Saying Goodbye: A Necessary Part of Mental Health
It feels like yesterday…I still miss you. I cannot believe how fast the years have gone by. Your laugh, your smile, your sense of humor. I miss them all. I even miss your yelling and threats of haunting me forever if I didn’t give you the last piece of cake. Sometimes we don’t get to say goodbye…at least not while there is still life. The goodbyes come after its too late to say one more time, I love you.
Grief is for the living. The grief has faded with time, but some times of the year, that grief hangs heavy. Like ripe fruit on a tree, low lying and easy to pick. I miss her. She was my Mom, my best friend, and my confidante for all of my life troubles. She was far from perfect, though I spent years thinking she was. Time heals, but it also reveals truth. Who a person really was, and details about situations that you learn to see through adult eyes instead of the eyes of a child. Time has given me a new view of my Mom. I understand better today her sadness, her grief, and her depression.
She got a terminal diagnosis at a young age. She had young children. I cannot even imagine the awareness that in a few short years she would be saying goodbye to her family.
I mentioned that she battled with health problems and one of them was mental health. In the days of her youth that was a subject not talked about much. Today its less taboo and people can actually get the help they need if they will take it. Mental health is America though is still a developing field. Even a few short years ago many insurances did not cover mental health. Today most plans cover it and count it as part of their health and wellness programs. Healthcare professionals have come to realize that if someone is battling mental health issues, their body suffers right along with their mind. I hate to say its partly a financial call, but it is. When a person’s body is sick, healthcare costs rise. If a person’s mental health can be helped, and stress is reduced, then a person’s body can heal and costs associated with them decrease.
Mental health issues in America are on the rise. The statistics are quite staggering. According to a recent HuffPost article, one in five Americans will suffer some form of mental health disorder in their lifetime. Along with mental health disorders come a very sorrowful detail. Often suicide rates rise along with mental health issues as people battle with their inner demons and feel like they are without hope. According to the CDC suicide rates are at a 15 year high.
It is an unfortunate reality that our media outlets often associate mental health disorders with violence. While this is sometimes true, in most instances it is not. Most people struggling with mental health problems turn their issues upon themselves, and not others. With media portrayal of mental health patients being violent, it causes those struggling and needing help to be less likely to get the help they need. Very few people desire to accept a stigma like that.
Another unfortunate part of this reality is that physicians often do not do well on follow up with patients who have been diagnosed with depression. Many patients fall between the cracks because physicians are so busy, they simply have far more patients than they can reasonably manage. Those patients who are under regular care still lack for attentive doctors in many cases. Why? What are the reasons for this inattention? Mental health is less quantifiable than say Heart problems or Diabetes. It is harder to pinpoint, and treat. Additionally mental health treatment is typically expensive. Most insurances only want to cover certain things, and for a very small amount of time. This means that doctors are not going to get fully reimbursed for their time. I hate to say it, but in healthcare, like in many other areas of life, money is king.
Having said all of this, things are changing. In my Mom’s day, mental health issues were swept under the rug and people were given anti-depressants and sent on their way. The feeling left in the patient’s mind was that they were somehow defective. This is being overcome by people coming forward, in some instances celebrities, and speaking up about their own battles. Through the lens of public disclosure, the world is seeing that a depressed person can still be fully functional. A depressed person can be completely non-violent. A depressed person is just like everyone else. They need to be given hope, a reason to live, and help.
It seems like such a little thing…the opportunity to say goodbye to a loved one. Due to how loved ones pass, many don’t get to say it. We have to let it go and move on and find the joy of the life of the one who is gone. I spent a lot of years battling my own depression and mental health. I didn’t get to say goodbye, and I had a hard time accepting my loss. So, one day I had someone share with me ways I could say goodbye to my Mom. She wasn’t here to hear it, but the goodbyes at this point were really for me. Walking that path helped me to enter a journey of emotional healing. It also helped me to start helping a family member going through the same thing. This someone was a doctor who took the extra time to ask a simple question, and then to care, and give me a few simple steps to help me.
Mental healthcare, tied to our hearts and minds, and affecting our bodies needs to continue moving forward in really necessary and positive ways. We should never shame people for struggling, but do what we can to help and to be part of their healing.
