The wa-a-aiting is the hardest part about 988 preparedness
Plus: Jamie Loftus, Van Gogh, Arizona prisons, and just walking around
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Jamie Loftus and lots and lots and lots of notebooks
On the Depresh Mode podcast this week: Jamie Loftus. She’s a lot of things: comedian, writer, podcast creator, podcast host, animator, actor. The writing part goes way back to when she would write voluminously to an audience of zero people. As a kid, Jamie would fill notebooks with shorthand descriptions of every place she went. Who was there, what they wore, what was on the walls. Adults around her thought it was cute, like she was trying to be a kid reporter. It was obsessive compulsive disorder.
As it is a lot of the time with OCD, this was a quest on Jamie’s part to take some control and have some order in a chaotic world. Years after the notebook habit ended, she became a comedian where the controlled environment of a standup set or planned performance satisfied that same urge for control. When Jamie started making podcasts, they were planned as limited run series, again allowing her to have control of the present and future.
Art cures depression! Not really! Might help though!
Smithsonian has a look at art therapy and its benefits, including the story of someone who spiraled down in depression during the pandemic.
Even though she’s an artist herself, Cooper was at first skeptical of the therapist’s prompts, which were meant to inspire Cooper and other patients to draw and paint as a means of working through their pain. But as Cooper spent more time thinking about her mental health, she began to deeply contemplate the therapist’s questions, including one about growth. “I thought about it and knew I was going to have to make some hard decisions in order to grow, that if I kept on the same track, things were not going to get any better,” says Cooper, who is 66.
…
Research has found that making art can activate reward pathways in the brain, reduce stress, lower anxiety levels and improve mood. Various studies have also looked at its benefits among specific populations: It’s been linked with reduced post-traumatic stress disorder and depression among Syrian refugee children and lower levels of anxiety, PTSD and dissociation among children who were victims of sexual abuse, for example. Art therapy can help reduce pain and improve patients’ sense of control over their lives.
Link once more to the video about how Van Gogh had a great experience in an asylum, had lots of friends, and was appreciated in his lifetime? Don’t mind if I do:
Here is an opportunity to be very bummed out
This Is What Mental Health Care Looks Like in Prison
The state of Arizona has had a horrifying record when it comes to mental health treatment for prisoners. Negligent care, suicides, and lawsuits from all that:
In a searing 200-page ruling published June 30, Silver wrote that the case boiled down to two questions: “Are Defendants violating the constitutional rights of Arizona’s prisoners through the existing medical and mental health care system? And are Defendants violating the constitutional rights of a subset of Arizona’s prisoners by almost round-the-clock confinement in their cells?”
The answer to both questions, she wrote, is yes.
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Staffing shortages also led to what the court called “drive-by mental health encounters”—in which staff assess patients in intervals of two to five minutes. In one mind-boggling section of testimony, defense expert Joseph Penn, a psychiatrist and professor, claimed that a one-minute encounter could “certainly” be sufficient to determine if someone was at risk for self-harm or suicide (“if the mental health staff member knows the inmate, has reviewed the chart, has spoken to staff, and is a qualified mental health professional,” he said).
The list of other issues is lengthy. Psychiatric medications are not distributed at regular intervals. Incarcerated people who need to be transferred to in-patient facilities aren’t, and even those who are don’t get the care they need. Individuals in isolation are offered “cell-front encounters” with mental health staff that are neither private nor confidential—and if they do request a private session, they are strip searched, restrained, and placed in the “treatment cage.”
I got 988 problems and infrastructure is most
Establishing 988 as a national version of Suicide Prevention Lifeline is a good idea. It shows the government taking mental health seriously and making an investment. And having a shorter number that you can more easily remember, that’s good too.
In fact, setting up the phone number, while not easy, is the easy part. The hard part is having enough people to answer the phones. Hotlines have been flooded for years now and the call volume will go up once 988 is in place. There’s no indication that we’ll be ready:
A study by the RAND corporation released earlier this month interviewed 180 behavioral health program directors and found that half had not been involved in any planning related to 988. A vast majority of respondents reported they had not helped develop a budget to support the lifeline.
In Illinois, underinvestment has plagued call centers for years. During the first three months of 2022, a quarter of callers — about 5,500 calls — dropped off before anyone answered.
Walks are great. But they’re just walks.
My pals at McSweeney’s, my original internet home, bring it with a reality check that is accomplished through a talking walk:
I’M A SHORT AFTERNOON WALK AND YOU’RE PUTTING WAY TOO MUCH PRESSURE ON ME
But let’s get back to the root of the problem here. I am but a simple afternoon walk. You are a human person with complex feelings and emotions like fear and boredom, not to mention a very real depression that you only seem to be acknowledging through tweets. And you want us both to believe that I can address these things with magical powers?
I’ll let you in on a little secret, pal: I have no magical powers. I never have. This isn’t an imposter syndrome thing either, so don’t even start with the “Oh, come on, everyone knows how magical and talented you are!” I’m telling you right now, for real, I have no magical powers.
This song talks about walking: