Watching the documentary on the mental health patients at Bellevue makes me kind of uneasy. It makes you understand that people with mental disabilities have a real problem. I feel as if a lot of people believe that people make themselves sick. Which if you watch this documentary you understand that no one in there right mind would do this kind of stuff on purpose. The reason they go to the hospital usually is because most of them don’t know how to get actual help so they act out trying to get help where they cant seem to find it anywhere else. I feel for the doctors that are at Bellevue trying to help out because it must be a mentatally draining job. A lot of the patients seemed to have an alocohol and drug issue. I believe addiction makes it harder to actually see that you need help. The drugs and alcohol seem to mask the problems they actually have so people just usually assume they are just regular ol’ junkies. The patients seem uneasy a lot of the time. The doctors try their best to help but when a patient is screaming at the top of their lungs at you and you cant really do much to help them because they’re not telling you whats wrong they must feel just as miserable as the patient. If I was a doctor and I wasn’t able to help a patient that really needed help I would probably feel worthless. They don’t have a huge supply of psychiatrists there though, a lot of the patients can only see their psychiatrists once a week which makes them frustrated. Which usually makes them want to leave and if they do leave the patients are usually back in a couple of days. It seems as if a lot of the patients don’t have any means to go seek treatment anywhere else. There was a couple homeless people and people who just don’t have the money to go see a therapist or a psychiatrist. I know it seems like a stretch but don’t you think if we had free open clinics for people with mental issues there would be less suicides a year? Mental illness seems to be pushed to the back burner as not as big of a deal as it really and truly is. I think in the United States we should have more places for people with mental illnesses to go because not every person can afford nice institutions to stay at.
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