IT'S MENTAL

 IT’S MENTAL !

Most of us know someone who is bi-polar, depressed, has panic attacks, suffers from a fear of heights or some other “mental” illness.

When someone has a heart attack, we know which organ is troubled and which doctors can fix it. Same for a stroke. If a leg is broken, the orthopedist treats it. If our back “goes out,” our doctor gives us muscle relaxants or our chiropractor adjusts the back.

But when you are just feeling bad, emotionally drained, without hope or happiness for days, months, or years, most people put off getting help, and some never seek it because for many it has been seen as a sign of weakness. It is thought the victim just can’t man-up or woman-up and grab control of his or her life.

Why anyone would see an illness of the mind as different from a heart attack or a stroke or a broken bone I have never understood. It is the callousness of the masses of ignorant people that serve as the foundation of the fear of mentioning or treating our bad feelings.

Some of this attitude can be laid directly at the feet of insurance companies and employers. For a very long time, company insurance did not treat bad feelings the way they treated all other human medical conditions. If they provided coverage at all, it was much reduced from what was provided for other illnesses.

Further, in the world of work, any sort of mental or emotional weakness was frowned upon. If you were recovered from a heart attack, the human resource interviewer would not give it a thought. Conversely, if you mentioned on your application or in the course of a pre-employment physical that you had been treated for depression, or panic attack or had a bi-polar disorder, good luck-no job offer coming your way.

As I recall, when I was a youngster, not a great deal was known about the illness of bad feelings. In those days doctors tended to use electric shock therapy, and it was very unpleasant. When it was displayed in the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, many people had their first encounter with electric shock therapy.

With the development of better medicines to bring bad feelings under better control, and with a better public understanding of illnesses of the mind, and with more of us actually knowing someone who has been stricken with bad feelings, I think the curse of the bad feelings disease has lessened a great deal.

There is no intention in this column to address the many different types of mental illness that can afflict people. I am talking here primarily about depression. And I should point out that I am talking about serious long term depression not short term impression that might be suffered at the loss of a job, a parent or a child. Those are  known as situational depression.

Bad feelings don’t respond quickly to medication. There is a long trial and error period in finding the right combination of pharmaceuticals. We as a people are not very patient. We like quick fixes. So the very nature of trying new drugs over a long period of time without good result adds to the problem.

Very few people commit suicide because they have required heart surgery or had a dislocated shoulder treated or had to take pain killers for their back. However, some people commit suicide when they have the affliction of unending depression.

We have all recently read of the suicide of comedian Robin Williams. Most of us who knew him from his work would have imagined he lived a wonderful life devoid of demons. We now know that was not so. He was heavily in debt. He was in rehab for substance abuse. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.He was on his third marriage. And his career was in decline. He was a person filled with bad feelings. And he chose not to live one more day that way. Yet while successful treatment might be years away it also might have been days away. I wish he had been able to be more patient.

Keep in mind that Williams was seeing a doctor, presumably a psychiatrist, because he had recently been in rehab. We can also assume he was prescribed medications thought to be helpful. I read that he was faced with bankruptcy, but a man with his talent, even with the disease of depression, could have found a way to make money if he had been able to think straight. So I think we can fairly categorize Williams as someone for whom the right combination of drugs and therapy had not yet been found. Had he been able to tolerate living a little longer with depression, he might have been saved.

So let us recommit to trying harder to recognize bad feelings in those around us. A lot of understanding and encouragement to not give up hope might actually save a life.

Encourage people suffering from bad feelings to get a physical exam from their personal physician and ask for referral to a psychologist or psychiatrist for evaluation. Their doctor will not find this an unusual request, and the referral will come easily. Once the depression, or bi-polar, or panic attack is properly diagnosed, then the patient will be on the road, albeit a long one perhaps, to getting back to the condition of feeling good.