Holiday Wish List

Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash

I remember the family Christmas parties when I was a kid. Generations, cousins, the entire extended family crowded into Grandma and Grandpa’s living room, and Santa Claus would arrive with a present for each child and an ample knee to sit on and dream. Somehow he knew each of our wishes and exactly what we wanted.

This is a time of year to worship, to give thanks, to celebrate and to share. But face it, it’s also a time to ask for stuff. And in that playful, expectant, yes selfish spirit of the Holidays I have a few things I’d like to ask for.

The first is a re-examination of mental healthcare delivery in the United States. It’s not working. An obscene percentage of the population is addicted to opioids, the numbers of homeless are soaring, veterans are killing themselves at alarming rates, and many of our children have not recovered from the social deprivation, negative expectations and outright abuse by the education system during the Covid pandemic. Suddenly the old systems and agencies long in place can’t keep up and can’t provide adequate care. Psychiatric appointments are nearly impossible to get for new patients, and psychiatrists are leaving the field, making getting life-altering and lifesaving appointments and medicine even tougher. We’re becoming a country where only the elites with deep pockets can get help. We need ideas. Here’s one: How about allowing trained and competent psychologists prescribe psychiatric medication?

The second wish would be for employers and universities to stop being so afraid of and unaccommodating to people who take leaves from work or school, perfectly legal and protected leaves, for mental illness under the Americans with Disabilities Act. I was on a leave for a few months this year due to a severe manic episode. Not once did anyone from the company, including HR, reach out to me to see how I was doing, gauge my expectations for return, or encourage me to come back. It was obvious they just wanted me to go away. The same thing is happening at colleges to students who need to pause their studies, and this is a growing number of students, due to mental illness. Under the ADA mental illness should not be treated differently than physical illness.

A third wish is that we stop trying to sanitize the language concerning mental illness. It helps no one to speak of mental health challenges as opposed to what they are – illnesses. Don’t try to normalize something that’s not normal. Cancer is not normal. Diabetes is not normal. Neither is bipolar disorder. Please call it a sickness and continue to develop treatments to help a person return to normal health and normal emotions and moods. I don’t want this disease, and I certainly don’t want to identify with it or make it normal. I’d wish it away, but I’ll settle for a life where I can keep my family, be a positive influence on my kid, love my wife (and make myself worthy of her love), get and hold a job, and be a positive, contributing member of society. That’s normal.

I have a couple of wishes about my writing. The first concerns this newsletter. A few hundred people read it every week. I’d like to reach more. If a post strikes you as helpful or provocative, and you think others may benefit from it or enjoy it, please share it. Subscribe if you haven’t already. Also, don’t be hesitant to leave a comment, either positive or negative. When I get right down to it I need more subscribers and more engagement with the ones I have.

Then there are my books. Please consider buying and sharing a copy of one or both. They make great gifts. Handling Anxiety in a Time of Crisis can be very helpful right now as the world and the economy continue to dish out things to be exceptionally anxious about. Practicing Mental Illness: Meditation, Movement and Meaningful Work to Manage Challenging Moods includes just about everything I know, and everything I have taught others, about living well with a mood disorder like anxiety, depression or bipolar disorder. I, and many people who have read it, think it’s great, but for a number of reasons it died right out of the box. During production my publisher was sold and the new owner pivoted to focus on new age spirituality and climate change. While I consider my publisher a valued friend, as the book was published he left to travel Europe for a year and the company did absolutely nothing to promote the book. So it sold well within my network but hasn’t managed to break out. Here you can help. Tell someone about it, and if you bought it, on Amazon or not, place a review there to help me sell more copies.

That’s it for my Christmas List. I wish you a holy and healthy holiday season, full of joy and promise, and hope we can continue to connect in the New Year.