had excelled as a teenager and had gone to college with big plans – only to become sick. She was diagnosed as having bipolar disorder and not long after that she became so ill that she had to drop out. At one point, she was suicidal. When she called the local police during a manic episode, rather than getting help, she ended up getting arrested and jailed — “to be taught a lesson.” That experience — at the hands of unsympathetic and poorly trained sheriff’s deputies — resulted in her developing PTSD.
