Exploring costs of mental illness
From the time NASA laid the groundwork for the space shuttle program in 1971 until the final shuttle flight 40 years later, the program cost about $200 billion.
A pretty penny, no doubt. But consider this: That’s close to what the American economy loses per year as a result of serious mental illness.
Adding it up in dollars and cents is a necessary chore that helps bring the toll of mental illness into sharper focus. But it doesn’t quite fully illuminate the human cost mental illness exacts. For that, consider the following statistics from National Alliance on Mental Illness:
• A little more than 18 percent of adults in the United States – that’s almost 44 million, or 1 in 5 – suffer from some form of mental illness in a given year. Ten million of those adults have a mental illness that interferes with day-to-day activities.
• Another 18 percent of adults grappled with an anxiety disorder along the lines of obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder or phobias.
• Of the 20 million adults who struggle with substance abuse, half of them also had a mental illness.
• About 1-in-4 adults in homeless shelters have a serious mental illness. In our jails and prisons, about 1-in-5 detainees has a recent history of mental illness. No doubt part of the reason some of those adults end up behind bars is only 41 percent of adults in the United States dealing with a mental health condition receive treatment. About 63 percent of adults with serious mental illnesses received treatment in the last year, which is good, but that means 37 percent are being left on the sidelines.
Mental-health problems aren’t just the province of strange people mumbling to themselves on street corners or the folks who are certain they were once abducted by space aliens. Issues related to mental health invariably find their way into many of our workplaces and homes.
Starting next Sunday and continuing for the next several months, the Observer-Reporter will be looking at issues related to mental health and, more specifically, the state of mental health services in Washington and Greene counties. First, we’ll define what mental illness is and profile a suicide victim whose family was unaware she was struggling with mental illness until after she took her life. From there, we’ll explore serious mental illnesses like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, stigmas surrounding mental illness, impediments to the delivery of services, treatments that are available, laws surrounding the treatment of mental illness and how it is handled in schools and on the job.
Along the way, we’ll tell stories of people in Washington and Greene counties who faced mental-health difficulties, such as a student at Washington & Jefferson College who dealt with depression and then started a group at the college to help others cope with the debilitating condition.
Unless you are removed from almost all human contact or are completely immune from any of the hard knocks that life can deliver, no one can get through this existence without having to confront mental illness in one form or another.
We hope our series will shed light on mental illness, remove some of the shame that is attached to it and, above all, encourage people who need help to seek it.