ironically, checking yourself into a psychiatric...

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ironically, checking yourself into a psychiatric ward is harder than you think it might be. they usually keep you for a minimum of 72 hours, to “evaluate”, but some can keep you indefinitely if they see fit. “open units” are most generally used for “acutely suicidal” patients, “medium term” wards are usually for keeping a patient for a month to six months, and long term “care facilities” are reserved to rehabilitate the mentally unstable person back into society in a number of years, in most cases generally two to three.

in the early 20th century there was so much over crowding at mental institutions due to the still foggy classifications of mental health (and not to mention the free roof over your head and free food) that deinstitutionalisation became THE most focused on aspect of the psychiatric sphere. that is; getting people out of the loony bins and back onto the streets. however, due to the lack of public funding and the bad social stigma associated with mental health, many psychiatric wards in the mid 20th century let loose too many people too quickly, flooding the streets with now homeless and largely under-treated persons.

had more public funding been spent on the importance of mental health (rather than, per-say, weapons), one could theorize that homelessness among the mentally ill would be largely eradicated. instead, however, the social stigma behind such a thing inhibits the solution of much of the problems that society faces at large.

on any given day in America there are 200,000 homeless. Japan - with a severe lack of emphasis on institutionalized rehabilitation - has an estimate of over 400,000 homeless. with a rough average of 1 out of every 200 people in the United States having been in some state of homelessness in 2007, 1 out of every 100 persons in america been in prison, and roughly 1 in 45 having a classified mental disorder (of any degree), the priorities should have been shifted a long time ago, but its merely created an ongoing public crisis that few want to rectify.

which is to say that i nearly checked myself in - just to do it - just to stop feeling so fucking ridiculously depressed all the time after my Dad dying - but after doing some research, the numbers are staggering and the psychiatric rehabilitation system is a very precariously balanced house of cards.

if you’d like to help or at the very least read up on these issues you can go to the National Coalition For The Homeless or The National Institute Of Mental Health.