Voting to protect mental health

I watched the first half of the presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. I turned it off in part because I had work early in the coming day.

I think I would have turned it off anyway.

The sheer ugliness of the rhetoric from the Republican side of the platform was just that unpleasant. While I cannot speak to the unease that must pervade the immigrant communities of this country, I do have standing to say something about the demonization of those who suffer from some form of mental illness.

The debate has inspired me to dust off a piece, written but not submitted some months ago. I do so out of a sound desire so speak for those with serious mental illness. For this population, I venture to claim a space in the public square.

According to Biospace, a website for science news, the total amount of money spent on antipsychotic medication in 2023 was slightly more than $18 billion. This is roughly equivalent to the total revenue of the online music streaming services and only slightly less than the revenue of the National Football League for the same period.

While I concede the magnitude of this number may be more indicative of the cost of the medication than the number of individuals taking them — which amounts to the still sizeable number of four million adults, according to the National Institute of Health — the very breadth of this market is worthy of note. Psychotic illnesses and their treatment are a significant component of the American economy and of American life.

This white elephant in the room, it seems to me, continues to go by unreported.

Without question, these medications are expensive, available only with the assistance of health insurance. I can assert, however, they are effective.

On a very hot August day in 2002, I experienced my one and only psychotic episode. The event has not been repeated, thanks in no small measure to these lifesaving drugs. Since that fateful day, they have been a ready component of my medicine cabinet.

They have kept me safe.

Their purchase and intake are a normal part of my routine as much as eating and brushing my teeth, but they have done their job. I was told another episode might lie in my future. Day by day, it has not. Count me among the four million Americans indebted to the researchers and doctors who have made the medications available. 

Since that dark day in 2002, my diagnosis had been amplified to include this psychotic dimension of the illness. But may I hasten to add I am also a proud holder of an undergraduate degree from Cornell University and two master’s degrees from the City University of New York. I am employed full time as a teacher of English to foreign students and have had a well reviewed novel published by a professional publishing house.

The more troublesome aspects of the illness are kept at bay by those very medications so many are so ready to throw under the bus. I refrain from looking far down the road, but from here it all appears promising.

I know psychiatric medication holds an inauspicious place in American society. Not all have had my positive experience. Still, these drugs are here, and here to stay. A dramatic growth in that market is predicted for the coming years. Perhaps looking at it with a more accepting eye might make it easier for a person in need to reach out for help.

How the Republican candidate for president might respond to cases such as mine, I don’t know. I do know I will vote to prevent him from having any greater say in the lives of people like me on Election Day.