What we should do for the mentally ill

Source: tosavealife.com

The economic principle I’m exploring is “Institutions are ‘the rules of the game’ that influence choices” My research question to help me study the economic principle is “What should we be doing for the mentally ill population?”

  The article published in Mental Health America titled “Position Statement 14: The Federal Government's Responsibilities for Mental Health Services” demonstrates this economic principle by arguing that the government should create stronger early intervention methods, recognize mental illness as a health concern, and mobilize innovation throughout the country. 

One of the biggest problems that face those with mental illness is not being able to catch it early enough. According to the article, many people that are mentally ill do not seek treatment until they experience physical symptoms and believe that they are sick. This is something that is very preventable. People should be more aware of what mental illness is so that it is much more recognizable when it comes up. Too often, people are not treated until things get too bad to fix. I personally think that this is such a large problem that I have experienced in my own life. At the age of 15, I was going through an awful time and I didn’t know why. Eventually, I went to the school social worker, to whom I said “What exactly is depression?”, because I thought that I might’ve had it. The reason my mental illness got so bad was because I didn’t fully know what it was. With more information, scenarios like this should cease to occur.

Much of the time, mental illness is not recognized as a health problem. Subconsciously, people rank physical illness above mental illness in the hierarchy of importance. The reality is that they shouldn’t be separated because they are both incredibly dangerous, and both can lead to death. If that fact was more widely recognized, it would be taken much more seriously.

 Finally, we need to mobilize the innovation in mental illness to be national. Currently, some parts of the United States are better to live in than others for those that are mentally ill. Some states have better mental hospitals or support their mentally ill population more than others. Our government should try to equal the playing field of each state and make the US a good place to live no matter where you are.

In my next blog post, I will research the question: What are other countries’ systems for mental illness?