Hundreds of people gathered and marched 2.7 miles around the heart of the city of Los Angeles to expand their mission of work around mental health that, during the coronavirus pandemic, affected one in three people in the United States States.
With banners and messages such as “Self-care is wellness”, “Mental health is a right”. “Jail is not a hospital” or “Mental health issues matter”, the participants of the “Mental Health March for All” 2022, paraded from Grand Park for the majority from the downtown streets of Los Angeles.
“We are here, sharing our stories and making our voices heard. Together, we know that mental health for all is more than a possibility, and it will soon be a reality.” said Trauté Winters, executive director of NAMI Greater Los Angeles.
The in-person walk by NAMI members raised more than $110,000 in Los Angeles County only.
Nationwide, 2018 raised more than $13 millions and participated 34,000 people on the walks.
Winters disclosed that, as of July, the number 911 will be the three digits to respond to mental health, substance abuse and probable suicide crisis calls.
Every year , millions of mental health or suicide crisis calls are made to 911 and to local crisis lines. But unfortunately, when in-person help is needed, the police, not a mental health professional, are often the only available response.
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” Winters said. “People in mental health or suicidal crises deserve an effective compassionate response.”
Therefore, the National Alliance on Mental Illness considers that, in order to “reimagine crises”, the response needs local crisis call centers 24 hours seven days a week, mobile crisis teams and crisis stabilization options .
Currently, NAMI advocates for the so-called California Care Court Initiative which aims to provide services to all Californians suffering from a serious mental illness, abuse disorder who too often languish in homelessness, homelessness, or incarceration.
Latino with schizophrenia and in jail
The prison of the Twin Towers in Los Angeles is precisely where “Tomy” is located, the son of Olga Guillén, a Mexican mother from Nayarit.
“My son has suffered from schizophrenia since he was 16 years old and although he will soon get out of prison, I prefer that he not go out and that they send him to a hospital to receive help with his mental health, ”said the afflicted woman to Real America News. “If they let him out and throw him out on the street, he will surely kill himself.”
Y. although Olga is unaware of how to navigate the support system for people with mental health problems, the executive director of NAMI, Trauté Winters, promised that she would intervene in the case.
Young Latino suffered from depression and bullying led to suicide
Latinos have the same incidence of mental health conditions when they are compared to the rest of the population. However, the concerns, experiences and way of understanding and treating them may be different.
“Latinos do not believe in mental illnesses,” Sergio Ávila, manager of the Department, told Real America News. Hospital Mental Health Hospital LA Downtown Medical Center (LAMDC). “And there are stigmas like shame to ask for help.”
In the city of Rosemead, the LAMDC unit cares for an average of 45 daily people, and of them, 17% are Latino, Ávila said . Most of them suffer from schizophrenia, depression and bipolar disorder.
“Like any other illness, mental illnesses also need to be addressed”, he said.
Appropriate care was received by Kevin Wong, aged 27, the son of Cynthia Villanueva who had suffered the harassment in silence school for a long time, and suffered from depression until he ended up committing suicide.
“Because he was a quiet boy, they made fun of him”, remembers Kevin’s mother. “One day, they invited him to a concert, my son drank too much and those who accompanied him cut his hair, his eyebrows, his mustache and when he woke up he couldn’t take any more teasing and took his own life.”
Trauté Wilkins pointed out that making known the stories of people who have a mental health condition helps politicians to understand that they have to act to reimagine responses to crises.
Barriers to mental health care for Latinos
Hispanic/Latino communities show similar vulnerability to mental illness as the general population, but face disparities in both access and quality of treatment. It is possible that more than half of Hispanic young adults from 18 to 25 years with serious mental illness do not receive treatment. This inequality puts these communities at higher risk for more severe and persistent forms of mental health problems, because without treatment, mental health problems often get worse.
Approximately 34 % of Hispanic/Latino adults with mental illness receive treatment each year compared to the U.S. average of 45 %. This is due to many unique barriers to care, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, in the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Language Barriers
Language barriers can make communication with mental health providers difficult or even impossible, especially when a person seeks advice for sensitive or uniquely personal issues. These topics can be difficult to put into words for anyone, but it is especially difficult for those who do not speak the same language as a potential provider.
Poverty and less health insurance coverage
According to census data, in the United States. lives in poverty, compared to 7.3% of non-Hispanic whites. People living in poverty are at increased risk of mental illness, and people with mental illness are at increased risk of living in poverty.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, in 2018, the 19 % of Hispanics did not have any type of insurance medical. In addition to facing an already limited pool of providers due to language barriers, people who identify as Hispanic/Latino have even fewer options when they are uninsured.
Lack of cultural competency
Cultural differences can lead mental health providers to misunderstand and misdiagnose members of the Hispanic/Latino community. For example, an individual may describe the symptoms of depression as “nervous,” tired, or as a physical ailment. These symptoms are consistent with depression, but clinicians who are not trained in how culture influences a person’s interpretation of symptoms may assume that this is a different problem.
Legal Status
For immigrants who arrive without documentation, fear of deportation may prevent them from seeking help. Although millions of children of undocumented immigrants are eligible for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, many families may not know about eligibility or are afraid to sign up for fear of separation.
Mother and daughter fight mental illness
Sylvia Gil indicates that the case of her daughter Eliana was a “slightly strange” situation, because she had some problems physical that no doctor could diagnose the cause.
Eliana suffered from a dry cough and the spasms gave her every 10 seconds.
“He doesn’t stop coughing until he falls asleep”, says the mother. “It wasn’t until a doctor said that maybe it was something psychological.”
The symptoms weren’t evident because Eliana kept her feelings and her mother didn’t realize it.
“Some days I felt good and others I didn’t; I had a lot of anxiety and depression”, recalls Eliana. “With all that, I couldn’t go out with my friends”.
She, unwittingly, was afraid of the unknown. She was a 19 year old girl who had never been to a party and didn’t know what it was about. Her social life was almost non-existent and everyone respected her decision not to want to leave it.
“It was difficult to get ahead because I had to stop school; I felt that no one understood me and I closed myself off, ”she tells Real America News. “Anxiety and depression were getting stronger, and although they changed my medicines, it took time for them to help me regulate my body.”
To your 33 years old, Eliana has the goal of graduating as a specialist in child development at Pasadena City College, and working with children in a hospital, since she has become a woman very patient. She hopes to graduate from 2024
The anxiety attacks are not so frequent anymore; her depression is better and she receives help from her medicine and psychological therapy, in addition to the full support of her mother Sylvia.
“She does 10 years ago, I started volunteering at NAMI,” says Sylvia Gil, education coordinator at NAMI Glendale, from 2015. “My experience as Eliana’s mother helped me enter the organization when I had many questions and fears.”
Sylvia recalls that she was very sad because of what she saw was happening to Eliana and her brother, but at NAMI she realized that all the groups are led by those who are in the same situation as her.
“They understood me and were willing to help however they could, until I took the classes and trained to give the same education to other people, and then they offered me the job”, says Sylvia, daughter of Mexican and Colombian parents born in Los Angeles.
“Today , I feel proud that my daughter is fighting to get ahead and I know that she will achieve it for all her work and effort every day”, she affirmed.
And the success of both is due to the fact that in NAMI they first see the person, not the illness of the people.