There is a Trade Off: The Mentally Ill

The premise of this piece is that there is a trade off the mentally ill. It is a matter of people who are ill, people who work with the ill and the dynamics of the economics between them and the funding agencies for the treatment of the ill.

Let’s start off by defining the term economics, as per “the dismal science.” The Greek word for it is ekonomikos and it actually means “housekeeping.” Essentially, this science of the analysis of scarce resources has its root in managing a person’s household and by extension the environment around that person.

Funding for a mentally ill person who is so sick that they cannot function comes from either Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Income or SSDI. These programs have different rules and both of these are federal programs and they are in jeopardy because Social Security will be bankrupt by 2041 according to reports issued recently. And Medicare is also at risk in the next 11 years.

The government is currently taking a critical look at the above programs in an effort to fix them so they don’t go under. I believe that I won’t be here 33 years from now but I hope the people who will are going to be taken care of.

I only get SSDI, which is for people with a significant work history. And my check is much bigger than what many people receive because I was a computer programmer/analyst for 7 years. I worked at major companies like AT&T, Consolidated Edison, and Leviton Manufacturing.

People whose income is low enough are eligible for food stamps too. And I had figured out that I was eligible for SSI for the 2 months before my SSDI benefits kicked in. I found out the latter by myself, The Club didn’t even tell me. You actually have to be sick for 6 months before you get SSDI.

I am also living in a housing program from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of the State of NJ called Supportive Housing. They give me about ½ the money for my rent each month. So the government (this is a state program) is giving me a lot of help.

My medications are funded by Program For the Aged and Disabled and Medicare Part D. I pay five dollars a medication maximum.

Mental illness is a blanket term that covers a wide variety of problems and symptoms. It is often defined in terms of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder wherein a person has some of the symptoms of schizophrenia but not all of them.

What complicates the illness is that sometimes, it is coupled with bipolar disorder where a person experiences mood swings. That used to be called manic depression and it even made an impact on the late rock and roll musician Jimi Hendrix who wrote a piece called Manic Depression.

Paranoia also can be a problem and many people are diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic. Originally, I was misdiagnosed as such until further analysis led to change in my diagnosis.

A lot of people seem to think that paranoid schizophrenics are dangerous but the statistics are that if such a person in on his medications, he (or she) isn’t. In fact, people who are mentally ill are more likely to be the victims of an attack on their person that the perpetrator of an attack.

Many times, people who are ill are stigmatized and there is an ongoing effort by various mental health organizations to overcome that problem. The National Alliance of the Mentally Ill is one of them. There is a local chapter in NJ.

Some years ago, Trenton Psychiatric Hospital had a fire and a newspaper called The Trentonian, had an article called “Roasted Nuts.” While it may seem funny at first, the MHA was on top of the situation and the newspaper wound up running a five day series of articles on mental illness.

My diagnosis is schizoaffective with bipolar. 295.70 is the corresponding number in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual IV or DSM IV. And my issue revolves around religion and my family’s problems with dysfunction due to various religious conflicts. The emotional swings are the bipolar part.

There are many different medications to treat mental illness and I take Zyprexa for my anti-psychotic and Depakote as my mood stabilizer. I also get therapy several times a month at Catholic Charities in East Brunswick, NJ and I am happy with the quality of the care I get.

Over the years, I have had a variety of treatment teams. Catholic Charities seems to be very committed to help me and UMD provides housing and support. I have a good rapport with everyone on the teams and I have a lot of faith that one day I will get better.

I was so depressed about the loss of my career, and my failing to get a good career together in Israel in “95 that I was sleeping about 16 hours a day. I really never wanted to wake up again. And my hygiene slipped too.

But in University Behavioral Health Care in Piscataway, NJ, they worked on giving me my soul back. One therapist told me that I was so smart that she was afraid of her job because of me. And they got me back into my hobbies of playing the guitar and making objects like toys, puppets and masks out of rubber. At one point in time, I thought that everything I was doing was wrong, but UBHC gave me faith in myself again.

I spent over 2 months at UBHC and lived there in the facility. Then I went to a homeless shelter and became an outpatient at UBHC.

People never let me rest but kept prodding me to upgrade my appearance and shave daily, etc. It was very hard because as of yet, despite training for a new career as a writer, I am still a struggling author.

One of my old compadres at the Self Help Center of New Brunswick, NJ always reiterated that there is a trade off the sick people. This is in stark contrast to Nazi Germany where the first people Hitler killed were the mentally ill. He killed my fellow sufferers before he killed the gypsies, the homosexuals and the Jews.

Some years ago, from “01 to “03 I lived in SERV Behavioral Services in Perth Amboy, NJ and I had a lot of problems with the caregivers and the people who were living in their quarters. Someone told me that they hated me so much they threw parties all the time and never invited me. Nevertheless, I had a few friends there and I stuck up for my rights.

Furthermore, I am always careful to refill my medications and take them so I recover. Some people don”t and worse than that they abuse alcohol and drugs.

A lot of the guys go to the bars as soon as their checks come in. They lap dance with the girls in the clubs and drink. All of this defeating what ever progress they were supposed to make.

I am not trying to be bitter or vindictive. Many of these people probably think it is pointless to do anything else because they will never be able to function properly. But I fight on and do so with the conviction that one-day I will rise from the ashes of yesterday’s holocaust of my life like the legendary phoenix.

I have fought the tide before and have won against insurmountable odds and I believe that with God’s help, it’ll happen again. With God, all things are possible. Then as my pastor, Charles Baier told me, without God, nothing is possible.

One of the loopholes is that if a person is diagnosed with a mental illness, the authorities are usually reticent to press charges for drugs if the person is caught with them on his person or in his system. Some years ago, there was a ruling that if a person became mentally ill because of abusing drugs, they were ineligible for monetary aid from the government.

I advocate Narcotics Anonymous programs for people with mental illness too. An illness coupled with an addiction is called MICA or Mentally Ill with Chemical Addiction

Today, there are many people who are concerned for the welfare of the ill and the government funds many programs to treat the sick. But the parameters are changing.

In the now-defunct Club of New Brunswick, NJ the organization was unchanged for over 20 years until the bad economic times forced the government to demand changes so that people’s recovery would be accelerated. I know that there were a lot of members of The Club who did minimal amounts of work, hung out watching TV, listening to music and eating lunch and having snacks all day long.

When I started at the Club in late “95, there were over 140 active members in the facility each day and back then Medicaid was being billed $300 a day for each member.

I compiled the daily statistics for The Club, so I know how many people were coming there. Later on the organization was downsized and the cost escalated to $700 a day per member. Medicaid is the funding agency and that is federal.

But several years” back the winds of change blew and many reforms came about. As usual, I was not allowed to be comfortable and as The Club has tried to get me back to work, so has my current treatment teams at Catholic Charities and at UMDNJ’s Right Fit Employment Agency.

At this point in time, The Club no longer exists and was replaced by University Behavioral Partial Outpatient Program and the various Self Help Centers in NJ, the latter being run by Collaborative Support Programs. The latter programs are state funded.

A person can only be in the Partial Behavioral Program for 2 consecutive years and then has to move on. They can come back if they are hospitalized again.

Even if a person can’t work, the less help they need and the less money the government has to pay to treat them, the better. With peer support and minimal therapy and medications, many people are managing their illness and the various stressors they face each day.