Mental Health Caring for a loved one with mental health issues

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Like clinical mental health issues, not Trump related mental health issues. And by "caring for" I don't just mean you are taking care of them like a helpless and dependent child. It could just be you care a lot about them and they are a meaningful part of your life.

I'm not quite ready to go into my own journey just yet, but starting this thread is a good start.

On a side note, I've noticed that on social media outside of the celebrity world, a rare spot of sunshine is people are really supportive in their comments on these issues and there are content creators out there that can both help inform you and make you feel less alone, both you and the person you care about.

 

[Alli]

I’m noticing that people in general are far more supportive of mental health issues these days. I suspect part of it is the awareness, and part is that so many have been brought to the brink due to 2020.

 

[lizkat]

Unfortunately the profit factor still weighs heavily in USA's take on mental health treatment and access to it, particularly when it comes to inpatient treatment.

One hospital recently closed up its inpatient treatment as "unprofitable" but has retained its psych residency training program. Go figure.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1401206114960687105/

 

[Eric]

Unfortunately the profit factor still weighs heavily in USA's take on mental health treatment and access to it, particularly when it comes to inpatient treatment.

One hospital recently closed up its inpatient treatment as "unprofitable" but has retained its psych residency training program. Go figure.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1401206114960687105/

They're like sharks, you see ads all the time for elderly care on TV and and it seems as though these homes work out deals with discharge/placement nurses at the hospitals.

America, where guns are treated as a right but healthcare is a luxury. We have some pretty messed up priorities.

 

[thekev]

They're like sharks, you see ads all the time for elderly care on TV and and it seems as though these homes work out deals with discharge/placement nurses at the hospitals.

America, where guns are treated as a right but healthcare is a luxury. We have some pretty messed up priorities.

We're kind of drifting toward some weird cyberpunk reality in that regard, where clinics require credits up front and function primarily as urgent care/ outpatient surgical centers.

Also the thread title could have alternatively been, "caring for a loved one who voted for Trump in the last election".

I wouldn't encourage that, but it would amuse me.

 

[User.45]

Unfortunately the profit factor still weighs heavily in USA's take on mental health treatment and access to it, particularly when it comes to inpatient treatment.

One hospital recently closed up its inpatient treatment as "unprofitable" but has retained its psych residency training program. Go figure.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1401206114960687105/

Happened to the psych program where I trained. I'd also say that I love(d) the institution but to say the least, I failed to see the "vision" of the highest leadership. Psychotic patients are also much more fun than people demoralized by shitty fucked up health situations they have all the reasons to get demoralized by.

They're like sharks, you see ads all the time for elderly care on TV and and it seems as though these homes work out deals with discharge/placement nurses at the hospitals.

America, where guns are treated as a right but healthcare is a luxury. We have some pretty messed up priorities.

I chose an outpatient subspecialty for a reason. Inpatient medicine is insanity x insanity.

We're kind of drifting toward some weird cyberpunk reality in that regard, where clinics require credits up front and function primarily as urgent care/ outpatient surgical centers.

Also the thread title could have alternatively been, "caring for a loved one who voted for Trump in the last election".

I wouldn't encourage that, but it would amuse me.

My annoyance with cyberpunk is that the genre's supposed to be a pseudo amoral approach to precautionary tales about morality that failed to catch up with tech. IRL, it turns out to be a fucking blueprint to how to create insufferable futures.

 

[lizkat]

Happened to the psych program where I trained. I'd also say that I love(d) the institution but to say the least, I failed to see the "vision" of the highest leadership. Psychotic patients are also much more fun than people demoralized by shitty fucked up health ave ksituations they have all the reasons to get demoralized by.

I have kin who left management ranks of the nursing profession ten years ago over the fact that hospitals had started practically running a meat market in their morning staffing allocations, shipping trained psych nurses to pediatrics, neonatal, orthopedics, geriatrics, wherever there was a shortage, and for that day --yet again-- virtually promoting orderlies and security guards to try to provide the look and feel to outsiders or visitors of a secure facility with appropriate inpatient treatment for their loved ones.

Needless to say it was past stressful for those psych nurses to be flipped into situations where they were not trained up in the latest equipment they might be expected to know how to use or even interpret off chart notes that the attendings in those other departments had left. It was becoming a zoo and the disrepect shown to the nurses was palpably insulting not to say dangerous for both patients and the staffers.

 

[thekev]

My annoyance with cyberpunk is that the genre's supposed to be a pseudo amoral approach to precautionary tales about morality that failed to catch up with tech. IRL, it turns out to be a fucking blueprint to how to create insufferable futures.

I wouldn't blame the authors for that. They just wrote speculatively about one possible future, based on emerging trends and their own imaginations. They did not set things in motion. It is drifting that way though.

 

[User.45]

I have kin who left management ranks of the nursing profession ten years ago over the fact that hospitals had started practically running a meat market in their morning staffing allocations, shipping trained psych nurses to pediatrics, neonatal, orthopedics, geriatrics, wherever there was a shortage, and for that day --yet again-- virtually promoting orderlies and security guards to try to provide the look and feel to outsiders or visitors of a secure facility with appropriate inpatient treatment for their loved ones.

Needless to say it was past stressful for those psych nurses to be flipped into situations where they were not trained up in the latest equipment they might be expected to know how to use or even interpret off chart notes that the attendings in those other departments had left. It was becoming a zoo and the disrepect shown to the nurses was palpably insulting not to say dangerous for both patients and the staffers.

It's called floating, when you send nurses to where the need is and not where they are experienced. Float nurses are very well paid and horrible (because they don't even know where to find stuff on the floor they were floated to). They are like me, a neurologist pushed to a COVID floor, LOL. I'd function on the level of an intern. Definitely, "not ideal". That said I would def run away from an institution relying on float nurses. It's a recipe for disaster.

I wouldn't blame the authors for that. They just wrote speculatively about one possible future, based on emerging trends and their own imaginations. They did not set things in motion. It is drifting that way though.

I don't blame the authors. I blame all of us, LOL. We are dicks.

 

[thekev]

I don't blame the authors. I blame all of us, LOL. We are dicks.

I made a similar comment once when someone complained about Cox Cable, stating, "What do you expect? Those guys are dicks."

 

[User.45]

I made a similar comment once when someone complained about Cox Cable, stating, "What do you expect? Those guys are dicks."

It's the issue of Cable Cartels. I really don't understand why people don't use this term. The fact that even in a city like downtown Chicago I've only had 2 options for broadband is insane. In that context, it's not directly us, its regulators condoning anticompetitive business practices.

 

[lizkat]

It's the issue of Cable Cartels. I really don't understand why people don't use this term. The fact that even in a city like downtown Chicago I've only had 2 options for broadband is insane. In that context, it's not directly us, its regulators condoning anticompetitive business practices.

Yeah back in the 90s the behemoths were big on going into smaller municipalities and trying to persuade the city fathers to pass laws forbidding "roll your own" fiberoptic and organization of community-owned cable companies...

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Happened to the psych program where I trained. I'd also say that I love(d) the institution but to say the least, I failed to see the "vision" of the highest leadership. Psychotic patients are also much more fun than people demoralized by shitty fucked up health situations they have all the reasons to get demoralized by.


.....



My annoyance with cyberpunk is that the genre's supposed to be a pseudo amoral approach to precautionary tales about morality that failed to catch up with tech. IRL, it turns out to be a fucking blueprint to how to create insufferable futures.

I wouldn't blame the authors for that. They just wrote speculatively about one possible future, based on emerging trends and their own imaginations. They did not set things in motion. It is drifting that way though.

To my mind, not just cyberpunk, but any work of literature that purports to deal with a fictional future (utopian, or dystopian as preferred) tends to tell us far more about our own present - more than may be good for our peace of mind - than it does about any imagined future.