Premiering tonight at the Loft Theater for  one night only is the awarding winning documentary “Of Two Minds.”  The director will be available after the showing for questions and answers as well as a panel consisting of a local psychiatrist, a person living with Bipolar and a family member.  Sponsored in part by The Aurora Foundation of Southern Arizona.  The film begins at 7pm with Q and A afterwards.  A DVD of the film will also be available.  I’ll provide my “review” tomorrow.

 

OF TWO MINDS puts an authentic human face on bipolar, providing an intimate and stigma-busting look at those who live in its shadows – our parents and children, our friends and lovers… and ourselves ONE SHOW ONLY MAY 14TH AT 7 PM! LIVE PANEL Q&A AFTER THE FILM! Tickets & Info at: www.loftcinema.com/film/of-two-minds/

 

Mental Illnesses are not curable at this point, but they are recoverable and people can live healthy productive lives while managing their illness.  The Pima County Peer and Family Support Coalition is sponsoring a “Town Hall Meeting” to promote a bright future for our youth currently receiving behavioral health services. “Journeys of Peers and Families,”  an event to enlighten our community about the realities of mental health recovery, will engage attendees with real life stories from a panel of adults and youth currently in recovery.  Since recovery also depends on a support system,  family members of those with mental illnesses will also share their compelling  standpoint.

The evening begins at 6:00 pm and will be held at C.P.S.A, at 2502 N. Dodge, Suite 130 in Tucson. Light refreshments will be served  Reservations are requested to (520) 770-1197 and child care will be provided if required, so please request upon confirmation.

The event is supported by local non-profits, MiKid, HOPE, Inc., and CFSS.

(Below is the Proclamation making May Mental Health Awareness Month)

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

Today, tens of millions of Americans are living with the burden of a mental health problem. They shoulder conditions like depression and anxiety, post-traumatic stress and bipolar disorder — debilitating illnesses that can strain every part of a person’s life. And even though help is out there, less than half of children and adults with diagnosable mental health problems receive treatment. During National Mental Health Awareness Month, we shine a light on these issues, stand with men and women in need, and redouble our efforts to address mental health problems in America.

For many, getting help starts with a conversation. People who believe they may be suffering from a mental health condition should talk about it with someone they trust and consult a health care provider. As a Nation, it is up to all of us to know the signs of mental health issues and lend a hand to those who are struggling. Shame and stigma too often leave people feeling like there is no place to turn. We need to make sure they know that asking for help is not a sign of weakness — it is a sign of strength. To find treatment services nearby, call 1-800-662-HELP. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline offers immediate assistance for all Americans, including service members and veterans, at 1-800-273-TALK.

Our commitment cannot end there. We must ensure people have access to the care they need — which is why the Affordable Care Act will expand mental health and substance use disorder benefits and Federal parity protections for 62 million Americans. For the first time, the health care law will prevent insurers from denying coverage because of a pre-existing condition. The Act already requires new health plans to cover recommended preventive services like depression screening and behavioral assessments for children at no extra cost to patients.

My Administration will keep building on those achievements. Earlier this year, I was proud to launch the BRAIN Initiative — a new partnership between government, scientists, and leaders in the private sector to invest in research that could unlock new treatments for mental illness and drive growth throughout our economy. We have made unprecedented commitments to improving mental health care for veterans suffering from traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. And we have proposed new funding for mental health programs that will help teachers and other adults recognize the signs of mental illness in children, improve mental health outcomes for young people, and train 5,000 more mental health professionals to serve our youth.

Mental health problems remain a serious public health concern, but together, our Nation is making progress. This month, I encourage all Americans to advance this important work by raising awareness about mental health and lending strength to all who need it.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim May 2013 as National Mental Health Awareness Month. I call upon citizens, government agencies, organizations, health care providers, and research institutions to raise mental health awareness and continue helping Americans live longer, healthier lives.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirtieth day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand thirteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-seventh.

BARACK OBAMA

The recent suggestion from the NRA to have armed guards in our schools as an answer to increasing gun violence is beyond ridiculous.  “Fight fire with fire” seems to be their mantra.  Well, I have a better one.  “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,” – Gandhi.

It makes about as much sense as the law in Arizona that allows people to carry firearms in bars!  Great, “let’s get all liquored up” and and start playing with guns!  Ugh!  Am I the only one that doesn’t understand this mentality?  Don’t get me wrong, I totally support the second amendment, except when it comes to ballistic missiles, 30 round magazines, and other weapons of mass destruction. I understand wanting to protect yourself, but really?  What has happened to common sense? What about fences and security gates like most of the high schools have?

Devastating shootings like the one that occurred in Newtown last month or the one that occurred here on January 8th two years ago need to stop.  There has to be an answer other than putting more guns out there.  As a mental health advocate, I want more education in schools, community groups, businesses, and organizations about the realities of mental illness.  Everyone aggrees that a person who literally mowes down innocents with a high capacity gun needs to have his “head examined.”

Let the conversation start here……One in four families are effected by mental illness.  Treatment success rates for depression go as high as 90%.  One in eight teens experience depression, yet only 20% of them seek treatment. Even treatment success rates for schizophrenia are very high! Should people with a mental illness diagnosis be restricted from gun use?  Not necessarily, but let’s talk about it!

These are the topics of discussion we should be having.  Answers may not come as quickly as the “solution” from the NRA, but increasing arms in our schools is preposterous. The last thing our babies need is an increase in violence and an “eye for an eye” mentality.

Last Saturday I had the opportunity to participate in a panel that fielded questions and discussed the challenges of mental illness.  During the hour, struggles faced by a person living with mental illness  as well as the difficulties a care giver confronts while trying to support a person with a diagnosis were addressed.  Unlike many of the panel discussions I have participated in where we have spoken mostly to people currently involved in the mental health community, this group was much more diverse and consequently less informed about the illnesses, treatments, stigma and recovery.  It was a fascinating discussion and hopefully enlightening to those in attendance.

Afterwards, I was able to watch the Broadway Musical now playing at the Arizona Theater Company, “Next to Normal.”  The play exquisitely tells the story of a family’s struggle with mental illness.  In this case, the Mother is struggling with Bipolar Disorder and the rest of the family is  doing the best they can to cope with the unpredictable scenarios that are faced on a daily basis.  When Mom is feeling hypo-manic everything is great.  But, inevitably either the bottom falls out and Mom becomes horribly depressed or just as awful, Mom becomes manic and repercussions can be just as devastating. The Dad misses the exuberant young woman he first fell in love with. The teenage daughter feels un-noticed and at times unloved by an overwhelmed Dad and an ill Mom. As for the son, well……I’ll leave his story out of this blog as I wouldn’t want to spoil it for anyone going to see this play.

Suffice it to say that this dramatic musical tells a complicated, absorbing tale of life in a family with mental illness.  After all, when someone in the family have a serious illness, everyone is effected, no matter if it’s a physical illness or a mental illness.  The narrative, told almost exclusively with song, is compelling and realistic.  Having experienced mental illness in my family, it touched me as if  my best friend was sharing her family life with me.  The author has great insight  and the actors were amazing.

The first steps in changing attitudes about mental illness are awareness  and education. This production does an excellent job in demystifying the reality of mental illness.  One in four families are effected by mental illness and mainstream media, even  Broadway musicals, can have a huge impact on advancing that goal.

On September 7th, Mr. Neal Cash, CEO and President of Community Partnership of Southern Arizona, will be recognized for his tireless efforts in promoting mental health recovery with the Daniel Moreno Advocate Award.

In the words of Greg Taylor, who nominated Mr. Cash:

Neal’s vision, leadership and advocacy as president/CEO of CPSA have resulted in creation of the most comprehensive, integrated behavioral health crisis-services network in the country. The system’s centerpiece, the Crisis Response Center, opened in August 2011, just after state budget cuts stripped many people with serious mental illness of ongoing support and treatment. 

n 2005, Neal recognized that Pima County’s fast-growing population and the increased enrollment in CPSA’s care system demanded development of an enhanced, fully integrated crisis network. Neal and community stakeholders including law enforcement and county officials identified the need for an “urgent care” center to address mental-health crises that do not involve medical complications or more acute problems. Neal tirelessly advocated for bonds to build the CRC, which were approved unanimously by the county’s Board of Supervisors and by 63% of voters in 2006.

The new facility also provided the opportunity to create a comprehensive, integrated network of crisis services, with a phone-based “command and control” center at the CRC. The resulting network has drawn national attention from publications such as Behavioral Healthcare magazine, which predicted that the CRC is “destined to change the practice of behavioral healthcare,” and Mental Health Weekly, which noted that the CRC “has fast become a magnet of attention for officials elsewhere who grapple with how to keep jails and hospital emergency rooms from essentially becoming a community’s mental health centers.”

Mr. Cash has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Syracuse University and a master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling and administration from the University of Arizona. He has been involved with the behavioral health industry in Tucson for over 35 years.

Mr. Cash also presents and provides consultative services nationwide in the area of mental health and substance use treatment.   He serves on task forces, expert panels, and Boards of Directors on  local, state and national levels,  including the board of the National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare.

For more information about the event, please visit www.planetaurora.org

or visit the Facebook page for Daniel Moreno Awards:

https://www.facebook.com/TheDanielMorenoAwards?ref=hl

In addition to the silent auction and dinner, the evening will include a presentation ceremony and keynote speech from Dr. Jose Apud, Clinical Director of the Schizophrenia Research Program at the National Institutes of Mental Health.  Dr. Nicholas Breitborde will also provide an update on the new Epicenter (Early Psychosis Intervention Center) at the UPH South Campus.

The event was founded in 2007 in an effort by the Daniel Moreno Family to increase awareness about mental health recovery and reduce the stigma surrounding mental illness.  Ten local individuals have previously been selected to receive the Daniel Moreno Recovery Award.  The 2012 Recovery Award will be presented to Sarah Martin, the Advocate Award will be presented to Neal Cash, CPSA CEO/President, the Educator Award to Peter Likins, President Emeritus of the University of Arizona and Adreinne Sainz, LMSW, Clinician at La Frontera will receive the Direct Service Provider. More information about the recipients will be provided over the next month on this blog.

Proceeds from the event will benefit the Aurora Foundation, a local non-profit dedicated to advancing disability justice and the newly formed Southern Arizona Suicide Prevention Coalition.  For more information or to purchase tickets, please visit the website at: www.planetaurora.org

What do teens want?  Sports related items like soccer balls and baseballs, movies, toiletries, curling irons, sweatshirts (hoodies), colored socks, lip gloss, chapstick, combs, brushes, books, gift certificates, board games, playing cards, colored pencils, sketch pads, inexpensive jewelry, scarves, cookies etc. MiKid will also accept cash donations for the purchase of necessary items.

MiKid is a 501(c)(3) organization and is affiliated with the Federation of Families for Childre3n’s Mental Health and their philosophy is that most families are multi-stressed, not dysfunctional.  When working with famlies, MiKid staff focuses on strengths, not flaws and believes that planning and obtaining of services should be a joint effort of family and professionals. MiKid staff know that parents know their child best.

To donate please call the MiKid office at 882-0142 or stop by with your donation during regular business hours from 8am to 5pm at 4500 E. Speedway, Suite 58.  The website is www.mikid.org

FOR MOMS WITH POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION

The Tucson Postpartum Depression Coalition (TPDC) and CODAC Behavioral Health Services will host the Grand Opening of Mother’s Oasis: Center for Emotional Wellness on Thursday, August 18, 2011 from 4:30-6:30at 1067 E Silverlake Drive (85713).

Senator Linda Lopez, Elizabeth Jiminez (State Director for Healthy Families), and mothers who have experienced severe postpartum depression are scheduled to speak about the importance of a center dedicated to the emotional wellness of mothers.

“This is the first center of its kind in the entire country,” says founder Carole Sheehan, President of the Tucson Postpartum Depression Coalition. “Mother’s Oasis is now open to meet the special needs of women who are experiencing the troubling effects of pregnancy- and postpartum anxiety and depression.”

Maternal Depression is the number one predictor of future behavioral and cognitive problems in children. Therefore, a mother’s mental and emotional wellness are key to family health and survival. Unfortunately, however, each year around 4,000 women in Pima County suffer with anxiety and depression around childbirth. Many are not identified or treated, leading to chronic depression for the mother and challenges for the child(ren) as well.

Mother’s Oasis will offer support groups, therapy, doula services, yoga and zumba classes and connections to other community resources, such as parenting classes and behavioral health services. Services are offered at no cost.

CODAC is providing physical space to TPDC for the Mother’s Oasis free of charge, which compliments CODAC’s Healthy Families, Mother’s Caring About Self (intensive outpatient) and Las Amigas (residential treatment) programs.

All media are invited to attend the grand opening to learn of this first-of-its-kind center. For more information, please contact Kristine Welter at kwelter@codac.org or 260-2771.

http://azstarnet.com/news/opinion/editorial/article_a1372367-3bd9-5f49-8ea7-91fb0d25e4df.html

Local pyschiatric beds are commonly filled, but I wasn’t aware that psychiatric beds in our prison system are also filled.  Hummmmmm, I wonder what’s going on? Is it possible that we’re starting to see the results of continued budget slashes to mental health care in our state?  Or, is it because more people are becoming mentally ill? I think it’s the former.

Let’s look at some statistics.  One in four families are effected by mental illness in a given year and at least 10% of the population lives with a serious mental illness like schizophrenia or bi-polar disorder.  If Tucson’s population is one million, then that’s 100,000 people right here in the Old Pueblo.  Some are being successfully treated and some are not.  Many are in denial about their illnesses and don’t know about the high success rates of treatment – sometimes as high as 90%  do achieve mental health recovery.  But, not without proper treatment that can include medication, therapy and a strong support system.

Last time I checked there weren’t that many psychiatric beds in Tucson.  Even with the new psychiatric crisis hospital opening soon there won’t be new beds as it will only replace the currently existing beds at UPH.  Without more funding I don’t see any growth for new tratment facilites, but unfortuanately I do see growth in the prison facilities.  It seems like that’s one of the few areas of growth in our state.  Some legislators in Phoenix have stated that it’s time for families and loved ones to “step up” and take care of those struggling with menta illness. I wish it were that simple.

But, I’m glad to see that the Arizona Daily Star is initiating this dialogue.  Hopefully some inovative solutions will come about…….and they won’t cost anything!

So, even if President Reagan was a great man, it was during his presidency that treatment for our nations most vulnerable went from bad to worse.  The following article is a reprint because I found it expresses my concerns adequately and one month after the horrible shootings in Tucson, people seem to be more receptive to learning about this issue.

Ronald Reagan, Mental Health, and Spin . . .

Man Behind the Myth

By Phyllis Vine

For the next twelve months, the Ronald Reagan image machine will be turning out countless vignettes of the nation’s 40th president, the man neighbors called “Dutch.” He will be described as no-nonsense yet kindly, remote but avuncular, a movies-star-turned-politician, and remembered as a local lifeguard rescuing people in troubled waters. With dashing good looks, a sonorous tone that became the voice of General Electric, and an affable smile, even those who disagreed with his policies will say he was genuinely kind-hearted.

So what did this mean practically for policies about mental health? Here we need to  ask how the image departs from the reality.

Contrary to the spin about trimming government, which he called “the problem,” we all know he oversaw increases in federal spending that exploded the national debt, and grew the size of the government he impugned. Another part of the reality, rarely the image, is how he attempted to savage the  entitlement system and roll back supports for people with a mental illness.

When Ronald Reagan arrived in Washington, he inherited the Mental Health Systems Act of 1980. One of the last achievements of Pres. Jimmy Carter, this was passed by the House 277 to 15, in the Senate, 93 to 3. With as many critics as there were special interests, it was far from perfect. Yet it expanded the federal government’s commitment to services, to research, to training professionals, and to patient rights. It identified stigma as an impediment to seeking and receiving services.  It established parity in Medicaid and Medicare. It recognized the link between physical health and mental health. And it dedicated $800 million over 4 years to redress the gross neglect of the commitment to mental health in earlier administrations.  In short, it moved an agenda that minimized homelessness, the reliance on expensive nursing homes, jails and prisons, and one that to more hopeful choices for those who needed help.

The Mental Health Systems Act was a milestone. It came on the heels of four years of hearings and a presidential task force benefiting from First Lady Rosalynn Carter’s active involvement.  Philosophically it affirmed Pres. John F. Kennedy’s Community Mental Health Centers, an attempt to thwart hospitalizations. It fit into the safety-net values championed by Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson with the passage of Medicaid and Medicare.

Still, by 1980 the nation needed more for those with a chronic illness. Many failures accompanied the attempts to close the miserable hospitals, often little more than warehouses, to help patients succeed in the community. The neglect of government support conspired to form a patchwork system with notable gaping holes. A 1977 GAO report said, “Government needs to do more.”  Congressional hearings in 1979 re-affirmed the need to strengthen impoverished services and the failed policies.

Although not perfect, the Mental Health Systems Act responded to these problems. For the first time since the National Institute of Mental Health became part of NIH in 1949, mental health was front and center in federal policy.

Then came Ronald Reagan. Within a month, the Office of Management Budget announced it would curtail the budget of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), phase out training of clinicians, interrupt research, and eliminate services.  Cutbacks to staff followed; chaos ensued. Experienced people left, others remained in government service but were forced into menial jobs. Trained professionals were reassigned to labs to dissect dead rats; science writers were reassigned to typing pools. The Mental Health Systems Act would disappear. Instead, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (1982) would merge money for mental health programs into block grants, and with fewer dollars going to the states.  They had the discretion to use them however they saw fit, often to perpetuate programs already deemed problematic. The pretense for all this was the president’s concept of a “new federalism.”

“Many of our dreams were gone,” wrote Rosalynn Carter in Helping Someone with Mental Illness. “It was a bitter loss.”

This could have been enough, but it was not. Pres. Reagan attempted to restrict criteria for determining eligibility for SSI, thought to be a safety-net. Nearly 2.6 million people were receiving insurance because their disability prevented them from working. New evaluations for eligibility led to widespread terminations. Of those who were terminated, about half appealed, and in two-thirds of the cases, administrative law judges reversed the decision. The process took nearly a year, during which time they, and their families, were deprived of promised help.

About 340,000 people would lose their insurance before public outcry and courts halted the process. Sen. John Heinz, a liberal Republican from Pennsylvania, told the New York Times the policy was a “meat grinder.” Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat, said the reviews caused “unconscionable suffering.” In June 1983 HHS Secretary Margaret Heckler announced she would halt suspending about 135,000 people until the government could improve standards for “functional psychotic disorders.”

By then, however, the nation was doubting the president’s kindness. A1982 Louis Harris survey found nearly three-quarters of the respondents said the president was hard-hearted toward the poor.

These are the facts. And they add up to a roll-back of opportunities for people already struggling with a psychiatric illness.  Whatever spin accompanies the birthday celebrations for Ronald Reagan, we should not create yet another mythic figure, larger than life, more pure than Ivory soap, or with qualities he did not have.  He may have portrayed himself as everybody’s lifeguard, but he seemed willing to let people with a psychiatric illness sink.

Originally appeared in MIWatch.org