I got a ridiculous number of phone calls at work last week. My job now is to assist our clients to find and use the various safety nets the community offers....and to help them sort out the inevitable bureaucratic snafus that they encounter after doing this.....
The mental health center I work for did not used to be known for its service to the severly and persistently mentally ill, but all that has changed. We're getting good at it now....and we've got two people working on "benefits acquisition". This allows the case managers to manage more consumers and the therapists can focus on therapy instead of the panic that comes from not having food, heat and so forth. We can provide acute care, day treatment, medication services, everything....as long as the consumers can survive in the world. Survival is the key....the key to mental health and everything else. First things first, is my policy.
Sometimes I get customers that aren't SPMI - they're just family members, friends, people like you and me who need my kind of help....they hear we're there....they have a question, a problem...they call us up as a last resort...especially questions about social security and Medicare. It's a generational thing. At this age (my age) those two entitlements become facinating. Of course you guys out there at the enchanted castle are similarly fascinated, I'm sure, about PERA. Age.... and the economy.
Boy, things have changed in 8 years, huh? Remember when there was a budget surplus and Monica Lewinsky? Those were the days! ....the days that, along with years of days before them, paved the way to today. But the last 8 years were the worst because there was a lazy arrogance in charge that thumbed its nose at the impending disaster the rest of us had begun to anticipate. I'm saying that we all knew, didn't we? ...that it couldn't last...that it was heading in a bad direction....that this herd of beef was heading off the cliff??
But at last I feel like I understand why in news stories, $70 Billion is small change while in my household $70 dollars is a fairly big deal. It was Magic Money!! It was pretend....monopoly...an elaborate accounting game upon which piles of Magic Money could stack up....an online role playing game ... only bigger....and, as it turns out, - more's the pity - relying at its base, on something called "the real economy"....which was mostly ignored. And which languished due to inattention, while the game played on...and on....until....oops....all the Magic disappeared and we were left with just the "real economy"...where $70 is a fairly big deal.
Today there was a big meeting where all the biggest economies got together to try to reestablish the rules for Global Magic Money. Good luck to them.
I'm clear about the fact that I live in "the real economy"...and must contribute to that economy in order to earn my keep. It seems fair to me. My consumers who are disabled are unable to contribute in the same way, and I feel strongly now as I always have, that the rest of us have an obligation to take care of them. It's selfish, really. It's because I wish to live in a world where we take care of one another. It's a sweet coincidence for me that by doing one, I do the other....that "earning my keep" is the same as "taking care of others".
I like to think that we could all live entirely without Magic Money....all of us, everywhere....globally. I think that if we all earned our keep by taking care of others, all of us would be taken care of.
Then we could paint and write novels and garden.
Why not.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
what?
AHHHHH ........regeneration,vitality,acknowledgement of reality,how refreshing,I recognize the energy,alive and vibrant..........still,
And how sad that the reality at the M.H. is and continues to repress and numb the soul and mind and render the illusion of hope,hopelessly naieve.
What happened to creativity ,freedom of speech,equity and equal opportunity.We have given up.We have left.we have shut up, There actually is no one listening,there is no one there,even when they are there,no one is there.I think maybe Only the patients are there........they are very clear about what they need and when they need it. They notice everything...............funny how that works.........So it is the staff dysfunctional system,not the patient dysfunctional system that keeps chugging along,and chugging and chugging and chugging.
You might ask,where is the Light? We wonder too.
The language one hears sounds so,.............well, pretty good...............until one talks to the boots on the ground.........then you get an entirely different picture..........How is that? And it goes round and round.......where it ends no one knows.
Thanks for the comment - and sorry to hear that your environment remains so oppressive. You need a new leader - someone who is an advocate for the mentally ill- who can reignite your pleasure in this kind of work. Life is short and uncertain....and a lot of it is spent at work.
Post a Comment