Discrimination and the Mentally Ill

 Stigma and discrimination are the principal obstacles to treatment for the mentally ill. For the most severely ill, there are other stumbling blocks to treatment, the laws that prevent treating individuals that need higher care; the IMD exclusion law is one such law.  Failure to recognize and treat these persons until they become dangerous although preserving their constitutional rights violates their right to treatment. These laws and our failure to treat individuals with schizophrenia and manic-depressive illness are the utmost discrimination against those with mental illnesses.
 

 Stigma is created by the headlines which depict the mentally ill, during times of crises, committing violent crimes and not by the statistics which show that a large number of them have been released from hospitals without the proper treatment time that it takes for stabilization of their disorders.
 

 The negative attitudes toward people with mental illnesses increased greatly after people read newspaper articles reporting violent crimes by the mentally ill according to studies that have been done.  It is futile and out of place to expect the stigma of mental illness to be changed by the news and entertainment media with pleas to help the severely mentally ill. 
  

 The government must tackle over 30 years of the disastrous deinstitutionalization policy if they hope to win the battle of mental illness stigma and solve the nation's mental illness crisis. Hundreds of thousands of defenseless Americans are living a pitiful existence on city streets, underground in subway tunnels or in jails and prisons because of the misguided efforts of civil rights advocates to keep the severely ill out of hospitals and therefore out of treatment.
  

 These grievously ill persons in our cities are grim reminders of the failure of deinstitutionalization. They are seen huddling in the cold in makeshift cardboard box dwellings, carrying on conversations with invisible companions, wearing filthy, rags for clothing, urinating and defecating on sidewalks or threatening passersby. They frequently are seen on stretchers as victims of suicide or violent crime, or in handcuffs for committing violent acts against others.
  

 All of this occurs while government officials who in blind ignorance do nothing but punish those without the insight to help themselves; without the right to long term treatment to be stabilized in a setting less harsh than the streets. The consequences of failing to treat these illnesses are devastating peoples lives until they become soothing less than human in the publics eyes.  Americans with untreated severe mental illnesses represent less than one percent of our population, and yet they commit almost 1,000 homicides in the United States each year. At least one-third of the estimated 600,000 homeless suffer from schizophrenia or manic-depressive illness, and 28 percent of them forage for some of their food in garbage cans. About 170,000 individuals are in prison and suffer from these illnesses, costing American taxpayers billions per year.
  

Delaying treatment only results in permanent damage, including increased treatment resistance, worsening severity of symptoms, increased hospitalizations and delayed remission of symptoms.  Persons suffering from severe psychiatric illnesses are frequently victimized.  Studies show that many women with untreated schizophrenia have been raped. Suicide rates for these individuals are 10 to 15 times higher than the general population.

The inadequate psychiatric hospitals and the closure of the state hospitals have only served to compound the devastation. Most state laws today prohibit treating individuals over their objection unless they pose an immediate danger to themselves. Most of the people who are untreated do not have the insight to know that they need treatment; not being aware that they have an illness causes them to refuse the treatment that could end their misery,

 It has been proven that outpatient compliance is effective in ensuring treatment compliance; the challenge remains in getting them to utilize what is their answer to their problem without the revolving-door syndrome of hospital admissions, readmissions, abandonment to the streets and incarceration that plague those not receiving treatment.

Adequate care in psychiatric hospitals for long term treatment also must be available. A large number of the 3.5 million people suffering from schizophrenia and manic-depressive illness require long-term hospitalization which means hospitalization in state psychiatric hospitals. This critical need is not being met, since we have lost most of our state psychiatric hospitals since 1955.

 It is time to reform the laws that prohibit long term hospitalization for those in need.  People with mental illnesses are not to be blamed for having a disorder; they should not be penalized for an illness that is through no fault of their own.  The discrimination and stigma against the mentally ill must be cleared from the minds of the ignorant public.  Their fellow citizens are being denied the right to a life free from shame and turmoil; that deserve a life with dignity and equality.