A Letter to Bernie Sanders About Mental Health Care and Stigma

Below is a message I sent to Bernie Sanders. UPDATE 11/18/20 I sent an almost identical letter to my congressperson, Joe Neguse. His response is below my signature at the end of the letter to Sanders.

Senator Bernie Sanders,

I am not a constituent but I voted for you in the 2016 CO caucus and also this year. My blog doesn’t get much traffic which is a problem I am working on, but I link to your campaign web-site and also Our Revolution. I used to be a DSA member and between 1994 and 2004 I did a ton of activism. Since then I haven’t done much activism, partly because of my disabilities but since 2008 I have done a political blog which until 2018 got a lot of visitors and in the last 3 months I got a lot of visitors because I include the URL for my blog when I leave progressive comments on Politico. In the last 8-10 years I have volunteered 4-6 hours a week on average at a food bank. I left DSA for a hybrid of personal and political reasons but I am a fellow traveler and link to them in 2-4 ways in my blog’s links list. In 2002 I represented the Anti-Racism Commission of DSA at the National Conference of Sinn Fein Youth in Galway, Ireland. My blog is at- https://theblackandthegreen3.blogspot.com/

I am emailing you instead of my own Senator because I’m more familiar with you, because you’re a national leader, because I know you feel strongly about funding mental health care and because I can imagine the likely thoughts that Bennet and/or his staff will have when they read about a mentally ill progressive. I appreciate what you have done- we need more funding for mental health care. Although I’m very slightly middle-class, I qualify for SSI and SSDI and am part of what you might call the low-income part of the mental health care system. The mental health center I go to is fairly well-funded (it serves two counties in Colorado, one being Boulder), but sometimes they have to ration therapy. Sometimes I have only gotten therapy every other week and at one point they were talking about me taking a break from getting therapy. For a lot of us therapy is very helpful.

But in addition to funding, we also need to address what is called stigma. As the National Alliance on Mental Illness said several months ago in ads seen in movie theaters, stigma can result in people not getting help. I think there is a major problem with stigma in our society. When I have a good reason to, I mention that I am mentally ill. I don’t hide it. But recently when I mentioned it to 4 progressive activists in an email, 2-3 of them didn’t respond (it’s a little complicated).

I usually think of things this way. As individuals and as a society, we should do whatever is reasonable so that people with disabilities can participate as much as possible in our society. But I think a lot of people have a double standard between physical disabilities and mental disabilities.

I have had for roughly 25-30 years, Depression, Tourrette’s Syndrome, Attention Deficit Disorder, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Although I would have said in the past that they floated between mild and moderate, now they hover around moderate, and the ADD is a little worse than that. To give you a better idea of what I mean by “moderate,” let me give you two examples: With the ADD, if I watch a two hour movie by myself, on average I have to stop and rewind about 10 times before I’m done, just because of the ADD. One aspect of the OCD that can be measured is that, after I make sure my car or bedroom door is locked, I go back 2.5 times on average to make sure it’s locked. I suffered a brain injury in 2010. It affects my hearing, my immediate/working memory, and my ability to organize my thoughts. It MIGHT have made my short-term memory a little flawed, but my long-term memory is still really good. At the risk of putting down other mentally ill people, I have a firm grip on reality.

After my ADD got really bad in 2007 and the 2010 brain injury there was an insurmountable barrier to me doing activism. I have since gone to an occasional event or protest and I don’t refuse to have face to face conversations with people about politics but I don’t look for trouble by going to weekly or monthly meetings where events are planned and there are discussions about goals, tactics, vision, and strategy. I do my blog, I volunteer at the food bank and I go to events as an audience member.

So I understand that there are some things mentally disabled people can’t do. But I think there are a lot of times when stigma keeps mentally disabled people from participating in our society as much as they really can.

I’ll be honest, I’m not real familiar with what they do because I haven’t needed their help, but I like to think that if I encounter stigma in one form or another, if it were serious enough I could turn to the local or state or national office of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. But I am sure they could use some more money. If someone encounters bias against them because they’re physically disabled, they get plenty of help. If someone is mentally disabled and less able to deal with bias against the mentally ill, I don’t think they get much help. I would ask you to look into NAMI and when appropriate promote them.

Thanks for your time and everything you’ve done for progressive causes. I don’t expect a personal response, but if someone working for you could let me know that this message was received I would appreciate it. If I don’t get such a response, I will try to contact you via your Senate office web-site, and after that I will drop it.

Tom Shelley
Boulder, CO 

 

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Below the asterisks is the response I got from my congressperson. He doesn't address the issue of stigma, but he does seem fairly concerned about mental illness in a positive way.

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October 23, 2020
 

Mr. Tom Shelley

(I deleted my address)

Dear Mr. Shelley:

Thank you for contacting me with your support for mental health services. I appreciate hearing from you because it enables me to better represent the beliefs and values of our district, and I agree with you that Congress must do more to help individuals who are suffering with mental illness access the resources they need.

There are millions of Americans living with undiagnosed mental illness, and millions more who have received their diagnoses but aren't receiving the care they need to properly manage their health and wellbeing. I believe that every American has the right to high-quality, affordable healthcare, which includes mental health treatment. Too many individuals are forced to prioritize other aspects of their lives over taking care of their mental health, and too often there are not enough resources available for them to get the help they need. Mental health and substance abuse treatment facilities lack the funds they require to serve their communities, caregivers lack adequate support to assist their loved ones, and far too many people dealing with mental illness end up in prison, which only exacerbates their struggles. To that end, I am a cosponsor on H.R. 945, The Mental Health Access Improvement Act of 2019. This bill would provide coverage for marriage and family therapist services and mental health counseling under Medicare.

In addition, Colorado has one of the highest suicide rates in the country, especially for children and young adults ages 10-24. We need to be taking care of our children and youth populations and increasing resources that are available to prevent many of these tragic deaths. I am proud to cosponsor H.R. 4194, the National Suicide Hotline Designation Act of 2019, to designate the number 988 as the national suicide hotline and provide support to those in need. I also joined several of my colleagues in asking for increased funding for the National Institutes of Mental Health, Community Mental Health Services Block Grants, and other programs in the Fiscal Year 2020 appropriations process, and voted in favor of amendments to the Labor, Health, and Human Services Appropriations Bill that passed the House on June 19, 2019 to add additional funding for mental health programs to the Fiscal Year 2020 budget.

As your Representative, providing accessible mental health resources is something that I care deeply about. Should other legislation regarding mental health services come before the full House of Representatives for a vote, I will be sure to keep your thoughts in mind.

I appreciate that you took the time to contact me, it is one of my priorities that the constituents of the Second District of Colorado have their voices heard. I encourage you to continue contacting me about the issues that are important to you. Please visit my website at https://neguse.house.gov/ to sign up for my e-newsletter and receive periodic updates on my activities as your representative in Washington.
 

Sincerely,

Joe Neguse
Member of Congress 

Trump, Netanyahu, and COVID-19 (Coronavirus)

I had earlier thought that I would keep the topic of Coronavirus (COVID-19) off my blog. I have sent some thoughts about it (more or less political thoughts), to a handful of individuals by email. Soon I’ll post some more thoughts about COVID-19 but right now I want to get this out there immediately. (I get almost all of my COVID-19 news from Politico)

In general there are a lot of ways to criticize Trump for his horrible response to Coronavirus. But there is one thing that I don’t hear anyone mentioning. For about two months until about 20 days ago I read A LOT of stuff in The Times of Israel, an online and apparently mainstream Israeli newspaper which is only slightly pro-Israel (the founding editor is described here). I found an article that contrasts Trump’s response to COVID-19 with that of Netanyahu, which is the only good thing I can say about Netanyahu. When reading that article, remember that it was the 29th of February when Trump said that COVID-19 was a liberal “hoax.” (UPDATE 4/12/20 Trump can't accuse Netanyahu of predicting a pandemic because he's a liberal in love with the American media)

On March. 17th, Netanyahu said: “This isn’t child’s play, it’s not summer vacation, it’s a matter of life and death,” and “If you don’t have to go to work, stay home. I assume you know the English expression ‘My home is my castle.’ Please adopt that. Your home is your castle in defense against the coronavirus pandemic…stay home.” It was March 24th when Trump said: “I’d love to have it open by Easter, OK? I would love to have it open by Easter. I will tell you that right now.” On March 26th it was reported that Israeli police were handing out fines for violating social distancing regulations. On March 23rd, Trump said of schools: “In many cases, they are open now. But the schools are going to be open. In other cases, (New York) Governor (Andrew) Cuomo, Gavin Newsom of California, certain governors are going to maybe have a decision to make.” Trump has resisted calls for a NATIONAL “stay-at-home” order and continues to refuse to do that, despite the fact that Dr. Fauci supports it (an April 3rd article). Here’s a good (March 27th) article about the response of many Governors to Trump’s March 26th plan for lifting social-distancing restrictions in the near future on a county-by-county and state-by-state basis. A March 22nd article reports that the Isareli Health Ministry said that social distancing will probably last until the Summer and maybe beyond.

In an article here it was illustrated that the Israeli State wasn’t very well prepared for this. But I think that Netanyahu still did a better job. In a more recent article, on April 5th it was learned that at least 10,000 tests a day will be done, and it sounds like that was a pretty realistic estimate. It sucks, but it’s still better than Trump. According to this, only in late March did testing in America get to 100,000 a day, and America’s population is about 30 times bigger than Israel’s.

On production of things like ventilators, I haven’t found much info. But the first article I link to above strongly implied that Netanyahu was deploying the power of the national government to combat COVID-19. And I found an article here saying that Israel has already used a 2/3 public 1/3 private partnership to produce more ventilators. The new production line was set up in days and in one day produced 30 ventilators. From what I’ve heard, the new production lines for ventilators in America haven’t been set up yet. And again, America’s population is 30 times Israel’s. I don’t know how many ventilators America normally produces or how many were already being made in Israel, but again, if you consider the different population sizes involved, Israel might be doing better on ventilator production, and it was set up quickly and Netanyahu was a lot more willing than Trump to involve the State instead of relying, to one large degree or another, on the private sector. (I wish I could find more information about Israel and this aspect of responding to COVID-19, but I am kind of sticking with The Times of Israel and after doing a few searches using Google Advanced Search, I don’t think there’s anything more I’m likely to find). I know more about Trump’s efforts to ramp up production and I THINK it’s worse than Netanyahu’s. An article, from April 2nd goes into Trump’s efforts here.

1-2 weeks ago I tried to get this message out to people I know (and some politicians like Senators Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren) because I thought it could be used to pressure Trump to do the right thing (in addition to the thing about ventilators, there’s the first article I link to that strongly implies that Netanyahu was deploying the power of the national government to combat COVID-19- some would point out that they don’t have a federal system, but the point is that Netanyahu didn’t take a hands-off approach, and in America, the fact is that this situation is the sort where there is broad, bipartisan agreement that the Federal government is supposed to act (why else do we have the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Defense Production Act? (the states don’t have a DPA))). It might be too late for that, but when COVID-19 ends, this can be used to attack Trump. Why? Trump and Netanyahu are very good friends politically. Trump isn’t going to attack Netanyahu as a socialist or liberal or a pussy (on the other hand, there are reports that Trump likes to grab Netanyahu without permission). He won’t have a response. When I thought that this could be used to get Trump to do the right thing, I wrote: “I think it might help if people start pointing out that it's okay for a "tough-guy," right-wing, capitalist, racist motherfucker to take Coronavirus seriously.”

UPDATE 5/29/20 According to CNN (and this), at this point Israel has recorded 284 COVID-19 deaths. The US population is 30 times that of Israel's, so if we had the same death rate per capita, there would only be 8,520 deaths in this country and we just passed 100,000.

Sanders/Warren 2020!!!

A few days ago I sent the message at the very bottom to the Warren campaign.  It was flawed and incomplete and after I circulated it to some people I know politically and/or personally I actually sent out two more messages to those people. Immediately below are some new thoughts etc. that complement what I wrote to her campaign. I got only one response and that person agreed with me but declined to contact the Warren campaign. I am doing this because I believe that I am part of the broad progressive movement that Warren and Sanders are leaders of, and since I can't do normal political activism, I do my blog, I volunteer at a food bank, and I attend progressive events to learn and contribute to the success of the event as an audience member, and this post is my way of participating in the primaries beyond voting (I voted for Sanders in CO's primary). (I can't do activism because I have Depression, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Tourrette's Syndrome, bad Attention Deficit Disorder, and a brain injury that affects my hearing, my immediate/working memory, and my ability to organize my thoughts)


I believe that the combination of a woman on the ticket and Trump as the alternative will convince some female Clintonites (moderates) to vote for Sanders in the primary. I am not being ridiculous. I think some of them KNOW that he has a better chance in the general, and I THINK they really like the idea of a woman President and VP is a springboard to President.

And the better he does in the primaries, the more united the party will be at the convention and in the general and the more likely that Bernie voters in the general will vote for other Dems down-ballot, and then he has a chance of getting his agenda through Congress.

Also, a lot of female independents who are progressive (and might otherwise have trouble voting for someone, even Sanders, who's a Dem candidate (I don't know what he's been saying recently, but in 2000 Nader said that even progressive Dems should be targeted in elections by the Green Party)) or sort of in the center will vote for Sanders in the general.


My message to Warren’s campaign:

I'm sure you get tons of messages and you're very busy, but I still need to say this. I link from my blog to both Warren and Sanders, but I am a little more enthusiastic about Sanders because I am a socialist and from the beginning he has had a better chance of winning the nomination and a general election. After the results in SC, Warren really needs to drop out and talk with Sanders about being his running mate. I don't know if that sort of thing is done during the primaries but there can't be a law against it. Such a ticket, informal in the remaining primaries and formal in the general will attract some (in the primaries) or a lot (in the general) of support from female Clintonites who would normally hate Sanders. Such a ticket, in the primaries, would help defeat Biden and Bloomberg, and in the general it would have a good chance of defeating Trump.
Thanks for your time reading this and what you've done to promote a progressive agenda.
Tom Shelley
Boulder, CO
tshelley75@comcast.net
https://theblackandthegreen.blogspot.com/