"But awareness is not treatment. And compassion means little when people with untreated severe mental illness are left to sleep on sidewalks, cycle through emergency rooms, languish in jails, or die prematurely from neglect, exposure, suicide, addiction, and preventable disease."
Mental Health Awareness Month in May promotes reducing stigma, raising awareness, speaking openly, and showing compassion. Awareness is not treatment, and compassion is insufficient when people with untreated severe mental illness sleep on sidewalks, repeatedly use emergency rooms, remain in jails, or die prematurely from neglect, exposure, suicide, addiction, and preventable disease. A reassuring national narrative claims progress from old asylums toward civil liberties and humane community care, but the replacement system is inadequate. Many people with serious psychiatric conditions are left to manage illnesses that impair judgment and distort reality, while families face barriers to intervention and doctors are limited by law, liability, bed shortages, and bureaucracy. Police often respond to crises without training, and intervention frequently occurs only after deterioration becomes catastrophic. The framing of “respect for autonomy” is criticized because autonomy is limited when illness prevents recognizing the need for help, making “freedom” resemble abandonment.
Read at Psychology Today
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