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Those of you who are familiar with me on here already know that I've already wrote a Medicare Part Death diary. Now I'm going to write about the United States mental health care system. It's always been a major problem for our wonderful country to deal with.... But even more so during the Bush administration. And it all started with the Reagan administration coming into power in 1980. Mentally ill people like myself have always been treated differently than the general population as a whole. It's really a nationwide problem but even more so here in southern West Virginia where I live and the rest of Appalachia as well. Appalachians rightfully or wrongfully have been known to be very condenscening on people different than them in any way. And I bluemcdowell have been no exception. It's very very difficult for me here in McDowell County and the rest of southern West Virginia, southwest Virginia, and eastern Kentucky dealing with this illness. I've been teased all my life and predictably it was his absolute worst during my teenage years. I was first diagnosed with ADHD in my 1st grade year. I was forced by the school itself, the county school system, my family doctor, and psychiatric health professionals, and worst yet my own family, onto an awful dangerous and often deadly drug known as ritalin or else be demoted and/or repeated a grade. There are a tiny few success stories with ritalin but they are few and far between IMHO. And I most definitely like the vast majority of my fellow ritalin-takers wasn't one of them. My whole family - grandparents and mom - all of them supported putting me on ritalin big time. And my whole family except perhaps for my bipolar sister who is my worst enemy still say it was the best thing to ever happen in my life. I disagree with them - sadly my loving and deceased grandparents included -100 percent. Ritalin has almost completely destroyed my life. Sadly its negative side effects and social effects still linger on today. I am looked at as different by almost everybody here. I am 37 years old now and and most people here friend or foe intentionally or not have been cool towards me my entire life. And I sadly am still teased big time about it even today 31 years later. Before I was prescribed ritalin I was a normal 5 year old boy. I loved sports and played them very well, I could draw very beautiful pictures of just about anything. I also had a few close friends. But even back then I was in the "out-crowd." Boys and girls my age back then pre-ritalin, present ritalin, and post-ritalin couldn't stand me. And since my whole entire family - my biological mother especially - is just like my Appalachian "in-crowd" neighbors for the most part I am often by myself and an outcast: not by choice but by default. Again most of the people that have treated me this way are my fellow evangelicals and Pentecostals mostly the Republican-supporting ones. Sad but true. Actually most non-evangelicals and non-Pentecostals while not totally supportive understand me better, and it really shouldn't be that way. Christians should support me more than anybody. But sadly once again as always they have dropped the ball as far as I'm concerned for the most part. After just 1 month after taking ritalin everything changed. I was just plain awful in sports. I couldn't draw or color worth a heck anymore. I was well-behaved but too much so. I was painfully shy and and a total and complete recluse because I didn't want to get into any trouble with my teachers. Yes my grades improved but at the worst possible price: 0 friends except for two best friends. And one of them moved to North Carolina after the 10th grade. And even my other one was teasing me big time for a while. My teachers loved me. My grandparents loved me. My mom loved me. My pastor step-dad loved me. Sadly my fellow students on the other hand hated me and teased me from the 5th grade until my graduation from Bluefield State College. I was considered a "teacher's pet." I have 0 close friends either male or female here even today in the part of McDowell County I live in. Not one. Not "rednecky" enough for them. Sad but true.... I often cry and suffer in silence. I have far more online friends than I do McDowell County friends besides my last church and the ones at my local mental health clinic. My last church and my current mental health clinic and my family doctor as well on the other hand have been nothing but wonderful to me for the most part. They are more representative of the West Virginia I know than my family and so-called acquaintances. But I'm never around them and always around my detractors. Sad but true. There are people here that want to be good friends with me but won't because of my ADHD and schizophrenia and especially my "in-crowd" detractors. Sad but true. This is another prime example of the current mental health system especially under Bush and the Republicans preferring "profits" over "people." Mentally ill people like me are not always but still often treated like second-class citizens for the most part. My mental health clinic has been nothing but wonderful towards me except for one possible enemy of mine who once liked me but turned against me for "profits" reasons. They have done everything that Bush and the Republicans will let them to do but have not been allowed to even help me like they could because mental health care like our whole health-care systerm has a whole is pretty much run by the drug and insurance companies and the clinic can only help me as much as the insurance and drug companies and the Bush administration as well will let them do. Again sad but true. Thank God they have a sliding-scale system because Medicare will only pay 50 percent of outpatient psychiatric treatment. That alone is inexcusable. Why pay 80 percent on most other health care issues but just 50 percent to a potentially more crippling disease than even physical ailments? It's because physical diseases are fairly recognizable and mental diseases are not for the most part. Every other industrialized country in the world actually considers mental health care treatment as the 1st health care priority even over physical illnesses and diseases. They threat it like the "life and death" issue that it most definitely is. In the United States however mental health is the ABSOLUTE LAST HEALTH CARE ISSUE here, that is except for the drug and insurance companies who received the biggest profits and windfalls in American history since Bush first took office in 2001. Psychotropic drugs like I currently take are by far the most expensive medicines in the United States today. And it has become much worse because of Medicare Part Death.... except once again for the pharmaceutical and insurance companies reaping record profits every single year. Ronald Reagan and his administration are the biggest reason mental health care in the United States is in its current sad shape it is today. He gutted and cut funding fo mental health care services and treatment so much that it took President Clinton and his administration to "half-way" bring it back to "respectability." Now however since Clinton left office and Bush Jr. has taken over our mental health care system is almost as bad if not even worse than it was in the Reagan days.... except for the insurance and drug companies' bottom line that is. Meanwhile the teasing of me bluemcdowell continues and I continue to often suffer in silence. And I will have to wait until at least Jan. 21, 2009 and probably at least until 2010 or 2011 to see any noticeable progress if even then.... with many of my biggest detractors and even enemies some of them my fellow Republican-voting evangelicals and Pentecostals with my biggest detractors my pastor step-dad and even my own mother. SAD BUT TRUE
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