|
PERSPECTIVE |
|
What do you think? PREVIOUS 12-Hour
Shifts Shifting
Roles Shifting
the Focus Building
a Workforce Changing
Direction In
Appreciation A
Healthy 2000 |
Last week, a tragic story appeared in a San Antonio newspaper about a girl who committed suicide by hanging herself in a school bathroom. She had been diagnosed with a depressive disorder and had been treated in a psychiatric facility. Unfortunately, her mental illness caused her pain and ridicule at school. So now, some attention will be paid to mental illness for a while. Physical illnesses and disabilities and their treatments receive attention, even special programs, and are usually accepted and understood by parents, peers, teachers, neighbors and the general public. But mental illness is a stigma, rarely understood or accepted by family members, much less society in general. I know, because it took me some time to accept the schizophrenia of my second son, who experienced sudden behavioral changes during his junior year in high school. Twenty years later, he is able to live by himself in an apartment and take care of his daily needs. But he has not been able to hold a job and his condition still is not understood nor accepted by some relatives and other people in his life. He has been homeless and is street-smart. He has been institutionalized at least a dozen times and, a few times in the early years, I had to go through court commitment to help him. He has suffered untold persecution and more than once has found himself in jail. But the nurses there got to know him and admitted him to the psychiatric unit until he could be medicated and returned to the community. An outstanding athlete in high school, he played baseball in the International Special Olympics when he was young. Now, there is "group" a few times a week. No job training, just a daily existence of being a chronic schizophrenic. He knows one thing, though: "I don’t ever want to be homeless again." We spend a weekend together every month or so and he has friends and family in the community where he lives. He is a wonderful, caring, sensitive and intelligent man who would do anything for me. As a mother and a nurse, I know about the lack of mental health care in this country. I hope this issue of NurseWeek will motivate some health care providers to look into the community and exert whatever influence they can at the state and national levels to push for improved programs and better care for the mentally ill. Barbara
Brown, EdD, RN, FAAN Perspective is an occasional column featuring the views of NurseWeek editorial staff. |