Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance

Transcription

( Music.) This may sound unbelievable but we know that by the year 2010, in the developed world, depression will be the number one cause of disability. The world seems dark and sad. In my case, there was anger, frustration, there was quite a bit of fear, and it all resulted in a form of paralysis. It truly is an illness and one that we have to educate the public as an illness, and the payers and the practitioners, to see it, treat it, recognize it as an illness. When depression isn't seen as an illness, it can ruin lives. And it can even take lives. It involves changes in our ability to think, concentrate, remember. It involves changes in the way we feel about ourselves, our lives, our future. And indeed, when depression is severe enough, we sometimes think that life is not worth living. I found myself very lethargic, I found myself having a very difficult time getting up and out of bed in the morning. I also found myself pulling back from my friends and from my family. Powerful words, but a powerful reminder that depression is more than just sadness. It is crippling, disabling and it can be life-threatening. I know, because I've been there. For many years, I suffered with depression, battling its darkness in private, afraid, as most people are, that my condition would be discovered and seen, not as an illness but as a personal weakness. Thankfully, I've come to understand that depression is a real biological illness and nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, 19 million Americans live with depression, so I am hardly alone. The good news is, depression can be treated and prevented, if we take the right action. No one chooses to have this illness. But as a nation, we can choose to provide better care for those who do suffer from it. We can improve access to care for people and families affected by depression. We can improve the quality of depression treatment. And we can improve the availability of peer support that can be life-saving. This program will explore the experiences of depression from the perspectives of those who live with it, and those who treat it and research it. Although these are people from all walks of life, they have each experienced depression's devastating symptoms and they understand the sense of shame and isolation that often accompanies mental illness. People with depression are far too often seen as weak. They're seen as having some sort of flaw. And that could not be farther from the truth. Because, people with depression have backbones of steel. The picture that others had of me, at that time was still a hard-charging dynamic leader, who was doing his absolute best to be a superb leader of the Los Angeles Times and of CNN. There was no knowledge of what I was going through generally around the work place. I knew how to pretend to be okay. And people would tell me later, but I never knew you were feeling so poorly. You seemed fine. Accepting depression was difficult for me, because I thought I was too smart. Smart people don't the let their emotions take over. This impacts so many people other than the individual. So when you are talking about making policy, you're not just making policy for the millions of people affected with mental illness, but for all the people in the lives around them. Depression not only affects personal lives, it affects our society as a whole. The economic costs for depression in the U.S. are in the billions. And that is not just in treatment and medication but in lost productivity and its impact on our communities on homelessness, crime, education. The greatest toll, however, may be the social stigma that can be almost as debilitating as the disease itself. It is more than just economic costs. It's personal costs. It's people who are disengaged from society. Parents who can't deal with their children, children who are disenfranchised from schools and work. So there's a huge disease burden that just has a rippling effect in our society. We often talk not just about the absenteeism, that's associated with depression. But we've coined a new term. We call it presenteeism. Businesses are paying for these individuals to be present, but not functioning. I was a bad employee, because I was depressed. But I was afraid to tell anybody that because of the stigma that was attached to it. We have to accept and recognize that mental health is part of overall public health. We have to destigmatize the problem. So being proactive through early recognition, prevention programs and programs that build resiliance and capicitance into society, to prevent depression from occurring or mitigating the depression, are where we should be as a society. While depression's impact can be measured in dollars, its greatest cost is in lives. More than 30,000 Americans, many of whom are lost in the fog of depression, commit suicide every year. I actually had crushed up some glass and put it in an ice tray and I, my plan was to freeze the ice and swallow the cubes. I felt like they could have a better life without me. I finally concluded after the trial and error of several medications that I just wasn't going to get well. That, that I probably should check out. Look, I had a terrific job, terrific income, prestige, power, great friends, family, and here I am ready to, you know, check out. They see themselves as so unbearable, that they actually begin to believe that by killing themselves, they'll be doing their family and friends a favor. I ended up pretty bad shape and they put me in the hospital. And that was the beginning of me getting treatment. When treatment finally comes, the answers are hardly easy. Access to care is often limited, even for the insured. And medications, many times require a difficult course of trial and error before the right treatment balance is achieved. If you have hypertension, you can easily see a physician any time. But if a patient has depression, there are a lot of restrictions on how many times you can see the physician or the health care provider. And how long can you do that. Unfortunately, our health care system is organized in a way that makes it very hard for primary care doctors to spend sufficient time with patients. To diagnose and treat depression. So we need someone who can take the time to help the patient through those early weeks of maybe even increased discomfort until we get to the other side of the mountain where the beneficial effects of treatment are. The first person you interact with, after you've decided to get some help for your depression, is that person ought to send a message of hope, ought to say, listen, people recover from depression every day. And, your expectation should be, we're going to work together, we're going to identify your strengths, we're going to give you skills to manage this, we're going to work on getting you the best medication possible, and if you're, you know, you can expect to have a meaningful life. Many have found the key to recovery in peer support. In peer support programs people who have suffered from depression and trying to help others, often with great results, and less cost than many traditional mental health services. When I was referred to a support group, I was very hesitant to go to one. But when I did go there, I realized that this was welcoming atmosphere, and was for the first time that I was with a group of people that shared the feelings that I had. First of all, a peer has walked in your shoes, they probably understand the hopelessness, they probably understand the sense of, you know, this life is not worth living. And they also are examples that they have come through that and have developed skills to manage their illness and to direct their own recovery. Bottom line, not only is it cost effective, it works. The preliminary data, looking at Medicaid recipients, indicated that they improved in three areas when they were getting peer support. There was symptom reduction, there was an increase in functionality and there was an increase in natural supports. And at half the cost of some of our traditional services. There's a reason that four million people contact DBSA every year. They contact us because information is power. The more information that they have, the greater the possibility that they're going to get well. Depression, a real illness. And a treatable illness. One people can live with, like diabetes or heart disease, provided they receive the right diagnosis, treatment and support. Yet challenges remain to improve access to and the quality of care, to eliminate stigma and to reduce the cost of this illness to our society. People with depression can and do get better. It is up to us, our duty, to make sure that proper treatment and support are available to those who need it. Depression doesn't care what you look like. Depression doesn't care what a person does for a living. Depression doesn't care where you grew up. We really need a major reorganization of our health care systems, so that people who suffer from mental illnesses have equal access to treatment, and are equally likely to be reimbursed for getting that treatment. The good news is, there's a wide array of interventions that are very effective, that can mitigate and stop the progression of depression and return people to their normal functioning. If you don't believe we can recover, then your funding and your services reflect that belief. If you believe recovery is possible, everything changes. It is possible to have recovery and to live in recovery, I'm only one of millions of people who live in recovery all over the world. It reminds of me in a way, of people going into great turbulence in an aircraft and you're there with them, and you just stay with them until you get to the blue skies again. I know for most people, we can get to blue skies. ( Music.)