|
 Dr. James and Sharon Pitts
Serious mental illness is a real but often unrecognized factor in our daily lives. Illnesses such as depression, bipolar illness, obsessive-compulsive behavior, panic/anxiety feelings, and schizophrenia occur worldwide across languages and national groups.
Poor, rich, and middle-class persons experience mental illness. Age, church attendance, or a person’s level of formal education doesn’t protect a person from the possibility of mental illness.
The following are just a few of a long list of famous people successfully living with their mental illness: singers Mary J. Blige and Janet Jackson, comedian Damon Wayans, and professional athlete Rickey Williams. Other famous notables who also suffered from mental illness were: Abraham Lincoln, Ludwig von Beethoven, Edgar Allan Poe, Michelangelo, and Sir Winston Churchill.
Mental illnesses are fundamentally disorders occurring
in the brain. Undiagnosed and untreated mental illness often limit a
person’s ability to function successfully in parenting and other family
relationships, employment, school, and even rehabilitation from drug
abuse. Genes contribute to the likelihood of a person’s developing a
particular illness, and life experiences such as exposures to violence,
death of a loved one, and poverty also can trigger mental illness.
A diagnosis of mental illness need not be a death sentence. Modern
science of the brain and the proper mix of medicine and therapy already
enable many persons to live full and productive lives. Just as
illnesses such as asthma, diabetes, and some forms of cancer can be
treated or managed, so can early diagnosis and appropriate treatment of
a mental illness enable many individuals to minimize or manage mental
illnesses.
Medical researchers believe that rapidly increasing knowledge of
variations in human genetic background will enable individualized and
more effective treatments of mental illnesses in the near future.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, about one in five
adults suffer from a mental disorder. Misdiagnosis and inadequate
treatment often occurs in racial minority communities.
Many black and Hispanic persons don’t get the care they need or deserve. Why? Because they often:
• are not covered by health insurance or their health insurance is inadequate;
• have a general mistrust of medical health professionals;
• feel too “ashamed” or stigmatized by a label of “crazy;”
• are preoccupied with issues of daily survival of self and family:
to avoid losing a job or the threats of street drugs, homelessness, and
intrusions by social welfare;
• rely primarily on family and churches but fear that these will shun them;
• are segregated into communities that are the last to benefit or be informed.
Family members can be a dynamic force of change to improve the life
situation of mentally ill persons. Parents, children, and spouses who
learn the facts and myths about mental illness can effectively support
and advocate for their mentally ill relatives.
Family members who
become partners with their ill loved ones and doctors in the evaluation
of medicines and treatments can contribute to successful recovery.
Few citizens realize that rates of treatment success in bipolar and
depression are equal to or better than success treatment rates in
diabetes and heart illness. The best treatments for serious mental
illnesses today are highly effective; between 70 and 90 percent of
individuals display significant reduction of symptoms and improved
quality of life with a combination of drugs, psychosocial treatments,
and social (family and friends) support.
Trackback(0)
 |
Your Health 
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed
