Blog 2: Mental health.
Hi, today I’m gonna talk about my personal experience with mental health issues and the problems I've been able to see in the healthcare system.
First, Hi, my name is Mario, I'm 22 y/o and since 2018 I'm also a “user” of mental health issues. Well, it all begins with a mental breakdown (psychotic attack) that left me with a really bad trip for almost one year. Many things happened after that “accident” but for my luck i was able (thanks to my family) to pay the big bill that the treatment left us in these almost three years. I’m not the same dude, and I have my problems resulting from the traumatic experience, but I'm ok anyway.
*So, if I was the lucky one, who wasn’t?*
Well, that guy was my friend of almost twelve years, Ian.
Ian was a special guy, a beautiful mind who was left in the middle of an “odisea” that he couldn't afford.
Almost all my friends, including me, came from San Joaquin. We go to a school for middle class people and almost all of us have humble roots. Some of us, like in my case, have the luck to prosper economically thanks to the hard work from our family, and some of us just didn’t have the same luck.
-Anyways, we love each other like family, and we still like that- Ian has a hard life, he just can’t afford the cost of treatment for his depression, and the last few years we’re too much for him. He suffered all alone, in silence. Naturally one day he just decided to end his life.
Today I know well exists the chance to get help for the people who can’t afford the cost of a particular professional, but at the time My friend was struggling with all of that, we don’t have the education or the knowledge of the existence of a program for people who suffer from a mental issue. We just know if in case of an emergency we can call to the suicide prevention number.
Anyways, my friend is gone. And I still think the healthcare system it’s in debt to the people who don't have the chance to afford treatment for their mental issues and actually have a good way to make them into a good program.
Mental health it’s a big problem in our country, and don’t just a small issue invented by youngsters, we all have our problems. We all need help.
That's all from me. Thanks for reading.
Have a good weekend and take care.
I really like what you write in this post. Mental health is a real and very serious topic and we need to talk about this. We deserve a free service for mental health, because, as you mention, there is some public institutions but it is no enough.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate very much that through this experience so personal, intimate and I imagine that painful, you can make visible an issue as important as mental health. There are many of us who have ever needed this type of help or containment, and unfortunately we have been faced with the monetary barrier. Undoubtedly the health system has an outstanding debt with all those who day by day must fight in silence and without the necessary tools to get ahead. I hope that in the not too distant future, there won't continue to be cases like your friend's.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your story :)
Thank you for sharing this. I believe that it is very important to make these experiences visible, it is totally necessary and urgent to improve public and mental care services, there are many of us who live in situations where money is not enough for private services and the public service that is currently provided is not enough, and it is extremely precarious, slow and collapsed.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your story Mario! Mental health is important even if you have or not a mental issue, is necessary. I tried to kill myself several times and I was lucky to have a family that could afford pay the treatment, I can't imagine what can happen to who cannot afford an appropriate treatment! Greetings, Joselu.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine how hard it was for you losing someone that important, and at the same time I share the helplessnes you must have felt not knowing others ways to help your friend. Because there is not enogh information about it, unless you're struggling with this kind of problems. And I appreciate too the courage tha you had to share this experience with us.
ReplyDeleteI also have a friend that kill him self, since this happend always reflec about mental health and how it be intimate related with our personal and family story. Thanks the life I have not big mental problems, but near of me the depresion and problems with drugs are every day more common, the system most change and I think the "art therapy" could be part of that process.
ReplyDeleteHello, I hope you're fine, it'ss a very important topic that you say, I congratulate you for talking about this. I totally agree, mental health in this country is bad, I think it is still seen as a taboo subject and that must change!
ReplyDeleteI hope that in the future we all have the right to good mental care :(
ReplyDeleteHello Mario, it is incredible how sometimes we overlook health issues like this, we believe that the urgent thing is the most common or most named diseases, but for me health in general with all its categories should be important, thank you for sharing your story.
ReplyDelete