Spot in the Name of Love

Bringchange2mind.org has launched a public service campaign to confront the stigmas associated with mental illnesses.

Here is the spot:



And here is a behind the scenes video containing interviews with those who appear in the spot, including Glenn Close, and director Ron Howard.

Fakery

The news this morning is very different than the news last night.

A little more than 12 hours ago, all we heard about was a 6 year-old boy who may, or may not, have become trapped in a homemade weather balloon that was drifting through the skies of Colorado.

This morning, there is much speculation that the whole thing may have been a stunt designed to land the boy and his family a reality show.

Yesterday, there was concern that the boy might, at any moment, plummet to the ground at the end of a long silver streamer.

This morning, there is debate around who should be held accountable and pay for the cost of scrambling the Air Force.

Compassion is a precious commodity and becoming more so in our increasingly cynical age. It's a natural resource in humans and, like other natural resources, it is finite in supply. The body can make more blood, but compassion once invested can never be replaced.

Since yesterday's incident, it has come to light that balloon boy's family had been on "Wife Swap" a reality show where two very different families trade their matriarchs for the benefit of the TV audience.

Armed with this piece of information, radio talk show hosts are this morning parsing a comment made by the boy in an on-camera interview last night. He is alleged to have said that he "did it for the show."

Whether it was for the TV show that they supposedly want, or for the "show" of all the first responders, including the United States Air Force, trying to safely resolve a potentially high-risk situation has not been made clear and will doubtless keep many a radio host's phone lines lit for the rest of the day.

But now that that conversation is out there, now that the public's reflexive compassion has been challenged, deflated by the prospect of some ulterior motive, it will only serve to make it that much harder to feel compassionate the next child at risk.

Asking people for support--whether emotional, or even financial--is a trust-based transaction. People call us looking for help every day, but they can only do that once they have accepted that we will not take advantage of their vulnerability. Even in today's warts-and-all culture, it takes a lot for people to disclose that they are experiencing a mental illness, or have a family member who is.

Usually, when they call us it's because they want to speak to Paddy. After 28 years she has a proven track record of being a compassionate and discrete advocate. When Paddy is out of the office, or otherwise unavailable, it is often harder, or even impossible, for them to work with any of our other staff. The callers don't know us and are not yet sure that they can trust us. We have to earn that trust.

Doing this work takes money and a good portion of the money that comes to us as personal donations is in recognition of Paddy's service to the donor, or the donor's family. If, for any reason, those donors questioned her discretion, that money would evaporate.

And it's not just stigma issues relating to mental health that can compromise our compassion. People donate money based on emotion and when those feelings are called into question, then barriers are go up. 17 years ago, the president of the national United Way resigned over a misuse of funds scandal that still influences donors. Locally, we hear almost annually about how there are donors who won't support the Red Cross because they charged for donuts during World War II.

Once stories like that get out there, they impact donations to all organizations. Donors who, for whatever reason, have invested their compassion in a cause, or a news story, or even another person and later learn that that decision was unwise, or worse, foolish, think twice about making their next investment.

Nobody likes to get played.

I have a family member who has, on more than one occasion, disclosed that he has attempted suicide.

His disclosures were, by definition, always in the past tense and generally took the form of "You know, last winter, I went into the woods to kill myself." (I didn't know that he had been planning any of these attempts and was grateful that, for whatever reason, he had not been successful.)

I have neither the credentials nor the skill to attempt to analyze his motives, but earlier this fall, he called me and I noted that his tense had shifted from the past to the future. He was talking about "getting out of town" and how he "couldn't take it anymore." He engaged in what is described as "settling of accounts," saying good-bye in one form or another.

I spoke with his mother and she was concerned that she could not get in touch with him and that he had been talking about suicide.

I called his cell phone and got his voice mail. I don't remember what I said exactly, but my intent was to get him to come back from "the woods."

A little while later he called me and in the course of our conversation indicated that he had taken something--he kept asking if his speech was clear. He said several times that he could not take the "ostracization" from the rest of the family. He felt isolated and alone. He also indicated his approximate location by saying that he couldn't talk anymore because he was losing cell service.

I called the police. I believed that he had taken an overdose and was on the verge of passing out.

After a lengthy interview with the police, they took his cell phone number and called it in an effort to determine his location.

Sometime later, my family member called me and said "if that's you're game, I'm one step ahead of you."

He had talked to the police and assured them that he was not near death and nowhere near where he indicated to me that he was.

I cannot condense my relationship with my family member with any skill and ably convey its complexity and accumulated failures over the course of 5 decades. I know I did not always behave as I should have, nor did I respond to every request for help. I do however feel that I had always demonstrated my compassion and this incident was the last straw.

He tried to call back several times later that day, but I would not take his calls. I have nothing left to give to him. What I had had, he took advantage of.

Trading on the compassion of others has real consequences both for those involved in the transaction as well as others. I will not be so fast to respond to his threat of suicide, or other cry for help. He has proven himself to be one who does it "for the show."

There are many sad aspects to his story, but using the currency of suicide to get attention diminishes the impact of authentic attempts. It's like crying wolf, or telling the authorities that your child is trapped in a silver weather balloon.

Nobody likes to get played.

--Graham Campbell
Associate Director

The Value of Gas Station Cinamon Rolls

I know that no one does this but me. It’s my secret defense against a world that continues to disappoint, frustrate, and aggravate.

There’s a shop around the corner that sells my rescue remedy. Sometimes it’s a bottle, sometimes it’s a bar, sometimes it’s cold and sometimes it’s hot. And on the really bad days—more frequent of late, it seems—my remedy might be a combination of these ingredients.

I eat.

I’m not one of those foodies who seem to be all over the TV extolling the virtues of chocolate covered ants, or wolverine toenails with ceviche. I prefer the gas station cinnamon rolls to those you get in a bakery and I like my cold drinks with as many syllables as possible.

As a result of my caloric-clad cowardice, my inability to confront the issues and the people that drive me to find my ho-ho-ho in a plastic wrapper, I am truly the bigger person. Bigger not because I turn the other cheek, but because I have more cheek to turn—chins too.

Another result of my rescue remedy is that I have spent more time with doctors than I would prefer. Blood tests, treadmills, HDL and LDL are now a part of my vocabulary. I make monthly trips to the pharmacy and am constantly surprised by how much money goes into so few pills.

I take the pills and the stress tests because, however frustrating everyday life can be, I’m not done with it yet. I would like to live long enough to be able to give my wife the kind of life that she deserves.

So my health is important to me and I pay a premium to maintain it. And like many, the dollar cost of that premium keeps going up far faster than my salary.

Don’t get me wrong, I know I am very fortunate to have access to any kind of insurance coverage. But I also know that having less money to pay the other expenses of daily life because of it is one of the reasons that my car seems to stop at the corner store.

Being sick in this country is frightening: more frightening than anything they could come up with on television, or in the movies. For an increasing number of us—even with coverage—it is the nightmare from which you never awake.

The simple doctor visit, with the odd test and prescriptions, can be make a sizable dent in the family budget, but if hospitals and specialists become involved then not just their health, but their economic future can easily be jeopardized.

I am not a stone. I would love a chance to drive a fancy sports car, live in one of those McMansions that were so popular a couple of years ago and have a big enough yard to have more than one dog. I want all of that, but I know that it will have to wait until my bank balance can support it. If I get seriously sick, I do not have the same luxury of deferred gratification. I have a simpler choice: follow the doctor’s orders, wherever they lead, or wait for nature to take its course.

And once you get sick, you increase your risks not only for related disorders, but also that your insurance company will only selectively cover your expenses, or drop your coverage entirely.

Seen in those terms, every trip to the corner store for a flavored, or frozen, or chocolate-covered anything threatens my life, my health and my family’s future.

Great: more stress.

It’s like wearing a Velcro suit in a velour-covered world: once you start down this path, it can take a real effort to break loose.

In some respects I am more fortunate than others who experience congenital disorders, my problems are entirely of my own making. Cutting back and cutting out, walking the dog more and finding other ways to work out can significantly impact my health issues. This in turn will reduce my need for medication and the associated costs.

Sounds all very rational and straightforward, but my car keeps stopping at the store. And will keep stopping until I can address the underlying issues that make junk food so attractive to me.

My mental health and my physical health are connected around my ability to manage stress. There are healthier alternatives to inhaling a pint of Cherry Garcia ice cream, but none nearly as enjoyable.

My brother keeps trying to get me to take up boxing, or some other physical activity. He claims that beating up a bag will be just as satisfying as anything I could eat. I understand that there are people for whom that is true, but to me, it makes as much sense as writing down what’s bothering you on a piece of paper and flushing it down the toilet. I could never do that out of fear that the toilet would back up.

A component of the current discussion about healthcare has been the need to get consumers more involved in their own care. The assumption is that having an accurate picture of the cost of care will encourage us all to get healthier and the healthier we get, the less we will need medical care and the cost will go down. It’s a lovely idea and based on sound economic theory, but people are already afraid to get sick. Sticker shock is not going to get me to go to the gym either, but it will get me to have another cookie.

There is no doubt that fear is an excellent motivator: it was responsible for the high level of engagement in the recent town hall meetings on this issue. But comfort and security are perhaps more powerful: this is perhaps why the couch always seems to win out over the exercise bike.

A lot of ink has been already spilled on this topic and I certainly don’t claim that I have any new insights, but I believe this is too important a conversation to be left to insurance companies and politicians.

I keep coming back to the idea that this entire debate is, first and foremost, a conversation about values. What kind of a country would oblige so many of its citizens to live in fear of disease?

The rights recognized in the Declaration of Independence are fundamental to the American character, regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum. Of the big three—life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—the notion of a “right to life” is clearly galvanizing. Liberty and happiness are important, but they are meaningless without life. Should we really be drawing a distinction between life and health? Between happiness and health?

Reforming healthcare goes to the heart of the question of what the country stands for. The health of any community is a reflection of the health of its citizens. Safe water and effective sanitation are basic to any model of communal living. We demand the government intervene at the threat of pandemic and we volunteer to give blood in the event of disaster. Even the most vehement of libertarians support the notion of a common good.

And if you don’t accept the notion of being your brother’s keeper then you should appreciate that providing access to basic healthcare to the many will reduce the cost of healthcare for the individual. Hospitals spend millions of dollars every year providing care to those uninsured patients that we have heard so much about. There isn’t a healthcare facility that could stay in business if they didn’t pass those costs along to the rest of us.

This is the essential pro-life discussion and should not be hijacked by the misdirection of “death panels”, “Obamacare” and socialism. It is not hyperbole to note that this is a conversation about what a 21^st century America is about and what it stands for. And if you accept that there is some minimum standard for the health of the public then I am convinced that people of good will can develop a practical plan to make that happen.

As the holidays are approaching, I look forward to the opportunity to watch “A Christmas Carol” the essential holiday fable. Early in the story, Scrooge is told that there are many who would rather die then go to the work houses that were so common in Dickens’ time. Scrooge’s response is that if they would rather die, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

By the end of the story, Scrooge is able to change his fate by extending his hand to those less fortunate than himself. By investing in his neighbors, he enriches himself. This is not an idea unique to Dickens, or Christmas, but, I would submit, part of the national identity.

Just as the time has come for me to take responsibility for my health and my future and stop using food as a band-aid, we must decide that investing in healthcare for all is the only responsible thing to do.

I have to go now and take the dog for a walk.

--Graham Campbell
Associate Director

October at YES

We have a couple great Halloween themed days for the month of October.

• On Friday, October 23rd, we are having a YES Halloween Dance from 7pm - 10pm.
• Also the Denison Mortar Board is throwing a Halloween Party for us on Tuesday, October 27th.

--Cheryl Dupler

YES Clubhouse