Bringing mental health ‘out of shadows’ a worthy goal
IN remarks last week at the start of a White House conference on mental health, President Barack Obama said the issue needs to come “out of the shadows.” This is true nationally and certainly here in Oklahoma.
Terri White, who directs the state agency charged with helping those with mental health and substance abuse problems, will tell anyone who’s willing to listen that overcoming the stigma attached to mental health is a major 1 hurdle here. Simply put, the topic makes people uncomfortable, whether they are the person who needs help or know a friend or family member who does.
Knocking down this stigma is crucial if Oklahoma is to begin reducing the number of children in foster care, or the number of adults who wind up in prison for nonviolent crimes, or if the state is to improve other health outcomes. Mental health contributes greatly to all these ills.
According to White’s office, mental disorders are the third-leading cause of chronic disease in Oklahoma — more prevalent than diabetes, cancer, heart disease and stroke. In Oklahoma, the average life span is 71.7 years. For people with mental health problems, it shrinks to 57.5 years. For those with substance abuse issues, it drops to 43.2 years. And for those afflicted with mental health and substance abuse problems, the average age of death is 40.6 years.
Oklahoma leads the nation in the nonmedical use of pain relievers; the state’s suicide rate is the 13th-highest in the country. Meantime, 40 percent of Oklahoma youth who need mental health services, and 80 percent of those who need substance abuse treatment, don’t receive it. Among the indigent adult population, 70 percent who need mental health treatment don’t receive it.
The lack of services is tied largely to a lack of funding. To her credit, Gov. Mary Fallin called for additional mental health funding for White’s agency in the next fiscal year. Lawmakers granted her wish. More funding should continue to be pushed in this direction when possible. But what’s most important is a broader willingness to talk about mental health issues and confront them.
“We’re up against other (funding) priorities,” White said at a meeting this spring with The Oklahoman’s editorial board. “Until the citizens of Oklahoma say this is a priority for us as well, until they (policymakers) feel like citizens are really wanting that, they still look at other priorities.
“The fact that people get mental health and substance abuse services at the point that they’re falling apart — it doesn’t have to be that way.”
The White House conference was part of Obama’s response to the December schoolhouse shooting in Connecticut. Not much has been revealed about the state of mind of the perpetrator, Adam Lanza, but other high-profile mass killings in recent years have involved gunmen with mental health issues. Those events raised the profile of mental health issues, but only for a short time and always negatively.
Millions of people with mental illness function perfectly well because they got the help they need. But they aren’t likely to share their success stories, because of the stigma attached.
More than 60 percent of Americans with mental illness don’t get treatment, Obama said, many due to embarrassment or fear of being ostracized. “We wouldn’t accept it if only 40 percent of Americans with cancers got treatment,” he said. “So why should we accept it when it comes to mental health?”
We shouldn’t. Obama is to be commended for leading the conversation.