People with intellectual disabilities and their allies succeeded this year in getting the term mentally retarded changed to intellectual disabilities in the Virginia General Assembly this year. The General Assembly chose to respect their preference for how they wished to be described. People with psychiatric disabilities in Virginia on the other hand are not being consulted by anyone as the insulting and inaccurate term “behavioral health” is increasingly being substituted for mental health across the Commonwealth. Why am I not surprised that once again people with psychiatric disabilities are being dis-empowered, silenced and ignored as to their own preferences by the Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation/Intellectual Disabilities and Substance Abuse? Even though their vision statement and all their public talks speak to recovery and empowerment and self-determination, once again their actions completely contradict their talk.
Why is it even legal to change the names of programs and departments without legislative action for one disability but not another? I have heard the very lame and off point explanation that a more inclusive term was wanted for people with substance abuse, intellectual disabilities and mental health disabilities so the state (and the public?) could lump, oh excuse me, consider them all in one term. The explanation makes what is happening even worse. People with substance abuse problems are not people with mental illness unless they have co-occurring disorders and vice versa. People with mental health disabilities are not intellectually disabled except for the small co-occurring part of the population.
But hey, don’t consult us, lump us all in together and call our real disabilities “behavioral” as if we were misbehaving and if we just behaved we wouldn’t have a disability. Thanks DMHMRSAS and all the Community Service Boards who are ignoring and not even asking for the opinion of people with mental health disabilities, we really appreciate being ignored and silenced once again by the folks who earn their living off of our disabilities. Not.
July 13, 2008 at 12:30 pm
The They do often treat us (”treat” us) as if we are naughty children. E Fuller Torrey says I’m incompetent to make decisions about my own life; I wonder what proportion of Mental Health Professionals also believe that.
I’m “sick” but really I’m just bad. I guess my family was right all along.
July 13, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Can you imagine calling kidney failure or cancer “behavioral health”? But the fact is that both can be caused by the patient’s “behavior” in some instances whereas mental illness can not be caused by “behavior” on the part of the patient. Only by behavior on the part of others. Maybe they meant to say “behavior on the part of others to you health”? Nah. I’m just dreaming……
July 13, 2008 at 6:23 pm
I hate the term “behavioral health”, but I think it speaks volumes about the real goal of the system. It’s not about helping people achieve mental or emotional health and having that positive subjective experience of such. It’s all about controlling/stopping behaviors that are annoying and/or undesirable to everyone else. You can sedate the hell out of someone who is angry or agitated, but they aren’t now mentally or emotionally healthy, and that’s not the goal anyway. The angry or agitated behavior is being deemed “unhealthy” because it is disruptive to others, so once that is subdued with chemicals…voila! “Behavioral health”.
They may as well use this terminology. It’s slightly more honest about what they are attempting to achieve.
July 14, 2008 at 9:22 am
Emotions and thought go hand in hand, our thoughts creates our emotions, our emotions creates our thoughts.
It only goes to show the confusion of defining mental health. Behaviours in general , we can choose. Once defined mentally ill behaviours and emotions can be percieved medically as a disease/disorder. Who gets to call behaviour good or bad, rational or irrational? The mentally ill traditionally are not criminally responsible for any “bad” behaviour.
That “mentally ill” people can feel fear from those in authority is rational, yet those in power say we have nothing to fear.
Those in authority can make our feelings a lie and re-enforce the idea of the “patient” to be mentally ill.
“Persons with serious Mental illness die, on average, 25 years earlier than the general public.”
wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancies#Lower_life_expectancy_in_people_with_serious_mental_illness