Therapy. Let's Talk.

Hi.  My name is Jackie, and I get therapy.

I hereby profess, once or twice a week, I get counseling.
From a professional.   

Even my insurance thinks it's worthy.  

...and we all know health insurance doesn't pay for things that don't work.  

If INSURANCE thinks it's worth covering

WHY isn't it offered to the chronically mentally ill?

In my experience, psychotherapy is an organic process that unveils the shadows and angst in my daily world.  My grief and burdens are heard without judgement.  It's a safe place to express innermost thoughts, fears, troubles... And the psychologist is trained to help heal my wounded soul and #shrink the scars in my heart.

From the Oxford Dictionary:
ther·a·py

ˈTHerəpē/

noun

1. treatment intended to relieve or heal a disorder.

   
   

   "a course of antibiotic therapy"

   
   

   synonyms:

   treatment, remedy, cure

   • the treatment of mental or psychological disorders by psychological means.

Therapeutic counseling heals, cures, remedies, treats.  

When the ire of the world wreaks havok in our lives, resulting in things like anxiety, high blood pressure, (and pimples!), I'll opt for first TALKING about these problems with a skilled professional, instead of taking a drug that probably has some very uncomfortable and possibly permanent and damaging side-effects.  

I always feel better after therapy.  It brings relief.  There's no more natural way to lessen the load.  But for the chronically mentally ill - these MOST IN NEED of everything available, our system doesn't offer counseling in acute care facilities.  Yet another reason the statistics are getting worse, not better.  I believe it should be offered first, so the caregiver can treat the patient like a human, and procure what's ailing them on a sensitive and personal level.  Instead, those in crisis are met with a needle full of tranquilers...who cares if they're allergic to old, first generation neurotoxins.  Not a thought whether that forced drug could be doing more damage to this fragile soul.  Na.  The patients are now called "consumers" because they are just that:  consumers of meds.  Whether they like it or not.  

The only way to cure something is by finding the root cause and treating THAT.  In the case of psychological trauma, it's the psyche that needs gentle, thoughtful, careful treatment.  I hate it that most people think the definition of "treatment" is a drug regimine.  This is a problem.  Sensitive people feel things deeply.  With the rise in suicides, the current approach of RX after RX, is not working.   #care #compassion #time - not chemicals.

A broken heart can't be medicated to wellness.  And until a doctor can show me lab work to prove there's a chemical imbalance, forced drugging should be a last resort.  Think about it.  When there's a broken bone, a scraped knee, a bruised muscle...these injuries have to heal.  Pain medicine only masks the symptom of pain, but the cause of the pain is from a deeper source, and true healing comes from regeneration and restoration, not from masking symptoms. 

Twenty years ago I tried the anti-depressant Zoloft ® during a bout of the blues, after moving to another state.  All it did was cause me to lose my emotion.  I was "flat."  I no longer felt sad, but I also couldn't feel happy while on it.  Forget that!  So, I titrated carefully off after about six months, because this was not the answer.  I'd much rather FEEL life, than be a neutralized zombie.  We have feelings for a reason.  Emotions are a guage to what's right and wrong in our lives.  Feelings are important, and LOVE is the King of all feelings.  Love is the great healer.  Great emotional pain will take time...and love... to heal.  A good psychotherapist is like a soul whisperer.  There is no pill to cure psychological ills.  Talk therapy is a soothing balm on a raw, emotional wound.  It is an ointment for the psyche that heals after the sting and injury of deeply painful experiences.

Human beings can be fragile.  We should treat the most seriously suffering, with the most tender care.

I recently found an article from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) https://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Treatment/Complementary-Health-Approaches

Reading about these complementary health approaches was a nice surprise, given the medical model's pharmacologic approach to "treatment" since the 1990's "Decade of the Brain" has been in full force mode.  My brother, who's been entrenched in the mental health system for almost thirty years, was never offered counseling for the first fifteen years.  The hospitals only offered him drugs.  Still, to this day, psychotherapy is not generally offered.  I think this is wrong.   So, thank you, NAMI... maybe, just MAYBE the pendulum is starting to swing back to at least middle ground - away from the "medicine only" approach to mental illness treatment.  I pray it is so.  This NAMI piece gives our family hope that finally the nation is starting to realize, "traditional medical... methods... often do not completely lessen or eliminate syptoms of mental illess.  As a result, many people use complimentary and alternative methods to help with recovery."  Thank God.  Music to our ears.

It lists:
Natural products, like supplements.  Yes!  B vitamins, for example:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/integrative-mental-health-care/201709/b-vitamins-play-important-roles-in-mental-health-care

Mind/body treatments, such as yoga and meditation can improve anxiety, mood, fatigue, and ease side effects of conventional medicines.

Animals are great soothers, too.   Complimentary therapies can include:

Aviary/bird therapy for PTSD.
Pet therapy for the depressed.
Equine/horse therapy for autism, etc.

Horses are sensitive creatures that can help ease depression and impulsivity.  Maybe the reason everyone travels with their pets now, is because they are healing companions.  I know they can become "family" ...all good.  Bonus if they're trained to aid in our recovery!  All the better.


The most obvious and utilized is - Music therapy.  


We wouldn't all be sporting EarPods if music didn't collectively soothe our inner beasts.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Congreve 


LOL!  I always think of good ole Bugs Bunny when I hear that phrase... https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xit15
(You get me?)

I can't imagine there being a downside to talk therapy.  

Being able to freely rant to an unbiased fellow human who is ready, willing and able to help unravel perplexing, confounding, personal issues?  Uhhh....yes!  

Therapists assist in objectively sorting out 

the good/bad, the pros/cons, resulting in better personal insight.  

Understanding WHY things injure is is vital to being able to let it go.  

Wouldn't anyone benefit from having someone 

untangle the broken Christmas lights...er...messy complications 

that can cloud our thinking?  

Life is HARD.  I, for one, need all the help I can get.  

My therapist is a kind ear that listens when I cry.  

She provides a window where I can vent my anger, longing, and sadness.  

It's like telling a trusted confidante our struggles with no risk.

Therapy is where painful truth gets purged, filtered, accepted or rejected.  

It helps bring the psyche back to balance, harmony, wholeness and peace.  

Keeping the pain inside will cause it to fester.  

Stress makes the body ill.  No thank you.

It's kinda like confession 

without having to do 

ten Hail Mary's and five Our Fathers.

(I'm not Catholic, 

but I married one.) 

Quote:
 "Confession is good for the soul because it allows us an avenue to release pain and inner conflict"  https://www.quora.com/Why-is-confession-good-for-the-soul

All these are reasons that every psychiatric hospital should offer individual therapy, and not just meds.  Many times, the patients don't have someome they can confide in.  If they've been troubled for a long time, friends have probably abandoned them, family sometimes give up on them, and society misunderstands and ridicules them.  They need ALL the help a facility has in their medicine bag.  At the very least, therapy should go hand in hand with medication.  Better yet, START with therapy, and keep it as natural as possible.  Last resort should be a forced prescription...and only allowed as long has it can be proven that the RX can be metabolized by the individual DNA of the patient.  The Genesight.com swab proves a person's DNA tolerance of psych drugs.  This should be mandated.

  

"Environmental factors such as stress may trigger episodes of mania or depression, and counseling can help a person identify and deal with these triggers."

https://www.healthandwellnessalerts.berkeley.edu/alerts/depression_anxiety/Psychotherapy-Pros-and-Cons_7771-1.html

Therapy is necessary.  I'm grateful for my counselor, who is willing to listen through my tears, take my stories of sorrow and help me see them in a new way, and work past life's difficult issues.  This makes things better.  Therapy is like a mirror that reflects and projects a better tomorrow.   

A line from a television medical drama states is perfectly:  

"When we examine a psych patient who's in prison, 

we have to ask ourselves, is this person really depressed, 

or are they just living in a situation that is so awful, 

so inherently depressing, that any person would have these feelings?"

Exactly, @NBCChicagoMed.  This is what everyone needs to understand.  

Sometimes our reaction to life is completely appropriate.  That does not mean a drug is needed.

*******************************************************

I don't care how many degress you have.

If you think someone with Schizophrenia or Bipolar disorder 

or the combo-pack Schizo-Affective Disorder 

wouldn't benefit from individual talk therapy,

maybe YOU should see a counselor.  

This is a no-brainer.

This is my opinion and I'm stickin' to it.
~ Jackie Welton DiPillo ~

Lifesaving Basics, "mental illness" Style

Me again. :)

Two basic premises in the life of the family of a mentally ill loved one. 

These are absolutes.  

Needs, not wants.  

Life preservers, that, had our mother not been the buoy for Jeff all these years, 

he would've drowned in the undertow of the unrelenting roll of a hard and negative tide, long ago.
Jeff would be dead if mom had not done the heavy lifting for her son.  #30yrsRunning  #MamaBear

1. NEED FOR FAMILY INVOLVEMENT 

Families usually give up because it's too difficult.  Our mom is a hero. 

EXAMPLES

a) Social Security Disability benefits:

Our loved one is 49 years old.  Since age 21, he has had Social Security benefits, based on disability (Supplemental Security Income - SSI, and Disability Insurance Benefits - DIB).  Thankfully, our mother worked for the Soial Security Administration Hearing and Appeals Office, so she knew how to help her son.  Most families hae no idea how to get their loved ones these benefits. 

During hospitalizations of over 30 days, the SSI goes into suspension.  Upon discharge, it then has to be taken out of suspension by contacting the Social Security Administration and showing official documents with dates he was inpatient.   

Mom has to handle this every time.  Our loved one cannot.  Where would he keep records?  He has no computer, no cell phone, and has lived at over twenty addresses in the last three years.  Impossible.

When he is inpatient or incarcerated over 30 days, his official Representative Payee (which is mom) must completely RESTART his DHS Medicaid (Soonercare) and his meagre state supplement ($20ish/mo.)  If she didn't, he would be destitute, or worse.  The job of the Rep Payee is time consuming, emotionally draining, and difficult - due to the need for precise record keeping.  When someone else has done it, things like court payments have been late, and money isn't transferred on time.  Jeff's life falls through the cracks if whoever manages this doesn't have a vested interest in making SURE things are taken care of.  

Mom has had to restart his benefits dozens of times.  As well, his Medicare (Federal Health Insurance) gets cancelled because he has no state benefit during these incarcerations or hospitalizations to pay for the Medicare premium.  To keep Medicare, his Rep Payee has to use his small SSDI money to pay to maintain coverage.

b) The Treatment Advocate law:

Designation of Treatment Advocate under Oklahoma Statute 43A O.S. § 1-109.1.

https://law.justia.com/codes/oklahoma/2015/title-43a/section-43a-1-109.1/

In 2006, mom was asked by one facility if she was her son's treatment advocate. The family had never heard of this, prior.  Since, the experience throughout the state has been, this statute is not recognized nor adhered to.  Facilities do not freely offer the family this form, so families have no idea they have this an an option to help their loved ones.  When mom presents the "Designation of Treatment Advocate Form," each facility says something like, "we have our own form that you will have to sign." 

A year ago in January 2017, mom and I worked with Senator Joe Newhouse in rewriting the DTAF (our acronym) for it to be UNIVERSAL, but the legislature decided not to approve or even spend time on this.  The goal was to have it downloadable from ODMHSAS so families would not only know about it, but families and facilities would have easy access to a universally recognized form.  

We can only hope this will be revisited in future legislative sessions.

It's impossible for someone with chronic mental illness to navigate a disjointed system without caring advocates offering tangible assistance.  

We need to streamline how a willing advocate is able to help their loved one.  The job is too much for ONLY the family.  The family needs support.

***********************************************************************************

2. NEED FOR   ENHANCED CARE

#NeedNewHospitals

IADL Criteria (w/ experience examples):

"Instrumental Activities of Daily Living" (IADL) - Activities related to independent living which includes preparing meals, managing money, shopping for groceries or personal items, performing light or heavy housework, doing laundry, and using a telephone.

These are normally associated with elder care websites, regarding dementia, etc., such as:  https://www.kindlycare.com/activities-of-daily-living/

a) Companionship and mental support:

"This is a fundamental and much needed IADL for daily living. It reflects on the help that may be needed to keep a person in a positive frame of mind."

Our loved one has zero friends.  He lives a solitary life.  And though his routine is to get out every morning, on foot, and interract with the world, his only significant relationships are his senior parents, both handicapped, and his two sisters that live away from Tulsa.

b) Transportation and shopping:

"How much a person can go around or procure their grocery and pharmacy needs without help."

Our loved one has never owned a home or a car.  He has been homeless over half his life.  He asks mother, who lives 100 miles away, to come to Tulsa whenever he is discharged from inpatient facility or criminalization, so she can take him grocery shopping.  Mother also helps him ascertain a monthly bus transit pass.  

c) Meal preparation:

"Planning and preparing the various aspects of meals, including shopping and storing groceries."

Our loved one can manage to microwave a prepared meal.  He can make a simple sandwich.  He eats canned food, cold.  It's best that he have a place to live that prepares meals.  This is very rare.  He has utilized Crossroads Clubhouse in Tulsa, which offers meals for $2.00, and encourages involvement in work tasks.  https://www.crossroadsok.org

Nutrition is key.  Having healthy meals is a necessity for a healthy brain.

d) Managing household:

"Cleaning, tidying up, removing trash and clutter, and doing laundry and folding clothes."

Mother helps him by coming to Tulsa to take him to the grocery store.  She has always helped him clean his subsidized apartment(s).  She allocates his money to hire others to help him do his laundry and clean.  

Jeff's body is older than his years.  He's in too much pain, distress, and he's too weary from walking around all day, every day.

e) Managing medications:

"How much help may be needed in getting prescriptions filled, keeping medications up to date and taking meds on time and in the right dosages."

This is a complicated issue.  Sometimes Programs of Assertive Community Treatment (PACT) teams refuse to assist. 

t would be helpful for him to have a prescription delivery service.  He would need help setting that up and maintaining it.

f) Communicating with others:

"Managing the household’s phones and mail and generally making the home hospitable and welcoming for visitors."

Again, complex.  Due to delusions that aren't cured by medications, our loved one has thrown his cell phone away many times.  For this reason, the family cannot put him on a cell plan, because they are binding and would still have to be paid.  Therefore, our elderly father that lives in Tulsa (age 82 and depends on a walker) will take him to get a free government cell phone.  Our loved one doesn't have money to pay for such "luxuries" and the cords/accessories even moreso.  His lifeline is speaking to his parents every day, as well as his sisters.   

What will he do when his parents are too old and unable to do these things for him?  We are starting to face that, now.

g) Managing finances:

 "How much assistance a person may need in managing bank balances and checkbooks and paying bills on time."

A person with SSDI and SSI may have a total gross income around $750/month.  He has been homeless many times, and truly has lived on nothing, at times.  Mom is his official Social Security Representative Payee, so she reports to the SSA how his money is used, yearly.  On the daily, she uses a banking app to transfer small "meal" amounts, so he won't use up all his money at the beginning of each month.  Before apps, she used to mail him a week's worth of daily checks to cash for meals.   

Managing his life, as our mother has to do is more than a full time job.  He cannot do it on his own.

***********************************************************************************

Summary:

When the old psychiatric hospitals started closing fifty years ago, 

replaced by Community Mental Health Centers, 

homelessness and criminalization ensued.  

We need a new kind of care facility, 

with the goal of treating the root cause, 

rather than only the "medical model" of forced prescriptions 

which does not cure delusions or paranoia, 

and is but a bandaid to curtail symptoms. 

RX side effects may cause the very symptoms they are prescribed to help.

  

Every person is a valuable individual, 

and should be treated with care and compassion. 

NEEDED all across the USA: 

*A long-term facility with a low-stress and serene environment.
* Individualized nutrition.
*Trauma counseling/psychotherapy, individual and group.
*Family involvement and support.
*Education at all levels, e.g., GEDs, college courses, iner alia...
*Therapies: music, pet, exercise, equine, aviary, etc.
*Testing for individual DNA/medication tolerance, and other medical proofs like MRI.
*Initial medical work-up of first-episode psychosis, to rule out possible mimics, preventing damage.

This would actually save money, but that's for another day. 

**************************************************************

Where there's a will, there's a way.

Jackie Welton DiPillo.  

                                                         For my brother.

NEWSFLASH! Federal HUD rules need changing, STAT!!!

Yet more #SMH moments...  

We've been told my brother is one of Oklahoma's most chronic "mentally ill." I don't say that lightly. 
Jeff's been on Social Security Disability Income (SSDI) since he was 21 years old.  He's 49 now.  
Jeff has never had a substance abuse problem.  He does not use street drugs and never has.  
He is disabled strictly due to "mental illness" issues.  

Jeff has never owned a home.  

He cannot hold a job.

Jeff's delusions are not "fixed" by the current medical model of "treatment" 

(which is the forced-medication guessing game.)  

This family (mostly our mother) has never been idle.  

Mom has thirty years of records, documenting the tragic tale.

(photo: Mom Marilyn, Sister Jackie, and Jeff)  

Jeff's been homeless half his adult life.  

I don't know anyone that has lived a more difficult life.

  

Criminalized, yet he's not a criminal.  

He's been raped and victimized.

He's been shot up with every imaginable RX, none of which have done anything except tranquilize or make his delusions "fixed" (ie, permanent).  

I won't even get into the plethora of debilitating side-effects he endures.  

That's a blog unto itself.

He's been scorned, mistreated, bullied & beaten

by people that should know better.  

Over the decades, he's been starving, sunburned, shoeless, freezing, alone.

He has tried and tried to get away from the delusions in his head, 

running from "himself," hitchiking coast to coast on foot, and on and on and on...

Still, Jeff maintains a good heart, exhibiting forgiveness, empathy, kindness.  

He is amazing.

I feel like I'm describing Jesus on Good Friday...

except for being nailed to the cross.

#Pilate #Politics #PunishTheInnocent

THE WORLD HAS THROWN JEFF TO THE WOLVES

Oklahoma is where most of Jeff's family still lives.  It is HOME to Jeff, and where he LONGS to BELONG.  (I just realized how sad that sounds...but it is true.  He lives there, yet he longs to belong, there.)  How is it possible to be born, bred and live somewhere almost your entire life, and not feel like you belong?  I'll tell you; because, in a city that prides itself in being "nice," Jeff is "invisible."  

There's a big difference between in being "nice" and being "kind" - 

Kindness is rooted in love, 

niceness is rooted in fear

https://meditationmag.com/meditation-psychology/nice-vs-kind/

Jeff's usual daily routine is:  He gets up early, walks around downtown Tulsa, getting a meal, maybe taking the transit to an appointment somewhere... then walking back home, after dinner, laying his weary body down every night after a long, lonely, hard day.  Jeff can't afford cable TV or a computer.  Those are WAY too luxurious.  There is no money for any "normal" creature comforts.

Can you imagine?

These are true examples of the life of one of Oklahoma's chronically mentally ill.  

Yet, the "normal" I've just described isn't the half of what's currently going on.  

The process has been harrowing, for Jeff, 

and for those of us trying to navigate and improve such a failing system.  

I've been calling it the "Monster Mountain" we are trying to move.  

We are attempting the impossible.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We've always been extremely grateful for subsidized housing options, he has utilized.  Even though he's had over twenty addresses in the past four years, and our mom (who's in her 70's) has had to physically move him in out out of these apartments herself (sometimes up a flight of stairs), bottom line, there has been housing for him.  Lifesaving housing.  It's scary when Jeff has been homeless. The heartache has been eased by knowing that the Mental Health Association has a program that has given him a place to live.  Meagre, yes...but when someone has never even owned a car - having a place to sleep and feel safe is a third-world issue that has a first-world solution.  This is why I've been supporting MHA with charitable donations the past few years, "In Honor Of" Jeff.  Without housing, Jeff's life would be in grave danger.  It's been the answer to some most fervent prayers.  But now...to be clear, MHA has no housing for Jeff, due to a federal HUD regulation on the definiteion of homeless.  (see below).  MHA is a private organization, but they get federal grant money.  So, they abide by the HUD rule (law?).  

For context:  When Jeff was arrested in July 2016 due to a delusion not quelled by the forced medications the state was "treating" him with...the latest criminalization began.  I've documented much of that in past blogs.  It's been almost two years, and we are still dealing with the after effects of a system that punishes people for having a mental disability.  #smh

Jeff was thrown in Tulsa County Jail for 111 days of solitary confinement before being sent to the Oklahoma Forensic Center in Vinita on Nov 14, 2016.  He remained at OFC for over eleven months, then was sent back to jail in Tulsa to await trial, facing possible LIFE in prison, for trying to get away from more forced drugging.  I won't repeat information I've written about previously, but Jeff continued to decline before and after the arrest.  Now, even though we have accomplished what I was told was miraculous and is never done (ie, the charges being dropped) - it's still far from over.  

We've recently learned that due to being in a facility (jail and/or a mental hospital/crisis facility) for over 90 days the disabled person loses eligibility for subsidized housing due to a federal HUD rule, which defines required homeless periods and criteria (see link):

https://www.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/notice-cpd-16-11-prioritizing-persons-experiencing-chronic-homelessness-and-other-vulnerable-homeless-persons-in-psh.pdf
FROM PAGE 5:
D. Key Terms
1. Housing First. A model of housing assistance that prioritizes rapid placement and stabilization in permanent housing that does not have service participation requirements or preconditions for entry (such as sobriety or a minimum income threshold). HUD encourages all recipients of CoC Program-funded PSH to follow a Housing First approach to the maximum extent practicable.
2. Chronically Homeless. The definition of “chronically homeless”, as stated in Definition of Chronically Homeless final rule is:

1. (a)  A “homeless individual with a disability,” as defined in section 401(9) of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 11360(9)), who:
   
   1. lives in a place not meant for human habitation, a safe haven, or in an emergency shelter; and
   2. Has been homeless and living as described in paragraph (a)(i) continuously for at least 12 months or on at least four separate occasions in the last 3 years, as long as the combined occasions equal at least 12 months and each break in homelessness separating the occasions included at least 7 consecutive nights of not living as described in paragraph (a)(i). Stays in institutional care facilities for fewer than 90 days will not constitute as a break in homelessness, but rather such stays are included in the 12-month total, as long as the individual was living or residing in a place not meant for human habitation, a safe haven, or an emergency shelter immediately before entering an institutional care facility;
2. (b)  An individual who has been residing in an institutional care facility, including a jail, substance abuse or mental health treatment facility, hospital, or other similar facility, for fewer than 90 days and met all of the criteria in paragraph (a) of this definition, before entering the facility;
3. (c)  A family with an adult head of household (or if there is no adult in the family, a minor head of household) who meets all of the criteria in paragraph (a) or (b) of this definition (as described in Section I.D.2.(a) of this Notice), including a family whose composition has fluctuated while the head of household has been homeless.

The shocking issue du jour, is - 
Jeff is no longer eligible for subsidized housing!
You heard me right.  No SHELTER for Jeff
because he was in jail for more than 90 days.  #SMH!!!!!!!!
*********************************************************************************

If you're not aware, 

there are no long term psychiatric hospitals any more.  Anywhere.  

None.

They went the way of good intentions and the Community Mental Health Centers.  

That's fine, until you realize that the statistics on mental illness are rising in this country.  

The statistics are also rising on the numbers of mentally ill on Social Security Disability Income ($$).  

It's a VERY EXPENSIVE problem to be wearing blinders about, Joe Public.  

AND... it gets more expensive (on many levels) with the jails being the new "psych hospitals."  

#ShameOnUs 

Suffering people with mental illness issues should NOT be in jail.  This is so backward I can't even find the right words.  And no "mental wing" at a JAIL is going to be able to take care of the delicate needs of those with psychiatric issues.  Quite the opposite, actually.  Why do we allow this?  It's a waste of tax dollars and solves nothing for the mentally ill.  This will only create more of the same.

SMH!

Living in America,

it's hard to believe 

so many people  

DO NOT

have their most basic human needs met.

Physiological needs are the physical requirements for human survival.  If these requirements are not met, the human body cannot function properly and will ultimately fail. They are the most important, and should be met first on the hierarchy of needs.  Without them, the other needs cannot follow up.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs 

..... Air (Breathing)

     ..... Water

          ..... Food

               ..... Sleep

                    ..... Clothing

                         ..... SHELTER ....................................

It screams #obvious that human beings need #shelter ... a place to call #home.

One of my favorite quotes:  
"A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens, but by how it treats its criminals."
~Fyodor Dostoevsky 

Again, the mentally ill are not criminals.  They should not be in jail.  
And when they are arrested due to their disability, 
HUD should not punish them further 
by taking away their RIGHT TO BASIC SHELTER!  

I am FUMING about this!!!  

LEGISLATORS??!!!!!  IS THIS ACCEPTABLE TO YOU?

If it is, then maybe you should RETHINK your position.

Please - 
Imagine a more human and better future.  
And moreso, MAKE the CHANGE 
to literally save the life of my brother and those like him.

*****************************************************

1. There is Another Sky - by Emily Dickinson
   
   There is another sky,
   Ever serene and fair,
   And there is another sunshine,
   Though it be darkness there;
   Never mind faded forests, Austin,
   Never mind silent fields -
   Here is a little forest,
   Whose leaf is ever green;
   Here is a brighter garden,
   Where not a frost has been;
   In its unfading flowers
   I hear the bright bee hum:
   Prithee, my brother,
   Into my garden come!
   
   
   **********************************
2. Jackie Welton DiPillo
3. 
   
4. Click here to help us make this change.  
5. Donations are TAX DEDUCTIBLE:
6. https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=TBBM3B72HWUYY

SWAB THE DECK: A numbers game. It's a TEST!

Hello, Oklahoma.

In the midst of the teacher walkout this week, this blog is aimed at enlightening folks about something that could potentially save the state millions of wasted dollars.  

Does this perk you up?  Grab your coffee and consider this...

What if there were a simple mouth swab test, covered by Medicare Part B with zero copay, that could be administered to the state's most chronic mentally ill, that would tell caregivers how that particular patient's body metabolizes their medications?  To clarify, a test that determines if a patient's DNA can tolerate any of the drugs related to mental health!  And on the converse, it would inform caregivers if the patient CANNOT tolerate the drug? 

I pose this question, due to the rising statistics of "mentally ill" since the advent of all the new pharmaceuticals and expanded diagnoses.  Shouldn't the numbers be going down?  To quote Robert Whitaker:  "Do the medications help people stay well? Function better? Enjoy good physical health? Or do they, for some paradoxical reason, increase the likelihood that people will become chronically ill, less able to function well, more prone to physical illness?"  

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-whitaker/anatomy-of-an-epidemic-co_b_555572.html

In the life of my brother, whose life has been usurped by the grind of a system that has not even come close to curing him, and more truly has made his life a living hell... The forced medications have caused fixed delusions that tell him we are not his family, and adverse physical effects such as weight gain, diabetes, poor vision, and a plethora of scary symptoms specific to neuroleptics that could become permanent, like Akathasia  https://mddk.com/akathisia.html or Tardive Disconesia https://www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/tardive-dyskinesia-nord

God forbid!  

Jeff is so intelligent.  He has been smart enough to save himself from more misery by refusing drugs that are not "fixing" his thoughts, but that ARE causing him to be more disabled.

That brings me back to the original question.  Wouldn't caregivers WANT to know if their patient is getting worse due to their own DNA not being able to process certain drugs?  It seems like a no-brainer.  But sadly, it's being resisted by mainstream professionals.

Let's have some fun crunching numbers.  

Hypothetical situation:   

A mentally ill patient is in crisis.  The state facility administers a forced injection of Invega Sustenna®, which - depending on the facilty's contracted price might be $1,700-ish but could be as much as $3,100.00 for ONE SHOT that lasts a month.  

https://www.goodrx.com/invega-sustenna?kw=price&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=invega%20sustenna%20price%7Ce&utm_campaign=invega%20sustenna&utm_content=Ad-Group_Price&msclkid=406b47ff72751292c0951d3d3ae5bf09

https://www.invegasustenna.com  

(INVEGA SUSTENNA® (In-VEY-guh Suss-TEN-uh) (paliperidone palmitate) Extended-Release Injectable Suspension is a prescription medicine given by injection by a healthcare professional.)

Many times this drug is used in conjunction with other RX (all very pricey).  

Let's take a low average, and say this monthly injection at a public trust hospital in Oklahoma costs $2,000.00.  The annual cost: $24,000 for one med.  Keep in mind, this pretend person is INPATIENT, so we know the cost of hospitalization is way more than the cost of one medicine.  Inpatient costs about $40,000 PER MONTH!  That x12 is $480,000.00!  Of course, most folks aren't inpatient a full year...but still, you get the picture.  Do the math.  

This is example of one person - a fiscal perspective.  

Furthermore, shooting low -

Let's pretend this chronic "mentally ill" person is inpatient for three months.  

That's a long stay, but there are many in Oklahoma that stay these lengths at state facilities.  

So:

Three months hospitalization x $40K = $120,000.00

Three months (example of one RX) Invega Sustenna® x $2K - $6,000.00

That's $126,000.000 for one patient, on one drug for three (3) months.  

If this patient were inpatient for six (6) months, double that to a quarter million dollars!  

The chronically mentally ill are not able to pay these bills.  

The hospitals absorb the costs.  

The state loses money.

How many patients and how many variable stories like this are coming out of 

OKLAHOMA?  

I can tell you more than fifty (50) in Tulsa, most of them getting criminalized 

(I'm not going into cost of incarceration, but it's astronomical).  

And if there are fifty chronically mentally ill in Tulsa, there are at least that many in OKC. 

50+50=100

Oklahoma's two biggiest cities. 

Let's play with these numbers.  

One hundred (100!) severe cases, costing $250,000 for six months.  

That's TWENTY FIVE MILLION DOLLARS for six (6) months!  

$25,000,000.00 !!!!!!!!!! 

for 100 chronic patients

for 6 months...in this hypothetical situation.

HALF A YEAR that can't be paid by the patient.  

Yeah yeah, pretend scenario, but it's realistic.  

How many MORE THAN 100 are there across the state.

The state is BROKE.  

A cost benefit analysis needs to be done 

to see how much money is being wasted, 

when the drugs may be making the patient worse 

and more chronic.

In comes the simple SWAB TEST...

www.genesight.com

https://assurexhealth.com

Developed at the Mayo Clinic, 

this test IS covered fully by Medicare Part B because it SAVES MONEY by giving the doctors information that could prevent causing damage to patients.

There are only five facilities in Tulsa that are registered with Genesight.  I was told that the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (ODMHSAS) isn't interested in using this swab test, because not everyone has Medicare Part B, and some would have to pay for it.  They'd rather allow these most serious cases to possibly be damaged by drugs their bodies can't metabolize?  They are okay with the money being wasted not having this valueable tool to know if their "treatment" is helping or hurting?  That's what I'm getting from this.  

Why not offer it anyway?  I'll bet some would like to KNOW about it, and would be willing to pay to have this information that could save them years of heartache, pain and damage.

If even one patient is helped by this test, 

especially if it's free for that patient, 

this test should be 

mandated by the state!

It feels like discrimination.  Just because someone is SICK ENOUGH to qualify for Medicare Part B as a young adult, that means aren't offered a tool that gives information that could potentially help them get better?  Another level of backward, shameful, hard-to-believe-how-wrong-this-feels attitudes that fall under the "culture of arrogance" I mentioned in last month's blog.  

(BTW, I think AssurexHealth offers a sliding scale set payment according to income.  This chart was given to me in 2016, so not sure how current it is, but one can hope.)

If your loved one or patient isn't responding to any of the drugs listed below, please urge the facility and/or doctors get registered for this swab.  It would be worth paying the full price to KNOW if you're being damaged by the medicines you are being prescribed!

Let's get with it, Oklahoma.  This swab is easy.  We CAN turn this sinking ship around...with some new ideas, and new ways of thinking.  Time is of the essence.  What say you?

Copied from the GeneSight® Psychotropic Test page

Brand Generic
Abilify® aripiprazole
Ambien® zolpidem
Anafranil® clomipramine
Ativan® lorazepam
Brintellix® vortioxetine
BuSpar® buspirone
Celexa® citalopram
Clozaril® clozapine
Cymbalta® duloxetine
Depakote® valproic acid/divalproex
Desyrel® trazodone
Effexor® venlafaxine
Elavil® amitriptyline
Emsam® selegiline
Fanapt® iloperidone
Fetzima® levomilnacipran
Geodon® ziprasidone
Haldol® haloperidol
Inderal® propranolol
Invega® paliperidone
Klonopin® clonazepam
Lamictal® lamotrigine
Latuda® lurasidone
Lexapro® escitalopram
Librium® chlordiazepoxide
Lunesta® eszopiclone
Luvox® fluvoxamine
Mellaril® thioridazine
Navane® thiothixene
Norpramin® desipramine
Pamelor® nortriptyline
Paxil® paroxetine
Pristiq® desvenlafaxine
Prolixin® fluphenazine
Prozac® fluoxetine
Remeron® mirtazapine
Restoril® temazepam
Rexulti® Brexpiprazole
Risperdal® risperidone
Saphris® asenapine
Serax® oxazepam
Seroquel® quetiapine
Sinequan® doxepine
Tegretol® carbamazepine
Thorazine® chlorpromazine
Tofranil® imipramine
Tranxene® clorazepate
Trilafon® perphenazine
Trileptal® oxcarbazepine
Valium® diazepam
Viibryd® vilazodone
Wellbutrin® buproprion
Xanax® alprazolamZoloft® sertraline
Zyprexa® olanzapine

**********************

Jackie Welton DiPillo

#forJeff

obo: the family