Columns

Coronavirus Preparedness

This pathogen seems to be spreading at a lightning fast pace. The b90-day supplies of psychiatric medications, and to ask your psychiatrist for extra refills. We should not run out of our psych meds, because they are every bit as essential to us as surviving the virus, if you get it. If your psychiatrist is out sick for three months, it may not be possible to get meds filled. Ninety-day supplies of meds reduces the number of trips to the pharmacy. Pharmacies could be hotspots for exposure to the virus.

Secondly, if you are able to save up money, do so. If you have pending business, get it dealt with. Prepare as though you could be spending a period of time essentially defunct. Communicate with family to create emergency plans.

Avoid optional trips to hospitals. Hospitals are full of sick people, and it is likely that some of the people at hospitals will be sick with Coronavirus and can spread it to you.

When you shop for groceries, remember to get more canned food than you normally would, and store some of it.

Finally, take care of your health as much as you can. The better your condition is, the more prepared your body will be to fight off this disease. If you can delay catching Coronavirus, you are better off, since scientists doubtless are working on vaccines. Medical science is better than it was, and biologists know more than they did in the past. This equals a greater chance of rapidly formulating treatments and vaccines. If you get sick after, not before a good treatment is discovered, you are better off.

You do not need to panic. Most people who contract Coronavirus barely get sick, or barely have symptoms.



Raw Deal 

Those mental health consumers subject to outpatient institutionalization are getting a raw deal in life. We are expected to endure and even embrace many negatives. The things we are force-fed would never be acceptable to a person working in the mental health field. A PhD psychologist would never accept the idea of being forced to take medication, being forced to live under restrictions, and being economically deprived. 

It is ludicrous. The expectations include taking medications that cause physical and mental restriction as well as physical and mental suffering (sometimes agonizing), living in an institutionalized setting where there is little personal freedom or privacy, living on tiny amounts of money, and behaving oneself. No reasonable American could accept this. 

Outpatient institutionalization isn't the worst thing that could happen to us. Homelessness, living in a state hospital, or incarceration are three incredibly bad fates that befall numerous mental health consumers. And if you compare outpatient institutionalization to those possible outcomes, it seems like a more palatable situation. 

However, if I compare myself to people of my age and my background who are not afflicted with a psychiatric disability, it really seems like I've missed out. 

Outpatient institutions do not teach "clients" to live among the general public. We are taught a completely different set of behaviors, rules and customs compared to what is expected among mainstream adults. We are not helped in preparing for professional employment--mental health agencies may place us in bottom of the barrel positions or in special supported employment. The wages are going to be lower, the humiliation higher, and the chances of lasting numerous years in such positions, minimal. 

The "raw deal" consists of not having a home to call our own, of being forced into a day treatment program, and of not having choices in general. We are treated as though incompetent. We are presumed incompetent. 

Society doesn't offer mentally ill people very much worth having. If we try to bust out of the scenario handed to us, things begin to go wrong. People and events come out of the woodwork that pose interference or a threat. This doesn't have to be a conspiracy. People don't like it when you are successful and when they are not. Secondly, those who work as treatment practitioners are not invested in our success, they are invested in theirs.