MENTAL AS ANYTHING

Now, I do have some experience with mental illness. Not my own, thankfully, but that of a family member.

I do believe the brain is part of the body, and an illness in part of the body should get medical attention when it is not functioning properly, just like cancer, or a tumour. The fact that it cannot be seen on a CT scan or an MRI or an X-ray does not mean it does not exist. Most illnesses are diagnosed through observing the symptoms. So, why is it that when the brain isn't functioning properly and is displaying numerous symptoms, which are not considered normal or healthy, that the owner of these symptoms is ignored by the health system, until such time that this person kills somebody or assaults somebody or damages property or commits a crime? Is the normal functioning of the brain considered less important than the normal functioning of the rest of the body?

Parents/carers of a mentally ill person are not equipped to diagnose, treat or manage such a person. It is extremely difficult obtaining help when a family member is displaying such symptoms. Convincing the health system that something is wrong, and that the son/daughter needs to be seen and treated, is virtually impossible unless the police get involved and then the ill person is treated like a criminal and incarcerated in a mental facility for a period, usually no longer than a week. At the end of the week the patient/criminal is released because they no longer display the erratic behaviour that got them incarcerated in the first place. They are not cured, by any means. The system is only funded for a week at a time and just needs to have them removed from the facility to make room for someone else. And so the circle of mental illness keeps going round and round. The parents' lives are in chaos and they suffer stress, feelings of helplessness and anguish are experienced while awaiting the next episode to come around. They feel totally alone and that no-one is willing to help them or their sick loved one, unless the mentally ill person seeks help themselves.

Now, in order to be motivated to seek medical help, one must be aware that one is sick. A person with schizophrenia and in the middle of a psychotic episode, has other things on their mind and does not relate the voices in their head, telling them to grab a knife and cause mayhem, with being sick. Nor does the urge to drive their car at speed through a railway crossing to prove they are invincible trigger any insight into the fact that something has gone haywire with their brain. So, the question is, how are these people motivated to seek the help they desperately need, themselves? It takes a well-adjusted, healthy brain to work out that one's actions or thinking are downright irresponsible, dangerous or abnormal. So, the health system expects a sick brain to realise that it is sick. It's just like expecting a baby to know it has a fever and ask for some paracetamol.

Our jails are full of mentally ill people who are now criminals because their illness has caused them (often unwittingly) to commit crimes, such as assault, stalking, failing to keep court dates, breaching bail etc. And once they have stepped onto the treadmill, there is little hope of getting off. Reluctance to get a lawyer, because they think it is only an admittance of guilt and they have done nothing wrong, causes the court process to go on and on, from deferral to deferral, until their whole life becomes one long court battle.

I don't know the answer to this dilemma, but perhaps we should be engaging parents/carers who have experience with these problems in discussions about how to fix the mental health system. If politicians can go on overseas fact-finding missions and spend thousands of taxpayer dollars on looking at other ways of doing things, then perhaps money well-spent could be to find a country whose mental health program is working well and learn from it.