The Gaslit Truth

The Politics of Mental Health: Beyond Red and Blue

• Dr. Teralyn & Therapist Jenn • Season 2 • Episode 57

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Mental health is a complex subject often lost in political rhetoric, and our latest episode of the Gaslit Truth Podcast brings this to the forefront. We challenge the commonly held beliefs surrounding civil commitment laws, particularly in Oregon, as we navigate the new proposed legislation that could redefine how mental health crises are handled. 

Join us as we uncover the intricate relationship between NAMI and civil commitments, confronting the ongoing narrative that embeds mental health within a political tug-of-war. As we discuss the proposed shift towards assessing a patient’s risk over a 30-day period instead of relying solely on immediate threats, we raise essential questions about the responsibilities placed upon mental health professionals. Are we setting them up for failure? And what about the rights of those in crisis?

The episode also explores the implications of these laws on vulnerable populations and their intersection with prison reform efforts. As we unpack these pressing issues, we urge our listeners to consider the ramifications of policies that may further stigmatize mental illness while failing to provide adequate support.

We encourage you to engage with us, share your thoughts, and contribute to this critical discourse as we work toward a society that advocates for comprehensive mental health care instead of merely imposing strict legal frameworks. Tune in, and let's explore the gaslit truths that shape our understanding of mental health today. Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and join the conversation!

The Gaslit Truth Podcast will be live and in person at the Feed the Recovering Brain Conference in Dublin, Ohio

Join us with the top names in brain health, including Christina Veselak, Hyla Cass, and Julia Ross, author of The Mood Cure.

We’ll be bringing you interviews and behind-the-scenes content as we explore how nutrition transforms mental wellness.


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Dr. Teralyn:

Therapist Jenn:





Speaker 1:

Hey everyone, you are being gaslit into believing that civil commitment is the answer to treating mental illness and addiction. We are your whistleblowing shrinks, Dr Tara Lynn and therapist Jen, and this is the Gaslit Truth Podcast.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the show. It sure is. Woohoo. This is a good topic. But before we get started, I am doing another shameless self-promotion for my book. Do it there, it is your Best Brain. Do it. Do it there, it is your best brain. Do it, do it.

Speaker 1:

Terry, wait, I want you to open the very first page, please, and I want you to read Can you share with people the line on the very first page of that book?

Speaker 2:

100%. When life knocks you down, calmly get up, smile and say you hit like a bitch.

Speaker 1:

Who would have thought? A book about a brain starts with that.

Speaker 2:

Well, if you know every chapter starts a little bit like that. So this book is a work of I don't know love and frustration, I guess, and every chapter starts out with a little quote, a little snarky quote, and a little bit of a life story about me. And then we get down to business, about nutrition, lifestyle, brain health, amino acids, all the things I talk about. So it's nice and small Good to have next to your bedside.

Speaker 1:

It's perfect next to your bed. Where can people find your best brain, Terry?

Speaker 2:

You can find this links in bios and also you can find it on Amazon. So your best brain Only leave me five-star reviews. Per usual, jen, and I only like five-star reviews If you don't like it.

Speaker 1:

Well, that's too bad. Go find somebody else to read a different book then.

Speaker 2:

That's right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so we need to talk about this topic today because, as per usual, terry and I spend all this time prepping for these podcasts, which includes us sending a thousand text messages back and forth.

Speaker 2:

Only a thousand.

Speaker 1:

How pissed off we get as we start to dig into these rabbit holes, talking about the topic like this one, which is we're going to cover a lot, we're going to talk about civil commitments, we're going to talk, we're going to bring a little politics into this and talk about how it's actually not politics and how people are making these red and blue issues out of something that aren't?

Speaker 1:

we're talking about nami and the bullshit that actually is nami. Um, if you don't have a lot of information about the national alliance of mental health, um, mental illness, and we're going to talk about that as it relates to the state of oregon and a state uh, past issue that well, they're trying to pass right now about civil commitment. Yeah, we've been talking about this, right?

Speaker 2:

So let's rock, let's get into it.

Speaker 2:

Yes, okay. So this topic was kind of born on TikTok, if you will, for me because I tried my hardest to tell people that RFK Jr is not rounding people up for civil commitments and sending them to wellness farms or camps or whatever it is. And I actually, you know, a lot of people are like, yes, he said that, he said that, blah, blah, blah. And now I've been saying, send me the video. Then send me the video that he actually says that, because this has been fact checked multiple times, that he has not said this. I don't care if you like him or hate him, he has not said this, okay. Which then makes this topic a political topic, because just because you don't like, you know Republican, doesn't mean that he said these horrible things right, or that the Republican party is out to civilly commit anyone, okay.

Speaker 2:

So I kept thinking about this and I found the original video, actually that, uh, where that, where he was talking and this came from prison reform. So this is where Jen gets a little geeky because you know she's she was more involved in the whole prison system for a longer period and most recently than than I. So so I got real interested in this topic because I wanted to understand what it meant. Topic, because I wanted to understand what it meant. And then suddenly, right underneath your noses, a state, a blue state, decides to push forth commitment reform, making it easier for you to get civilly committed if you have a mental health issue and, I would guess, an addiction issue as well right Sure yes.

Speaker 2:

And so it got me thinking. I was like, oh wow, this really isn't political. If it was political, it wouldn't be coming from a blue state and a blue governor. So I'm like this is really fascinating, because if you want to push this being only a red issue or a blue issue, it is not. As a matter of fact, it's not even a federal issue. Yeah, it's a state issue, and that, to me, makes it even more fascinating. So, yes, so here's to all the people that are saying that this is a federal Republican issue and they're all after us yeah, no, it's not. This is a federal Republican issue and they're all after us. Yeah, no, it's not.

Speaker 2:

You've got a state right underneath your nose trying to expand how to civilly commit. So I think it might be an important thing to just briefly touch on how things generally stand for civil commitments. Right For people to understand that, because right now, civil commitments in the majority of states each state, I think, is a little bit different. They've got a little bit different laws and things like that. But in general and Jen chime in if you're hearing something that's incorrect, in general you have to be at risk to self or others, like ending your life or ending someone else's life.

Speaker 1:

It's pretty extreme, it's got to be imminent, it's got to be extreme.

Speaker 2:

Right now. Right now, okay, and that's important to know because it's a right now situation this new law and apparently Oregon has tried to it's the state of Oregon Newsflash. We're talking about Oregon, so if you've got, any listeners from Oregon. Perk your ears up people and tell your friends to start listening to this episode. Yes, and NAMI is leading the charge on this, which is really interesting because NAMI has influence across the entire country.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

In an article that we're going to be talking about here. There's an Oregon group right, which is NAMI, that wants to make it easier to commit those that are in mental health crisis, and the Oregon chapter of NAMI, okay, indicates that they don't want to be the ones that are leading this charge. But because of how problematic this is for the state of Oregon and how problematic it is for the state, specifically within their Department of Corrections, because the only way to receive true commitment type services that you would get if you were civilly committed right is to go through the correctional system, they are deciding their charges that that is not okay for people and then, instead of putting them in the prison systems, we need to commit them to state hospitals so that they don't end up in the legal system. Even though they don't want to take on this charge, they say that they need to.

Speaker 2:

Well, I feel the same way. I didn't want to take on the charge of the Gaslit Truth podcast but I felt like I needed to I know, this one's a little big.

Speaker 1:

But you know what, who cares? We're going to go for it. So what they did is they ended up putting together it was actually this last fall, NAMI ended up putting together a draft document for a legislative concept on civil commitments, and what the most important thing that stood out for us in this document right, was this whole 30-day thing. So let's talk a little bit about what Oregon is proposing, because you know, once one state starts this, guys, oh, once the match is lit, the wildfire starts.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, so this is the deal right and it's.

Speaker 1:

Oh, we lost. She lost volume. All of a sudden she stops. Okay, if you guys are watching YouTube right now, you'll see Terry in a full panic. She's trying to oh, she's taking the flag off her mic. Now she's pushing it back in. This is very fascinating. So what Terry is trying to say I'm going to wait to see if she comes on. We have no audio at all for her, so she has completely paused. So what?

Speaker 2:

Oh, she's back. I was just about to talk about the 30 days. I don't know what happened. All my audio just decided to crap.

Speaker 1:

So finish your sentence. The deal is, you're going to talk about the 30 days and what this fortune telling is that providers are going to be given the luxury of being able to do.

Speaker 2:

Right. So right now, as Jen and I talked about, it is an imminent risk, meaning right now, like they assess, like right now today, like they're saying now that they want us I'm going to say us mental health care people to assess risk somehow for the next 30 days. Is this person going to be a risk to themselves or others within the next 30 days? And I don't even know how to do that.

Speaker 1:

Let me give the detail of what that means. So the potential proposal that NAMI is putting out is defining danger to others, which is any statements or attempts to inflict serious physical harm on another person that would place a reasonable person in fear of imminent physical harm.

Speaker 2:

A reasonable person.

Speaker 1:

I know here's the word reasonable, which that shows up in a lot of the verbiage throughout our, our, our jobs. Like, I don't know. It's just like, well, what a reasonable person do this. What the fuck does that mean? I don't know. I mean, my God, I'm from the backwoods. We do a lot of stupid shit. It's fine, like. And then they also define danger to others as likely to inflict a serious physical harm on another person within the next 30 days. You are likely to inflict serious physical harm on another person within the next 30 days, so that's part of it. Then they define danger to self. Danger to self is statements.

Speaker 2:

This is also. They want this to be a broader.

Speaker 1:

I believe the danger to self is broader, the danger to self is statements or attempts to inflict serious physical harm to yourself. So statements or attempts, statements, by the way, people okay, do you have any clients I have that I work with that make statements that are dangerous when stated, but the intentions and the means and the drive and all these things behind doing this are a totally different thing, right? So the fact that this is so broad really bothers me, because as clinicians we are trained in it's not just a statement. We assess intent, we assess mean, we assess their history, we assess their support systems, we assess whether or not they had a relationship that just went to shit in their life and they have vulnerability factors. Right, let's spell all that out. But no, this is pretty general, Okay. So statements or attempts to inflict serious physical harm to yourself, including statements and attempts of suicide, by which a behavioral health clinician this is us now would reasonably conclude that the person is at a significant risk of harm within the next 30 days.

Speaker 2:

Now. So I get worried about being a mental health in that position, and what if something happens within the next 30 days? There's already a massive liability to mental health. I don't know if people know this. If someone ends their life under your care, you can be investigated for that right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I can tell you, in the Department of Corrections, the after action reviews are horrific.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I was involved in one. It was terrible so yeah, this dials in.

Speaker 1:

clinicians is anyone who's a behavioral health clinician. So this is our licensed psychiatrists, psychologists, nps, clinical social workers, licensed professional counselors, physicians, interns or residents working under the board-approved supervisors okay, or any other clinician whose authorized scope of practice includes mental health diagnosis and treatment. So basically, we have to find a way to not only assess imminent risk maybe more so, but not even that but in the next month, are you going to harm yourself or somebody else?

Speaker 2:

I mean, if that's the criteria, I mean, we should start selling crystal balls or something.

Speaker 1:

I think so. I think so, and I'm not trying to go back onto like evidence-based approaches here, but this is really fucking general. So if we're going to take a really hard look at this right, I really think this does a disservice.

Speaker 2:

People will be afraid to do this, like what will start happening is People are going to be afraid to talk about this. People are going to be afraid to do this Like.

Speaker 1:

what will start happening is People are going to be afraid to talk about this. People are going to be afraid to tell their clinicians.

Speaker 1:

anything we are going to keep secret, secret secrets, because this is not. I don't know if this is going to be super helpful. There's a level of iatrogenic care that this like sits with me and I worked I mean, we worked in the prison system and had a lot of very mentally ill inmates come through, which we're going to talk about, this other agenda behind the civil commitment thing that's happening, but it sits at a level of iatrogenic care for me just because this is almost putting the power in the hands of, I'm going to say, sometimes the wrong people and it's going to silence the people who struggle with mental illness. It's going to silence the people who are going through withdrawal and are having suicidal ideation from going through medications that they're getting off of and them not telling their clinicians. I would have been civilly committed twice in the last year in my decreasing of Lexapro had I went to someone and shared my true thoughts on what was happening in my brain.

Speaker 2:

If.

Speaker 1:

I lived in Oregon. This was passed. I would have been civilly committed on two occasions that I could feel very confident in saying so. It's going to silence people too.

Speaker 2:

That's what I keep thinking about, because even if you come in, like what's the assessment? I don't know what the assessment is. If you were to come in and talk to your clinician about you having being very depressed and not showering or not eating very well and things like that, like, as a clinician, is the charge going to be? This is a civil commitment, you know. And what if you don't right? What if you don't proceed with the civil commitment? What is the liability to the clinician as well? Like, there's two parties in this right there's the client and then there's the clinician. And you know, in private practice particularly right. What is your liability in all of this and how are you going to be held accountable? And so are you also going to be essentially pulling the trigger on this too quickly?

Speaker 1:

It's kind of a scary thought. As a clinician it's very scary.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, because where is that level of reporting then, especially if you're somebody who really knows that your client is going to be in an okay space, but what they're going through right now is some tough shit.

Speaker 1:

Now it does say in here factors the court can consider, but not limited to, is past behavior that has resulted in physical harm to self or others. So here comes some of this backstory, with people right, past patterns of deteriorating past patterns, of relevance, of the frequency or the severity of past behavior, which I do think that that matters as well. We have to take people's history into account. But I also think that, working with a lot of chaptered inmates in the prison system who we were forcing to take psychiatric or medical medications, past behavior became so relevant that current functioning didn't matter anymore and it kept you committed, okay. So I did a lot of work with people in that space too in the years that I was working in the prison system. So so let's talk then about about that part of this, terry, because there is an agenda, especially in the state of Oregon. There is an agenda to why they want to civilly commit people.

Speaker 2:

um, that has to do with prison reform which goes back into the original conversation with rfk jr, because that's what he was talking about prison reform and people who want a better life after after they get out of prison or in lieu of prison, they can go to these places and learn trades and, you know, do the wellness farm type thing. What I think, what people don't realize and I just want to have a little caveat is those things already exist in the world, like wellness farms exist. There are rehabs that already exist that teach trades and vocational things. There's long-term rehabs, ones in Hawaii. It's a three-year program that does all of that. So people are like, oh my gosh, when I hear that, I'm like you guys just don't really understand the landscape of addiction recovery and the programs that are available. Not all programs are great programs. I'm just talking about the style, but any programs like it can also be very predatory at the same time. But these do already exist.

Speaker 2:

But I think he was just he made a comment and it was very interesting to me because this is very true in the state that we live, very rural communities, and so he would like to use those rural lands for these wellness opportunities, and I'm like he's not wrong. Most prisons are anyways in our state built in rural communities, except one that I can think of, but that's still a rural community. It's in the middle of the community, but that's still like a rural town, anyway. So that's where the entire statement came from. So it's kind of interesting that nami is now looking at this with oregon and oregon state because of their um prison reform that they're proposing um, so prison reform is always a huge topic amongst, uh, federal and state lawmakers, if you ask me and it really depends upon who's in in office at the time.

Speaker 2:

Jen and I have talked about this here too. Whoever's in office at the time depends upon how much funding you're going to get or where it's going to go programming blah, blah, blah, all that stuff.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, that's what dictated whoever was the governor and whatever the governor's agenda was in the state that we lived in, right, working in the prison system, we just waited, and that agenda would trickle itself down then to the administrator of the Department of Corrections, and then it would trickle down to the warden levels and then it would trickle down to the psych levels, and then that's what we would do if we received funding on something or there was an initiative. That was the flavor of the week and that's what we pushed. So it's-.

Speaker 2:

And it changes. It can change. The next administration can come in and the whole thing gets uprooted and changed. We'd hold our breath and we'd sit there and wait for the next election and then it would happen all over again.

Speaker 1:

And instead of focusing so much on this evidence-based model, then we focused on this model and it was just a constant bounce right. This bill that's being proposed, as it relates to the prison reform, this group, this bill that NAMI is putting together, that they're authoring, is going to change the current law in a few ways. One is allowing a judge to consider the person's past suicide attempts, potential harm to themselves within 30 days, which we just talked about, okay, rather than immediately when assessing that person's risk. Without treatment, people are going to wind up facing criminal charges where they are ordered into care after being deemed not competent to stand trial. And then they also talk a lot about how, without treatment or without being civilly committed, most of these people are just going to end up committing criminal acts, going into the justice system that exists in the state of Oregon. So I think that's interesting to me. One because, okay, and I got to just say I don't live in Oregon, Like I don't know how bad or good the Oregon.

Speaker 2:

Department of Corrections is, if you want to chime in you, let us know.

Speaker 1:

I can tell you. I know in the state that we live in our correctional system and God, if any of my inmates were listening they'd be like Mesh Mets, you are so full of shit but it's pretty dialed in.

Speaker 2:

They don't know because they haven't been any other place. It's pretty damn dialed in Now when they go to a federal system.

Speaker 1:

They come back and they're like, oh my God, we're so happy to be back here. I'm like, yeah, I know. But something that I think is interesting is, if we're going to commit, if we're civilly going to commit more people in an attempt to decrease the amount of people that are ending up in the Department of Corrections, you may do something. One it would have to entail very swift commitment, meaning the day that this is deemed an issue, which contraindicates the 30-day thing, but the day this is deemed an issue, we're going to have to get you committed and get you receiving services immediately. But then the services you receive, they're going to need to be for a minute Like it can't be in 30 days. You're done and you're out. Which many civil, many commitments that occur?

Speaker 1:

Okay, and psychiatric hospitals guys, they're not there for six months, they're not there for three to five days, Usually like here you go, we get you in, we pump you full of some meds, we'll get you some assessments and within a short period of time you're out.

Speaker 1:

Um, let me tell you, in, we pump you full of some meds, we'll get you some assessments and within a short period of time you're out. Let me tell you, in the Oregon Department of Corrections the median length of stay is 69 months. So years, five years at least, plus people are average staying within their system. So if you think about that for just a minute, yes, there's a tax dollar piece going to this. It's going to cost the tax dollars more. They are a state that is tax-funded, government-funded by the taxpayers. But if you're that ill and you go into a system that is going to help you for years and offer you rehabilitative services and psychiatric services, versus a system that's going to take you, check you into the hotel, give you what you need and check you out in a few weeks, is that effective?

Speaker 2:

I don't even know what that is, because, okay, for the most part and some people do get committed longer, you know or they stay longer, but for the most part it's about three to five days is the commitment time. Now you can be committed to medication and things like that for longer. That's a different story, right? Or maybe it's not, I don't know. Maybe I'm conflating the two things, I don't know. But when you get into inpatient treatment like a committed inpatient treatment and you have to stay because you're a threat to self, you're staying there for a short amount of time and all they're doing really just like Jen said is putting you on a bunch of medications and making sure that you're not going to do what you're there to do. Right, and that's pretty much it.

Speaker 2:

You're kind of in a holding tank, and I think the general public has the wrong impression about what inpatient treatment is that it should do kind of like prison care. Actually, it should be more therapeutic, it should be more helpful. It should be more helpful. It should be helping you with your mental, but that's not what it's designed to do. It's designed so that you don't hurt yourself or someone else. That's it, period, okay. So, although there might be some groups that you can attend. How therapeutic are you going to get in three to five days, like not really.

Speaker 1:

You can't even establish a rapport in that amount of time, you know, with your treatment team right, yeah, and so we know I mean, even in the state that we live in, we know that individuals who have serious mental illness okay, they are at a much higher risk and higher likelihood to commit criminal activity.

Speaker 2:

Which is really funny, because this is another little nugget that people don't like to talk about. Mentally ill are not aggressive, they're not in general, but yet you just said they're more likely to commit crimes and go to jail and prison.

Speaker 1:

Sure, yeah, and it doesn't mean that they're like super, super right, like these crimes are very aggressive crimes.

Speaker 1:

Okay, some of them are Some of them are, though, right so we kind of convolute all of these topics right, make them about something that they actually aren't.

Speaker 1:

But when you look up even the Oregon Department of Corrections okay, you look up even the Oregon Department of Corrections, okay, recent studies suggest that 16% of inmates in the jails and prisons there, okay, have a serious mental illness.

Speaker 1:

And then it goes on to say a few decades ago that percentage was much less, it was 6.4%. So when we're looking at the number of seriously mentally ill people that are ending up in the system, okay, this is saying okay, an average of 16% gives another statistic of the total men and women incarcerated in the state, 14.6% of men, 40% of the women, were diagnosed with severe mental illness. So if these people truly do have severe mental illness or target schizophrenia, major depression, bipolar disorder, these things so if they do have them, we're going to put them into a facility that is going to offer short-term solutions, Band-Aid solutions, and I'm not saying putting them in the prison system is right, but what I can say is that when you're living in a prison system for years, you're going to get some care. You're going to get a different level of care than you're going to get than if you are in an inpatient facility committed for 20 days.

Speaker 2:

Likely. That also depends upon the prison system, though we can get into the private prisons versus the public. You know what I mean. There's a whole conversation there.

Speaker 1:

Again, that's my caveat before what I am. I have a prison system in one state and multiple prisons I've worked in. I cannot speak to Oregon, but to me this concept is very interesting.

Speaker 2:

Why don't they put the opportunity in the prison then? Like, why aren't the opportunities more placed in prison systems? If they're worried about that, why not make prison systems more rehabilitative than they are right now? You know why not make the exit out of prison more rehabilitative as well, instead of punitive? Right so? But wait a minute, that's exactly what RFK Jr said. Yeah, he wants to make the exit out of prison more rehabilitative. You know, and I think I can, you know I can go along with that idea, like I, cause I think we need it, cause I how many guys, I mean, and women get get uh released and they don't really have a solid plan.

Speaker 1:

They don't. They don't have a lot of solid release plans, um, sad, I mean. I mean I would put together, as a supervisor of a lot of the social workers in the state that we are in. I would help my staff put together plans which included like being released to a hotel and being given a few hotel vouchers. And that was what it was for them, because the county that they lived in was so far north that there were no services there for them and most of these individuals.

Speaker 2:

Jails are even worse.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, most of these individuals had a level of mental illness. There was a level of care that we had to give to them, our codes we would put on them. There were mental health one, mental health two, meaning they were taking a psychiatric medication or receiving a service, and those couldn't always be continued out in the community for them. Now, don't get me wrong, there's a lot of stuff, at least in the state we are in, that was a lot more progressive with some of that which was great, it really was Again county dependent.

Speaker 1:

Yes County dependent. That's right, because when you live so far up north that there are not services for you, you're being released to a Motel 6 and that's where you're going to go and that's all there is to it.

Speaker 1:

right, there aren't options for you. But I think about this idea of what we know to be psychiatric hospitals and the type of care that's given. Now, to give NAMI credit, they talk about this in this idea. They say that what they are proposing is going to require a shit ton of resources and funding to go to psychiatric facilities because they could never hold what would likely come their way. They wouldn't be able to handle it because a lot of it is ending up in the prison system. I would argue that not only could they hold that influx of who's coming in, but to sustain actual, helpful care for them.

Speaker 2:

That's the tricky part.

Speaker 1:

That, I think, is the tricky part, because these facilities I mean we're going to swing the pendulum back to where we were in the 20s and 30s with psychiatric hospitals and housing people for a very long time but part of me also goes but for true care, that's what prisons do and it works well because people stabilize themselves in these places because they need more than 30 days.

Speaker 2:

They need more than a week. They need more than three days or five days, and I and you know I would. I have an argument here too, because you typically don't civilly commit someone who is an active addiction. Okay, so this is weird to me too. Or active withdrawal or active withdrawal you would not civilly commit exactly, but I would argue that if if you're shooting heroin in your veins, I would argue that if you're shooting heroin in your veins, you are at risk to self.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

Of ending your life. Now is that? I mean, I guess I look at suicide as being intentionally wanting to take your own life when you are in active addiction. I would guess that some people are. They're playing roulette. I don't care if I live or die, I'm going to do this, I don't care. The consequence is death. But where is that? Where's the treatment? Do you know how many people out here suffer like parents and things like that, because their kids are on the street actively using and they know they're going to die, they know that they have a high risk of dying? Where is the outcry for that population? You know, there you can't go to the court and civilly commit your son because he is shooting heroin. You can't do it, and I would argue that that is also a mental illness. You know what I mean? I would argue that at least when they're using that they have a mental illness going on. You can't not. You know. So I don't know. This whole thing just is mind boggling to me.

Speaker 1:

Where does it end?

Speaker 2:

Well, where does it end?

Speaker 1:

Where does it end?

Speaker 2:

And then I think of the homeless population, right, like, isn't that harm to self? Or threat of harm to self within the next 30 days? You know, I mean you are going to be in the frigid cold, isn't that harm to yourself, Like, but is it so? Do we have to gauge? Like well, they didn't mean to freeze to death, that's just where they're living, but yet they froze to death anyway. They didn't mean to overdose. Therefore it doesn't fit the commitment. And I'm like where does that end? And where are the resources for the people that are just living like that? There's nothing. The resources that you have available are if you're an imminent threat to yourself or others. And now it's within the next 30 days, and I feel terrible for any mental health professional in Oregon having to assess a 30-day risk.

Speaker 1:

Yes, because I do believe in this word. Okay, the word imminent is in this draft proposal that they put out there right. But here's where the semantics piss me off, just like the semantics with addiction versus dependence, all these we're constantly trying to put these labels.

Speaker 2:

We argue over the wrong things.

Speaker 1:

We argue over the stupidest shit. Okay. So as a therapist, right, I see the word imminent also in the same fucking line as 30 days. Okay, first of all, those two things completely contraindicate one another and it puts people in these boxes like where not only are we supposed to assess risk right in the moment, but we're also supposed to again fortune tell and go. Well, it's very likely that a reasonable person would believe, with the education and knowledge that I have, that there is a high likelihood that this person in the next month is going to engage in X, y and Z behavior.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I can appreciate trying to expand some of this criteria for the function of trying to offer services to people that aren't just you're going to end up having to go to jail or prison to get services. I can appreciate that. But to me that's not what this feels like, because it's just so subjective and it's also asking us to really truly fortune tell what is going to be happening to somebody. Now we could determine imminent risk based off history and all of these factors. Now in the moment, in the next day, like hour, two hours today, is someone going to harm themselves?

Speaker 2:

By the way, in private practice, I think it's harder because people know what not to say, right, right, so. So I have had a couple people take their life in private practice and I was in oblivion. I had no idea. The same, the same rules didn't apply as what we heard when we were trained in prison or any of our trainings on this. It didn't, because people know better and I and I think most people don't tell you that this is going to happen there.

Speaker 1:

They don't, they, yeah, and so anyway, it's you got a mixed agenda here of of mental health, civil commitments, prison reform. Then we bring in this international organization that is supposed to be there, okay, whose roots and bones are to help people, and they are leading this charge. And let's talk about NAMI for just a hot second, as if you're on YouTube right now. Youi for just a hot second, as if you're on YouTube right now. You guys have to pull YouTube up and see.

Speaker 2:

If you're not, you can see Jen's shoe, you can see.

Speaker 1:

Clearly okay. This image I have. Someone in my home has been searching for the best men's walking shoe.

Speaker 2:

That's funny. I said it could be worse. The ad on there could be a lot worse. Oh man, I got to screenshot this. We didn't have time to do all that right, I'm like, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it could be like some real crazy shit I'm into, so I'll go with the men's walking shoe. But let's talk about this graph, let's talk about NAMI and where NAMI receives funding from.

Speaker 2:

NAMI was in big trouble for this. A big spotlight was shown on them because of all the funding that they received from big pharma.

Speaker 1:

Yep 2009,. Actually, the New York Times posted an article on this and that the drug makers are advocacy group's biggest donors, and it was tied to NAMI. When you look at this graph we have up here, you can see that pharma funded a good chunk of NAMI. And let's see, we've got Pfizer.

Speaker 2:

Pfizer Wythe.

Speaker 1:

Ortho, mcneil, bms Lilly and AstraZeneca. All of their funding in 2009 came from Pharma, except for 15%.

Speaker 2:

That's ridiculous.

Speaker 1:

I wonder, what other is that's?

Speaker 2:

ridiculous. Yeah, I wonder what other means in that context. What does all right?

Speaker 1:

yes, this is old. Okay, like yes, this is not recent, however, and if we dug more I'm sure we'd find more stuff, and I'm going to stop sharing the screen here, but this is very interesting to me because they are such a popularly known coalition in the mental health space too.

Speaker 2:

Well, I have a question. You know we grew up listening to NAMI and getting info on NAMI. If Big Pharma is funding things like NAMI, who does a lot of like advocacy work about everything's mental illness, right, and so of course it is because then Big Pharma will get more money through prescribing blah, blah, blah. Then big pharma will get more money through prescribing blah, blah, blah. Why don't we make big pharma fund just give money to prison reform? Why don't we make them get without influence, just cash, no.

Speaker 1:

Third, party intermediaries here it's not going through another organization through another organization.

Speaker 2:

Right, yeah, go ahead and write a check for $15 million and have it go straight to the charge.

Speaker 2:

The people actually that are doing it, right, like, why can't they do that in the, in the federal and state governments, say, like, you have to give back a certain part of your profits for actual care and reform, you know? And then I then and I think we can probably wrap this up after this little caveat, unless you've got something else but I think, like, why can't Oregon, like Oregon's governor instead and I'm not saying they are explicitly doing this, but instead of turning their back on the RFK Jr stuff that he's doing with wanting to do with prison reform and mental illness and things like that, instead of making this a partisan issue, I think there's a huge collaborative value that can happen here, like because it's happening under your noses without influence of the other party, right, but I'm thinking they are so close to being on the same page here, they are so close. But why can't we just listen? Right, we are so close. But why can't we just listen? Right, we are so close. Like this is.

Speaker 1:

It's almost like the messages, like the overall end results are the same, yeah, like we're preaching the same damn message, but it's about how we get there, and this is where this split is happening, right.

Speaker 2:

Yep, because I don't hear anybody talking about this Oregon thing, even though to me that's fucking scary. I saw it, I happened to come across it on Google or something, and I was like wait, what is this? And I'm like, but I don't see an outcry on TikTok over that. There should be People should be freaking the F out over that, you know, because to me that's kind of scary. A 30 day like look ahead. And I'm sorry, but I think clinicians should be like what?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, any of those. They should be leading the charge. Yeah, those professionals should really be taking a hard look at that, and starting to push back.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, nami and Oregon, for telling me that I need to learn how to be a fortune teller.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for putting us in such a compromised position. Yes, that really truly goes beyond our scope of what practices really? Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And putting all the liability on us. Yes, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Oh, good job.

Speaker 2:

Well, with that, listen, we are better together.

Speaker 1:

We could talk about this for days, but we're going to wrap up here and we are the Gaslit Truth Podcast and you have successfully listened to this awesome episode. Food for thought. Get curious, get inquisitive, make sure that you get online, give us some stars, give us some ratings, tell us what you think. If you're so inclined, buy us a coffee, because guess what? We got to fund this? Somehow because Big Pharma ain't giving us shit for this show.

Speaker 2:

They should, and I don't know.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening, guys.

Speaker 2:

Send us your gaslit truth at thegaslittruthpodcast at gmailcom. Five-star ratings only folks. All right, Until.

People on this episode

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Dr. Teralyn

Co-host
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Jennifer Schmitz

Co-host
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Dr. Teralyn

Guest
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Jennifer Schmitz

Guest