Mental Health Profiling: The Forgotten Factor

An important aspect of the air marshals killing the male passenger besides racial profiling is the man had a mental illness. Persons with chronic mental illnesses are some of the most marginalized citizens throughout the world.
Though we're all crazy as hell, to be diagnosed with any mental illness is stigmatizing. It's unforgivable that communities and cultures fail to understand the multitude of emotional problems there are and the unfortunate person with the illness most often hides the fact.
Rather than give support, communities call these people "crazies" "nuts", "loonies", "retarded" "bums", "whacko or whack-jobs" and " psychos" to mention a few disparaging names. They also typically shun them.
I've worked in mental health for 22 years and have seen it happen daily. I've also worked with co-workers who struggled with major depression or bipolar illnesses that were forced out of their jobs. That's right; mental health organizations are the worst in supporting their own who struggle with the very illnesses they treat.
Every police department in the world should have specialized training for intervention with the mentally ill who are in crisis. There are some who do this training and those officers avoid killing or harming the person in most cases
Paul Childs is a classic case of failure to do this. He struggled with a dual diagnosis of developmental disability and a mental illness. He was typically a very gentle soul but at times reacted as a two year old might by having a tantrum.
Paul was known to the DPD and his intermittent explosiveness was known. Had an officer with training been called or all officers trained, an intervention of calming Paul could have prevented his murder.
In non-western societies, the mentally ill are included in the community as full members. Here in the so-called "civilized" world, God help you if you are ever diagnosed with mental illness and it becomes known.
Insurance companies keep extensive data bases. We fool ourselves to believe information isn't shared since there are so many changes and disruptions in coverage.
As with medical problems once you have a pre-existing condition and attempt to change or have to change insurance...don't count on mental illness being covered.
In Colorado there is a parity law that requires insurers to cover mental illness in the same manner as medical problems EXCEPT: only the mental illnesses said to have a biological etiology fall under the law. Those illnesses are schizophrenia, major depression (affective disorder), bipolar illnesses (affective disorder), schizoaffective disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).
Not covered is a range of mental illnesses including PTSD, anxiety disorders, personality disorders, substance abuse and on and on.
There are also loopholes that allow employers to not be held to parity laws if they are a self-insured company. Most mental health centers are self-insured and guess what....they don't give parity for mental health care. They cap number of visits, hospital days and other forms of treatment services. They charge higher co-pays for each office visit and they charge higher inpatient deductibles.
Other ways individuals with mental illnesses are marginalized are getting their medications. Some patients have responded quite well on newer generation medications only to have insurance companies refuse to pay for the meds since they don't have it on their pharmacy formulary.
As a nurse I've had to fight to keep patients on the meds that worked instead of have an insurance company dictate they go on another less effective medication.
The burden upon mentally ill citizens in this country is intolerable and immoral. There are supposedly intelligent and informed citizens in this country that think people with mental illness can just "get over it" or pray more or some other foolish concept.
Major mental illnesses like the five mentioned are pretty conclusively known to be an imbalance of certain brain chemistry. People who have major depression are likely to have children with major depression because of genetics.
As onerous as medications are to treat these disorders, there are great successes in allowing many, many of the mentally ill the opportunity to live "normal" lives. Magic wands, chants, prayer and just talking about things won't change brain chemistry.
Check out the numbers of Americans who have mental illness. You know someone who hasn't told you because of stigma. Days, weeks and years of good health are lost because people won't seek treatment for fear of the stigma.
Mental health should be the focus but we can't get past mental illness because we can't accept our neighbors having such an illness. We can accept heart disease and cancer but not mental illness.
Imagine that man on the plane having racing thoughts, increased fear and paranoia, perhaps he hears voices in his mind no one else hears, perhaps he sees images or faces no one else see...hallucinations and he's spent the day crowded in airplanes and airports.
It's almost assured he's going to act strange, he's going to freak at authorities confronting him without training on how to approach him. When he sees the guns he's going to try to get free. And he's a man of color who is likely profiled because he has pigmentation of what Americans think of when they think of terrorists.
Timothy McVeigh wouldn't have been profiled for his color. He may well have been killed if he were mentally ill to the extreme the man on the plane was the day they murdered him.
I don't want to minimize racial profiling at all because it is without any doubt being done every day at every airport in the world.
I just want to bring a better awareness of this group of people who through no fault of their own, struggle valiantly with their thinking, their moods and their ability to function.
My personal perspective is no doubt unbiased but I can say the bravest people I've ever met were my clients who are white, brown, black, African, Asian, Native American and European. They are all of us. They deserve better than budget cuts for their treatment every year for the last decade.
They have become casualties of this immoral, illegal and sinful war. This is another case of connecting what the full cost of war is on our nation and all nations.
Terry Leichner, RN, C
Certified Community Mental Health Nurse (ANA)
AAS Individual Crisis Worker Certification
Emergency Psychiatric Registered Nurse
(Diagnosed with PTSD twelve years after combat duty in Vietnam)