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I had a wise, not to mention courageous, Driver’s Ed Teacher in my distant youth. He told me to look right in front of the car, and then periodically look down the road to take the long view. He said, "Don’t let your eyes rest directly in front of you—alternate with the long view." As I look directly in front of the NSMHA, I see the need to keep regional mental health services above water. Managed care systems are in great peril. Already individual physical health insurance coverage alone is impossible for the individual applicant in 17 counties. It is increasingly difficult to provide steady and stable physical health care, much less mental health care coverage. As encouraged by the Surgeon General, we must make every effort to make mental health coverage the norm for all health care plans for our citizens. Although we must be ever vigilant in providing the best mental health care that we can, we must also be aware of how fragile the system is overall. As I take the long view, we must look at new ways of problem solving. The nation’s foremost business consultants are discovering that any problem in an organization can be solved by addressing one of three things: 1) the vision or identity of the organization, 2) assuring abundant sharing of information, and 3) recognizing the primacy of building relationships over trying to control outcomes. The NSMHA has made a lot of effort to be more timely, comprehensive, and inclusive in its sharing of information. The NSMHA has also gone to considerable effort to improve its relationships. We have expanded the board to include tribal and advisory board voices. We have had retreats stressing the importance of improving our relationship to consumers. The Year 2000 is a time to work on our vision. We must constantly ask, who is being left out? Where are the gaps? Where are we failing to serve? We must offer coverage in those areas that are barely or rarely covered, often by reason of their difficulty or political volatility, including care for children ages 0 – 3, school children, and adults with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). A few years ago a county employee came into my office and confided that she was in recovery from being ritually tortured as a child. What made her "crazy" was not psychosis, or unusual biochemistry of the brain, but the secrets she and society have held so tightly around ritual abuse. She has since moved on to become the editor of a posh national magazine in one of our nation’s more popular cities, a member of her church board, and a foster parent of two. She also has an agent with the hope of publishing her story of living with DID. Fortunately, she was able to get help for her recovery from the generosity of others and considerable personal sacrifice. Not everyone has the same resources. As more and more of us share the vision of recovery and break down the walls of secrecy and shame, and as we reach out to meet unmet needs, we build a greater and stronger society. In the words of Albert Camus, "There is in this world beauty, and there are the humiliated. And we must strive, hard as it is, not to be unfaithful, neither to the one nor to the other." |
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Rhea Miller,