A tragedy that could have been avoided if only our medical system didn't view people with mental health problems as second class

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Psalm 147:3

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Amy Biancolli, who lost both her husband and her sister to suicide, talks about surviving those blows and figuring out how to move on. Loss forces the living to reinvent themselves, to re-tool family dynamics and to find meaning in life and laughter with the loved ones who remain. The grief has a mind of its own, frequently ignoring the tidy “stages” we expect of it. But so do moments of levity, which come and go at will. Biancolli

This is a story of a tragedy that could have been avoided if only their loved one got the treatment he needed. The individual in the story suffered from depression. Much earlier in his life, his older brother, an inspiring medical student, committed suicide.. 

 From what I know about early childhood trauma I can speculate that there may be  a connection between his brothers suicide and his own struggles with depression. The emotional pain  of losing a close family member simply doesn't go away on it's own. Unresolved grief cannot be dealt with through overwork.

There is an even bigger tragedy to this story and that is how we view people who struggle with mental health problems. We view them as weak minded people who simply won't suck it up and move on in life. If I could earn a one dollar bill for every time I heard someone tell another person that they need to get over their grief I would be a very, very rich man.

In our American Culture, we tell people who are grieving that they should be over their grief in 6 months while at the same time we treat their symptoms of grief with medication without helping them process the emotional pain of their grief.  Most people are afraid to travel with the grieving person, choosing instead to look for ways to avoid them.

We know from a well known study on early childhood trauma that when people aren't allowed to process their trauma that they will likely see debilitating and chronic diseases later in life that for some end in premature death.

We need to stop treating those who are afflicted with trauma based mental health problems as second class citizens. We need to start training more people who have the skills to help those afflicted with trauma to process their stories without being told they should suck it up.

Most of all, we need a medical system in place that has enough beds and staff to treat those in a trauma-based mental health crisis. 

Imagine how silly it would seem if someone came to the ER with a cut that was bleeding profusely and being told to go home and sleep it off? That is precisely the way our medical system is treating those with mental illness, and it was exactly what happened to our friend who was told by a home town mental health facility they didn't have a bed available for 30 days.

I wonder if he was able to be admitted right away if he might still be alive today. I will let you be the judge.