Psychiatry and a Thousand Points of Light

America Must Embrace the Helpless

Volume 1 of Many

They often don't even know they need help.

It doesn't matter because if they ask for help they're shown a Byzantine labyrinth of agencies that refer and direct, sympathize and encourage.

For some that's sufficient. For many it's intolerably complex and bureaucratic.

But they're your nieces and god-children, your aunts and your neighbors. They struggle to find an acceptable middle ground that keeps them functioning in a society with little support to offer.

They're homeless.

They're battered.

They batter.

They're in prison.

They're in special ed or fail at mainstreaming until they're 18, then they need to learn the system.

They're in half way houses run by people who can't spell psychiatry and don't want to learn how.

We only notice when they kidnap, when they kill, when they molest.

But they're out there 24/7.

We know there are homeless, but like the hungry, that's not our problem. Or we can soothe our conscience with a can of Campbell's or a buck in the bell ringer's kettle.

It's not enough.

The irony is that it costs more not to help these people than it does to wait for them to show us their troubles, too late to trust us not to judge.

Halfway houses need to offer hope, not just a bed.

And the Joplin River of Life Ministries needs to prove to the world they had the professional clinical expertise to care for those that society was reimbursing them for before those people were killed.