Psychiatric Problems, A Taboo Subject No Longer

Two of the latest books on the subject of the mental health system were awe-inspiring. The memoir, MANIC by Terri Cheney is one highly recommended about bipolar disorder, also known as manic depressive disorder. Terri was an entertainment attorney in California, a graduate of Vassar, who does not miss a beat in telling the story of her life and her illness.



Another memoir, THE CENTER CANNOT HOLD by Elyn Saks is a true story from a patient who suffers from schizophrenia, and it is an absolutely mind-boggling true story of a woman, also an attorney who had attended school at Oxford and Yale, who went on to survive the ordeals of suffering from this mental illness. I have studied both of these true stories, and each book now has underlines and check marks in the margins from similarities that I have seen in my own life, either with myself or with others that I was in the mental hospital with.



As for myself, someone who was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, who works in the medical field now as a Medical Transcriptionist, I can only say that I am grateful that the insurance companies are now planning to recognize mental illness as a true disorder, just as they would recognize a physical disease as a medical disorder. The chemistry in the brain is a factor that causes some of the worst mental illnesses, and that is a physical disorder. Many people think when someone starts getting mentally ill, they should just "snap out of it," but it would be interesting if they could use this same phraseology with someone dying from cancer or experiencing a heart attack. There are some illnesses that one cannot just "snap out of," and the mental illnesses are no different.



Also one other item of interest was that in the Tulsa World newspaper for Saturday, March 14, 2009, there was an article on Page 5A, "Female Incarceration Not Just Urban Problem." It seems that the rural counties of Oklahoma do have some very high incarceration rates per capita. I remember when I was in prison, the girls who were the most popular, and considered to have the most money were the ones from Tulsa County. After that, the ones from Oklahoma County were the movers and shakers. Last but not least, it seemed like all us women from the rural counties were at the bottom of the totem pole, but there were still a lot of us also. There is probably just now beginning to be a study done on the statistics. I was incarcerated in the early 1980s, but I have read newspaper articles on some of the women I knew back then being sent back to prison because of additional problems, because there was not a safety net for these women when they were released from the system the first time. When they go back to the same habits and the same neighborhoods, it is hard to break the cycle. It is also very hard to make a clean break and just get completely away from the people they were associated with who helped them get put into prison in the first place.



What do the statistics show? According to the article in the Tulsa World, Oklahoma is the #1 top state for female incarceration. Mississippi is #2, Louisiana is #3, Kentucky is #4, and Idaho is #5. It seems like the good old boys from down south certainly have high standards for their women, and are having a little trouble cutting us any slack. If you don't believe me, read the rest of the story (so far). Go to http://www.ebookomatic.com/ and download the free sample chapters of THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH, my second Memoir, outlining what it was like in the toughest women's prison in Oklahoma in the 1980's. (This Memoir will be completed by the end of the year, but you will get a head start if you start to read it now.)