Thru My Eyes-- The mental health system is a definition of insanity

This video is informative....an hour long but it's a discussion on how/why mental health system fails those with a mental illness.  Something I can attest to personally.

Minds on the Edge

MINDS ON THE EDGE: Facing Mental Illness is a multi-platform media project that explores severe mental illness in America.

The centerpiece of the project is a television program airing on PBS stations in October 2009. This video component is part of a national initiative that includes extensive web content with tools for civic engagement, active social media on Facebook and Twitter, and an ambitious strategy to engage citizens, professionals in many fields, and policy makers at all levels of government. The goal is to advance consensus about how to improve the kinds of support and treatment available for people with mental illness.

The television program MINDS ON THE EDGE: Facing Mental Illness effectively illuminates challenging ethical issues as well as systemic flaws in program and policy design, service coordination, and resource allocation. These problems are contributing to a mental health system that is widely acknowledged to be broken. MINDS ON THE EDGE also provides a glimpse of innovative solutions that are currently being implemented across the country. These innovations, many shaped by the guidance and expertise of people with mental illness, offer promising solutions and hopeful direction to transform the mental health system.

The last decade has seen great advances in understanding mental illness, and scientists are making exciting new discoveries every year. Approaching mental illness as a medical illness – like cancer or heart disease – scientists are working to develop new and better treatments, methods for early diagnosis, strategies for prevention, and the possibility of a cure. NARSAD, a charity dedicated to supporting scientific research in mental health, partnered with MINDS ON THE EDGE to provide web content about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and research that is advancing the frontiers of knowledge about these brain disorders.

Strides have also been made in many areas of the criminal justice system to intercept people with mental illness and redirect them into treatment programs instead of incarceration. The Council of State Governments Justice Center, one of the organizations that has been at the forefront of this effort, allowed MINDS ON THE EDGE to draw on their data and resources for content presented here about the intersection of mental illness and the criminal justice system.

The MINDS ON THE EDGE project is designed as a media catalyst to contribute to the conversation already underway in America and help to move it forward. The program, which is being widely distributed in DVD format, will be screened and discussed by civic groups, professional organizations, and leaders in government as a tool to engage the issues posed by severe mental illness and work together to find effective answers to this hidden crisis in America. NAMI, the National Alliance for Mental Illness, along with leading professional organizations like the American Psychiatric Association and U.S. Psychiatric Congress, have been active partners in this grassroots effort. The results of the civic engagement campaign are reported on in IMPACT.

Thru My Eyes - - Major Depressive Episode not "caused" by a single event

There is a misconception that a single event can cause someone to have a major depressive episode. A major depressive episode is caused  by the accumulation of triggers. A trigger is something that takes you down a notch or two in how you feel and/or increases your level of stress. For instance, losing a pet, death of a friend/family member, moving, loss of a job, financial issues or an argument with a friend. A trigger does not cause one to have depression, but one with depression can not handle them accumulating like a "normal" person can. 

Let me explain what I mean by "normal" in the most simplistic way I can. Everyone has two neurotransmitters (serotonin and norepinephrine) in their brain.  Serotonin and norepinephrine are chemicals that occur naturally in the brain and in a "normal" person, they balance each other and "fire" signals to the brain.  Say for instance everyone has a straight line (when neurotransmitters are balanced) in their brain. When you are at this line (balanced), you don't feel happy or sad, you are "normal".  When a trigger occurs, the line dips down and you lose your balance a little (feel sad) but a "normal" person is able to effectively deal (the brain creates the missing neurotransmitters) with the trigger and bounce back to "normal" without falling over.

One with depression, these triggers dip you down below the normal line and although you may not enter a full depressive episode, the momentum for one starts to build. We may bounce back some but bouncing back to "normal" (where the neurotransmitters are in balance) is a challenge and rarely happens. Each trigger compounds the previous one until you're unable to handle it all and you are so out of balance, you fall over (major depressive episode). 

Why do we fall over? When a trigger occurs our brains are not "wired correctly" to effectively deal with the trigger.  The brain does not balance the neurotransmitters out.  Incorrect signals are fired, leading to distorted thoughts, irrational thinking and obsessive thoughts.  Because the brain does not balance out the chemicals, as the number of triggers are strung together, we're headed for a major depressive spiral.  (This can happen over a matter of days, weeks, months or years.  It varies for everyone.)

Each major depressive episode intensifies from the one before and the suicidal thoughts last longer. Yes there are medications to help "wire our brains correctly", however there there is no magic formula to know how much or what combination of medication is going to work.  Plus the same medication affects everyone differently. So it can be a long, frustrating trial and error period before the right medications and/or combination of medications are discovered, if ever at all.

No, medications are not "happy pills", rather they help the brain balance out the neurotransmitters automatically like a "normal" brain does. So when a trigger occurs, a person with depression is at the "normal" state and has a better chance of returning to normal, being in balance and not falling over. Therapy also is needed, to help one with depression unlearn the distorted thoughts, irrational thinking and obsessive thoughts they have become accustomed to using., often times for many, many years or possibly one's entire life.  

I understand why "normal" people have a hard time or do not understand depression.  Intellectually, it does not make sense to me either. I am a highly intelligent individual, had a respected career and never thought of myself as having a mental illness. However, I can not cure my illness anymore than a diabetic can cure theirs. I now admit it is something I will have to deal with for life.

Thru My Eyes - - Mental Illness

I really wish there was a way to make others understand what it is truly like to live daily with a mental illness. Aka: depression, anxiety, bi-polar or as defined by dictionary.com: "Any of various conditions characterized by impairment of an individual's normal cognitive, emotional, or behavioral functioning, and caused by social, psychological, biochemical, genetic, or other factors, such as infection or head trauma."  Simply using that word alone "mental illness" conjures up a multitude of thoughts, feelings and stigmas. Coupled with the fact many do not "believe" it is a real illness and think one could "snap out of it" if they wanted too, leaves us suffering....often times doing so alone.

Anyone regardless of race or education level can have a mental illness. Mental illness does not mean you are homeless, crazy, poor or uneducated.  There are MANY famous individuals who suffer from depression: Billy Joel, Boris Yeltzen, Princess Diana, and Jim Carrey to name a few.Famous People With Depression  Mental illness is prevalent. Roughly 1 in 4 adults have a mental disorder; therefore it is very likely someone you know has a mental illness and you are not aware of it. 


I have major depressive and general anxiety disorder.  Although I was officially diagnosed in 1996 at the age of 25; it is something I have dealt with my entire life.  As I child, I can remember hiding in our basement, behind the furnace wishing I was not alive.  By the age of 14, I was having sex with my "boyfriend" as a way to feel important and desperate to feel "loved".  I was in relationships from the age of 13 until 38, my self esteem depended on it. I would do anything and everything to "keep" the relationship, whether it was healthy for me or not. My fear of being "alone" outweighed my being happy. Happy?  What does that feel like??  Have I ever truly been happy in life?