Are We Crazy Or Just Struggling

Are we crazy, well no but what is happening, …  Mental Illness is one of the fastest-growing health issues we are facing in America, if not the world. You have seen it, if not in person you've seen it online.  When I was a kid we had a conflict we took it outside and one or both had a bloody nose and it was done.  We did it face-to-face… You're an idiot, no you are the idiot, on and on but we always walked away and sometimes even friends later because we now respected each other

Now, because we are not allowed to address conflict in real-time because it’s not politically correct, all of this becomes built-up tension and anxiety and has to go somewhere if we don’t deal with conflict….. Boom.  These days conflict comes in many ways, anything from face to face to social media or even just hearing someone's opinion.   You now hear that everything is violence, silence and words, how long before a thought is violence? Oh trust me it’s coming, your thoughts, your prayers, lifestyle will threaten people.  If you pray for peace they will say that is violence, just look at the Middle East and the voice from Harvard.  From the river to the sea.  Our children are now subject to so many confusing and troubling realities.  Trans, bisexual, gay, nonbinary whatever that is.  What are your pronouns, bathrooms without boundaries?  Males pretending to be female kicking the ass of female athletes.  Did you know they changed Title IX which it’s original intent was to protect female athletes?   

Then we went into Covid season, (“season”, that sounds funny how about fake pandemic) they said two weeks to slow the spread…  Well, we know how that went, two weeks became get the jab or lose your job, to the nonvax will create a winter of death.  So here is what is said today by those risking their license to speak the truth.

COVID-19 pandemic triggers 25% increase in the prevalence of anxiety and depression worldwide.  “The information we have now about the impact of COVID-19 on the world’s mental health is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “This is a wake-up call to all countries to pay more attention to mental health and do a better job of supporting their populations’ mental health.”  So it’s clearly not only an American issue 

The fallout from the pandemic includes an increase in mental health problems among

America’s children. The lockdowns, months of virtual learning, time away from friends, and effects of the pandemic on close family members have taken a staggering toll on our children’s mental health. Children’s hospitals saw mental health emergencies among 5- to 17-year-olds increase by 14% in the first half of 2021 compared to 2019. There was a 45% jump in cases of self-injury and suicide for children in this age group over the same time period.  https://www.rpc.senate.gov/policy-papers/the-pandemic-is-hurting-students-mental-health

Fast Facts

• 1 in 5 U.S. adults experience mental illness each year

• 1 in 20 U.S. adults experience serious mental illness each year

• 1 in 6 U.S. youth aged 6-17 experience a mental health disorder each year

• 50% of all lifetime mental illness begins by age 14, and 75% by age 24

• Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death among people aged 10-14 

Millions of people are affected by mental illness each year all across the country, many people just like you work, perform, create, compete, laugh, love, and inspire every day.

• 22.8% of U.S. adults experienced mental illness in 2021 (57.8 million people). This represents 1 in 5 adults.

• 5.5% of U.S. adults experienced serious mental illness in 2021 (14.1 million people). This represents 1 in 20 adults.

• 16.5% of U.S. youth aged 6-17 experienced a mental health disorder in 2016 (7.7 million people)

• 7.6% of U.S. adults experienced a co-occurring substance use disorder and mental illness in 2021 (19.4 million people)

• Anxiety disorders: 44.9 percent increase 

• Eating disorders: 41 percent increase

• Alcohol and substance use disorders: 23.7 percent increase 

• Depressive disorders: 18.6 percent increase 

• Bipolar disorders: 12.2 percent increase 

The new thing…. Is gender dysphoria, in the DSM 4 they say - A strong and persistent cross-gender identification (not merely a desire for any perceived cultural advantages of being the other sex). In children, the disturbance is manifested by four (or more) of the following:

DSM 5 says The term “transgender” refers to a person whose sex assigned at birth (i.e. the sex assigned at birth, usually based on external genitalia) does not align with their gender identity (i.e., one’s psychological sense of their gender). Some people who are transgender will experience “gender dysphoria,” which refers to psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one’s sex assigned at birth and one’s gender identity. Though gender dysphoria often begins in childhood, some people may not experience it until after puberty or much later.

Even doctors have seen the light…  “Previous Estemed Transgender Surgeon Paul Mchugh of John Hopkins said.. When ‘the tumult and shouting dies,’ it proves not easy nor wise to live in a counterfeit sexual garb. The most thorough follow-up of sex-reassigned people—extending over 30 years and conducted in Sweden, where the culture is strongly supportive of the transgendered—documents their lifelong mental unrest. Ten to 15 years after surgical reassignment, the suicide rate of those who had undergone sex-reassignment surgery rose to 20 times that of comparable peers. “https://www.heritage.org/gender/commentary/sex-reassignment-doesnt-work-here-the-evidence

“Nearly four decades after he derailed a pioneering transgender program at Johns Hopkins Hospital with his views on “guilt-ridden homosexual men,” psychiatrist Paul McHugh is seeing his institution come full circle with the resumption of gender-reassignment surgeries.  McHugh, the hospital’s chief of psychiatry from 1975 to 2001, still believes that being transgender is largely a psychological problem, not a biological phenomenon. With the title of university distinguished service professor at Johns Hopkins Medicine, he continues to wield enormous influence in certain circles and is quoted frequently on gender issues in conservative media. “I’m not against transgender people,” he said recently, stressing that he is “anxious they get the help they need.” But such help should be psychiatric rather than surgical, he maintains.”

Unfortunately, many professionals now view health care—including mental health care—primarily as a means of fulfilling patients’ desires, whatever those are.

Our brains and senses are designed to bring us into contact with reality, connecting us with the outside world and with the reality of ourselves.

This data is a little delayed and has gotten much worse. Overall demand for behavioral healthcare has increased by 20.1 percent since the first quarter of 2019, according to an analysis from Trilliant Health. 

Trilliant analyzed claims from its all-payer database to determine how demand for behavioral health services has grown since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Anxiety disorders and eating disorders saw the largest increase in claims from 2019, while claims for ADHD and schizophrenia decreased slightly over the period. 

Here's how claims for seven behavioral health conditions have changed from the beginning of 2019 to the end of 2022:  

1. Anxiety disorders: 44.9 percent increase 

2. Eating disorders: 41 percent increase

3. Alcohol and substance use disorders: 23.7 percent increase 

4. Depressive disorders: 18.6 percent increase 

5. Bipolar disorders: 12.2 percent increase 

6. ADHD: -1.1 percent decrease

7. Schizophrenia: -14.9 percent decrease 

8. All other: 3.1 percent

We need changes in how we treat people, medication isn't always the answer. Sometimes the medication side effects are worse than the illness.