7 ms·

Mental health care isn't that easy to obtain north of the border either, here in Canada. I had to wait nearly 1.5 years to get the help I needed. I've dealt wi

Mental health care isn't that easy to obtain north of the border either, here in Canada. I had to wait nearly 1.5 years to get the help I needed. I've dealt with issues for over 25 years, and only recently have I identified them. I still struggle with them. During the last 1.5 years, I nearly failed out of my Master's program. Here's hoping I can finish it.

stretchwithme 14y ago
I have two family members that were bipolar. One lived in the US and was diagnosed and treated for decades. She received free care due to Medicaid and Medicare. She was always poor. Was it the best care? Perhaps not, but at least she could always get it when she acknowledged she needed it. The other lived in the UK and went undiagnosed for decades. When he finally met his mom and realized he was also bipolar, he had to push the health service doctors hard to accept his diagnosis and finally treat him. He was successful engineer and even owned his own company. It seems universal care sacrifices everybody's quality. Personally, I think 2 sensible people could sit down and design a better system than either approach. Good luck with finishing your degree.
- HorizonXP 14y ago
  Thanks! Yeah, I'm not sure where to place the blame on our system here. The great thing is that I don't have to pay for my care, which was definitely a concern for me at first. However, I had to go through 3 different avenues before I was finally allowed into a group CBT session. I even went through my university's counselling services, only to be put onto a several month waiting list and then forgotten about; they never put me on the list. I only got help because I kept pushing for it. I'm sure many others would have given up sooner. Heck, I gave up a couple of times too. Mental health issues can be difficult to diagnose. If you have "obvious" symptoms, you can typically get help fairly quickly. In my case, the signs are not obvious at all. If you met me, you wouldn't suspect anything was wrong with me. I can mostly function in my daily life. I have a wonderful fiancee, and I've been fairly successful with a solid undergraduate engineering degree, and good in-roads in my business-related work. You would never suspect that I was physically and mentally abused throughout my childhood and undergraduate. Or that I second-guess everything that I do, and that I worry about every mistake I've ever made. Or that I cannot take joy in any of my successes. Or that my father has his own mental health issues, and that my uncle/his brother lost his battle with alcoholism, and that their father was institutionalized several times in their home country. I'm a relatively normal guy with great ambitions. But my mental health issues, while hidden, are there, and if left unchecked will contribute to my future failures. As a society, we do need to pay more attention to mental health and start to have conversations about it. (Actually, it's one area where I think a non-profit startup using web technologies could actually make a meaningful contribution.)
- ownagefool 14y ago
  "It seems universal care sacrifices everybody's quality". I don't think thats quite the case. I live in the UK and can't comment on the US system from personal experience, however what I hear most about over the pond is the many people who get screwed from not having health care or not actually having significant cover when the need arises. Its said that having a life threatening illness will pretty much bankrupt the majority of people. Obviously if thats true, then all those people who aren't getting great service for whatever the reason would be better off with the UK system, but even with universal health care, I've had additional private health care for most of my working life, so theres nothing stopping you from getting the best care available despite the fact they'll send you to the same doctors and get you the same treatment in the vast majority of cases. Personally I think our national health service is fantastic. The system isn't perfect and there are some advantages to private, like for non life threatening issues you can often get seen a lot sooner, and we should always be trying to strife to improve our situation. I'd never trade it for the American system though. We also don't have a lot of massacres, but I'd wager thats a much more complicated discussion.
  - stretchwithme 14y ago
    There may actually be a dearth of reports on "So and so got adequate care".

stretchwithme 14y ago

I have two family members that were bipolar. One lived in the US and was diagnosed and treated for decades. She received free care due to Medicaid and Medicare. She was always poor. Was it the best care? Perhaps not, but at least she could always get it when she acknowledged she needed it. The other lived in the UK and went undiagnosed for decades. When he finally met his mom and realized he was also bipolar, he had to push the health service doctors hard to accept his diagnosis and finally treat him. He was successful engineer and even owned his own company. It seems universal care sacrifices everybody's quality. Personally, I think 2 sensible people could sit down and design a better system than either approach. Good luck with finishing your degree.

HorizonXP 14y ago
Thanks! Yeah, I'm not sure where to place the blame on our system here. The great thing is that I don't have to pay for my care, which was definitely a concern for me at first. However, I had to go through 3 different avenues before I was finally allowed into a group CBT session. I even went through my university's counselling services, only to be put onto a several month waiting list and then forgotten about; they never put me on the list. I only got help because I kept pushing for it. I'm sure many others would have given up sooner. Heck, I gave up a couple of times too. Mental health issues can be difficult to diagnose. If you have "obvious" symptoms, you can typically get help fairly quickly. In my case, the signs are not obvious at all. If you met me, you wouldn't suspect anything was wrong with me. I can mostly function in my daily life. I have a wonderful fiancee, and I've been fairly successful with a solid undergraduate engineering degree, and good in-roads in my business-related work. You would never suspect that I was physically and mentally abused throughout my childhood and undergraduate. Or that I second-guess everything that I do, and that I worry about every mistake I've ever made. Or that I cannot take joy in any of my successes. Or that my father has his own mental health issues, and that my uncle/his brother lost his battle with alcoholism, and that their father was institutionalized several times in their home country. I'm a relatively normal guy with great ambitions. But my mental health issues, while hidden, are there, and if left unchecked will contribute to my future failures. As a society, we do need to pay more attention to mental health and start to have conversations about it. (Actually, it's one area where I think a non-profit startup using web technologies could actually make a meaningful contribution.)
ownagefool 14y ago
"It seems universal care sacrifices everybody's quality". I don't think thats quite the case. I live in the UK and can't comment on the US system from personal experience, however what I hear most about over the pond is the many people who get screwed from not having health care or not actually having significant cover when the need arises. Its said that having a life threatening illness will pretty much bankrupt the majority of people. Obviously if thats true, then all those people who aren't getting great service for whatever the reason would be better off with the UK system, but even with universal health care, I've had additional private health care for most of my working life, so theres nothing stopping you from getting the best care available despite the fact they'll send you to the same doctors and get you the same treatment in the vast majority of cases. Personally I think our national health service is fantastic. The system isn't perfect and there are some advantages to private, like for non life threatening issues you can often get seen a lot sooner, and we should always be trying to strife to improve our situation. I'd never trade it for the American system though. We also don't have a lot of massacres, but I'd wager thats a much more complicated discussion.
- stretchwithme 14y ago
  There may actually be a dearth of reports on "So and so got adequate care".