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Are you normal? That's the question on a brochure for SPIRIT Center, a local drop-in center. Whenever I give it to someone, they smile. What is normal, anyway? Most people are proud to consider themselves not normal, not just an average Joe. But when does being not normal get uncomfortable? When does it go beyond comfort, out of control?
One in four. One in four Americans have a problem with their own mental health.
That means every one of us has a friend or family member, someone we know who is struggling with stress, or fear, or depression, or some form of psychological imbalance. Someone dealing with a chemical imbalance in their brain. Someone struggling with a drug addiction, using alcohol to calm down or meth to get up and out of depression. Someone self-medicating. Someone stuck in their fear and struggling to hide that fear from everyone else.
Many of us somehow continue to function, our inner torment invisible. Until one day someone will explode. Then they get attention, the wrong kind of attention. Violence in the headlines: Scott Thorpe kills three people. Someone slashes a woman's throat.
That violence adds to a climate of fear and judgement. It thickens the wall of stigma that separates people in mental anguish from the "normals." Community judgement makes it harder for someone in pain to trust, to reach out, to ask for help - what little help there is.
One in four. One in four Americans have a problem with their own mental health.
That means every one of us has a friend or family member, someone we know who is struggling with stress, or fear, or depression, or some form of psychological imbalance. Someone dealing with a chemical imbalance in their brain. Someone struggling with a drug addiction, using alcohol to calm down or meth to get up and out of depression. Someone self-medicating. Someone stuck in their fear and struggling to hide that fear from everyone else.
Many of us somehow continue to function, our inner torment invisible. Until one day someone will explode. Then they get attention, the wrong kind of attention. Violence in the headlines: Scott Thorpe kills three people. Someone slashes a woman's throat.
That violence adds to a climate of fear and judgement. It thickens the wall of stigma that separates people in mental anguish from the "normals." Community judgement makes it harder for someone in pain to trust, to reach out, to ask for help - what little help there is.
For too many years money to help people with mental health problems has been cut, and cut, and cut again. Those of us who have tried to work in the mental health system feel our own frustration and depression when we have little to offer a person in pain.
When a person finally becomes so desperate that they come out of their closet to ask for help, too often we must say that there is no help. Not until you are a danger to yourself, a danger to others, or are severely disabled. Not unless you meet the strict criteria for being sent on a 5150 out of county to a secure facility, because we have none in this county.
In 1969, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan closed the state mental hospitals, called for community health centers, and then refused to fund those centers. Since then, money has continued to be cut from mental health. Many people with serious mental health problems are forced to turn to the streets or hide away with a friend or relative if they are lucky.
This cycle of cutbacks has got to stop.
Finally, for the first time in the 35 years that I have been a psychiatric social worker, there is more money for new mental health services. Thanks to California voters, Proposition 63, now called the Mental Health Services Act, puts a 1 percent tax on income over $1 million. That money will soon bring new services to every county in California.
When a person finally becomes so desperate that they come out of their closet to ask for help, too often we must say that there is no help. Not until you are a danger to yourself, a danger to others, or are severely disabled. Not unless you meet the strict criteria for being sent on a 5150 out of county to a secure facility, because we have none in this county.
In 1969, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan closed the state mental hospitals, called for community health centers, and then refused to fund those centers. Since then, money has continued to be cut from mental health. Many people with serious mental health problems are forced to turn to the streets or hide away with a friend or relative if they are lucky.
This cycle of cutbacks has got to stop.
Finally, for the first time in the 35 years that I have been a psychiatric social worker, there is more money for new mental health services. Thanks to California voters, Proposition 63, now called the Mental Health Services Act, puts a 1 percent tax on income over $1 million. That money will soon bring new services to every county in California.
Just as important as the money is the opportunity for people to have a voice in how to spend it. You can help decide how to best use that Prop 63 money. By law, that money will be used for "consumer/family driven services." By law, that money is to be part of a "system transformation." That means a real grass roots, bottom up process.
Here in Nevada County we are taking that mandate very seriously. Here are several ways that you can say what new mental health services you think are most important:
• You can complete a simple questionnaire - the yellow questionnaire available throughout the county or online at: http://mynevadacounty.com/bh.
• Call in on any of a series of radio programs,"Who Cares?" in May on KVMR, 89.5 FM.
• Attend any of a series of focus groups on Mondays in June at the Helling Library.
Here in Nevada County we are taking that mandate very seriously. Here are several ways that you can say what new mental health services you think are most important:
• You can complete a simple questionnaire - the yellow questionnaire available throughout the county or online at: http://mynevadacounty.com/bh.
• Call in on any of a series of radio programs,"Who Cares?" in May on KVMR, 89.5 FM.
• Attend any of a series of focus groups on Mondays in June at the Helling Library.
• In Truckee, attend a Community Meeting on Thursday, June 16.
• Call me, the MHSA community coordinator, 274-1778.
• Come to a Town Hall meeting this Friday, from noon to 2 p.m., at the Helling Library, Nevada City.
Your voice will be heard.
<I>Joan Buffington is community coordinator for the MHSA in Nevada County. A psychiatric social worker since 1970, she was news director of KVMR-FM Community Radio, continues to host the program on health care called "Who Cares?" and is outreach coordinator for the SPIRIT Mental Health Peer Empowerment Center.</I>
• Call me, the MHSA community coordinator, 274-1778.
• Come to a Town Hall meeting this Friday, from noon to 2 p.m., at the Helling Library, Nevada City.
Your voice will be heard.
<I>Joan Buffington is community coordinator for the MHSA in Nevada County. A psychiatric social worker since 1970, she was news director of KVMR-FM Community Radio, continues to host the program on health care called "Who Cares?" and is outreach coordinator for the SPIRIT Mental Health Peer Empowerment Center.</I>
