Wondering about how our country treats the mentally ill and if anyone here has any first hand knowledge or experience with. I heard the other day that since a lot of the mentally ill aren't connected to reality that well, the mentally ill don't have a loud voice in the political realm.

I have some personal experience, perhaps it will help.

Things we all can research and discuss are:

Housing

I think most of the mentally ill live in ALF's or group type homes, which are funded by Disability Checks and also Medicaid or Medicare funding. I think monthly they are looking at about 1400 all together per month.

Food

The ALF's and group homes provide three meals a day with snacks at night time.

The food is important because battling a mental illness takes a lot effort. Some of these places don't provide enough to eat, in my personal experience.

Medication

Medication is funded by Non-profits I think. In Florida there is the SMA Fact Team that provides for the mentally ill.

Therapy

There are plenty of support groups to get into in my experience. I feel like more psychotherapy would help too.

Looking forward to hearing all of your viewpoints!

Short version of my story:

Starting in the late 1980's, I suffered from severe depression and subsequently lost my teaching job and eventually became homeless after working in a retail store for a few years. I came close to suicide a number of times. Once I literally had a loaded pistol in my hand to shoot myself, but didn't do it (obviously).

My sister-in-law was a social worker, and got me medical help, which lead to me taking psychotropics for over twenty years.

I was essentially non-functioning as a productive member of society for that time.

Starting about five years ago, I tapered off the psych meds and now don't take any.

I'm now able to work some and am (relatively) clear-headed. The meds caused some permanent damage, but not too much.

God did for me what meds couldn't. Things turned around when I started trusting God and trying to be more obedient to Him.

Extremely Important: NEVER modify your medication without FIRST consulting your health care professional. Any and all changes in medication MUST be closely supervised by a qualified health care professional. NEVER EVER play doctor and change your medication on your own. I stupidly did that one time in 2007, and ended up in a psych ward for three days!

Good stuff!

I've been battling an illness for over 10 years, after having a complete and nervous breakdown that happened while in college sometime in my early twenties. The medicine is a commitment and you actually have to find "growth" with medicines that shut you down. It can get quite tedious.

Thanks for sharing your story Lagtight, and good on you for including this advice. It's good that you are in a better place now.

While the various medications used in treatment of psychiatric / mental conditions is a discussion in its own right (with few simple answers, but a lot of success stories, a lot of bad stories and some stories in between), quitting such medications is also a complicated and potentially dangerous affair.

Glad I had an opportunity to share my story here in P&S. I'm grateful to God that He had mercy on me and rescued me from the deep despair that I had fallen in to. God's mercy is available to all who put their trust in Him!

All who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. - Romans 10:13

Well said.