The Kids Aren't Alright.
Wah. I feel rather shit today. My head is full of the big bad sad. No reason for it as usual. Even my motor functions appear to have a severe case of the ' i can't be bothered, life is crushing my will to obey your brains electric signals.' I would like to feel neutral or happy. Or at least have a reason to feel like crawling into a corner and weeping about bog all.
Last night I watched a Prime Time special on mental illnes in children and teenagers in Ireland. It wasn't much of a surprise hearing that we have one of the highest rates of mental illness in Europe. I fact 1 in 5 of all children will suffer from some form of depression, ADHD, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or borerline personality etc... What was more shocking was the fact that a child of 5 years of age might not receive a diagnosis until he is 9 and a half years old. At which point intervention is harder and less effective. Ireland also has the highest rate of teeange suicide. So many of these kids fall to wayside, become branded trouble-makers and delinquents. They spend their adult lives in and out of the prison system because the health system failed them.
Then there are the ones who are caught in time, who have no place to go. There are a grand total of 8-13 beds in the entire country for children who suffer from mental illness'. The rest are sent to adult psychiatric units, which are obviously unsuitable enviroments.
Two years ago I took on a Christmas job in the Mater Hopital, working as part of hospitality. My job was 10 hours a day of preparing food, serving it to patients, collecting plates, refilling cups of water and scrubbing and scouring. I was assigned to the Psychiatric Ward for a few days. There were many characters ahbout, a little old lady named Rebecca, who used to follow me around the ward to give me chocolate. She resembled the bag lady in the dump in the film Labyrinth. There was the sick AIDS patient in quarantine, who was delerious form not taking his medication. He used to jump round his little isolation room naked. I used to get a bit scared when I went to feed him, having to don a gown and mask. I had to wash his plates very carefully. There were others, mostly elderly patients, suffering from various forms of dementia, alzheimers and parkinsons.
There was one teenage boy on the ward. His name was David, he was 16. He was in there for an attempted suicide. He used to come and talk to me while I worked or washed dishes. He was grateful for the company, I was only person he got to speak to all day long who wasn't old and crazy or an overworked medical worker. I in turn liked talking to him. He was a very sweet kid, very lonely. His friends and parents could only visit him in the evenings. Leaving him with only his own thoughts and medicated mediatations for hours everyday. I liked being there for him. You could see the pain in his eyes as nurses shunted him back to his ward for blood tests and the like.
The next day I was removed from my post and sent to work in Intensive Care. Cleaning out storage areas and medicine. The screams were too much. Asking why I was transferred, I was informed that I had spent, too much time talking to David. That wasn't my job they said. I quit the next day.
How any child be expected to regain health when they are surrounded by adults in various forms of madness, I can not understand. How a government can set about reforming the age of consent when there are so many more pressing concerns for the youth, again, baffles me. If you asked me the theme of 2006, I would say this year, was the year of Mental Illness. It is growing around us, while people look the other way. Blaming bad parenting or plain ignorance.
This summer I was accused of being the reason another friend of mine hurts herself (Me and Richey Edwards, a team set on corrupting the stable minds of all and sundry). Just because I do it and I am older, makes me a culprit and a bad influence. Nevermind the insult this is to the person in question, as if they are such a follower and mindless being that they would follow another off a cliff. It also failed to occur to the person that only one person can cause harm to themself (hence the name self-harm, yeah. Idiot!) And that the only reason anyone would do such things is because it is a coping mechanism. Because there is an underlying issue there. Every year over 18,000 people in Ireland check into casualty with injuries caused by self harm. It is a common coping mechanism and it saddens me that nearly everyone I know has undertaken this route at some point in their lives. That so many people hurt so badly and nothing is done about it. If anything can be done.
So back to the children. That listen to westlife and mcfly and wouldn't know bad music if it hit them in the eye. The something like 1200 children a year who mutiliate themselves because of their mental anguish. What happens to them? How can a diagnosis reasonably take 4 years? The kids being thrown out of school for bad behaviour because the system can't cope for them. There are plenty of teachers aids seeking work in this country, but the jobs aren't there. The places in schools arent created to help these kids. And so they suffer, we suffer. Everyone suffers.
But we do get a railway upgrade. Woot.
Last night I watched a Prime Time special on mental illnes in children and teenagers in Ireland. It wasn't much of a surprise hearing that we have one of the highest rates of mental illness in Europe. I fact 1 in 5 of all children will suffer from some form of depression, ADHD, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or borerline personality etc... What was more shocking was the fact that a child of 5 years of age might not receive a diagnosis until he is 9 and a half years old. At which point intervention is harder and less effective. Ireland also has the highest rate of teeange suicide. So many of these kids fall to wayside, become branded trouble-makers and delinquents. They spend their adult lives in and out of the prison system because the health system failed them.
Then there are the ones who are caught in time, who have no place to go. There are a grand total of 8-13 beds in the entire country for children who suffer from mental illness'. The rest are sent to adult psychiatric units, which are obviously unsuitable enviroments.
Two years ago I took on a Christmas job in the Mater Hopital, working as part of hospitality. My job was 10 hours a day of preparing food, serving it to patients, collecting plates, refilling cups of water and scrubbing and scouring. I was assigned to the Psychiatric Ward for a few days. There were many characters ahbout, a little old lady named Rebecca, who used to follow me around the ward to give me chocolate. She resembled the bag lady in the dump in the film Labyrinth. There was the sick AIDS patient in quarantine, who was delerious form not taking his medication. He used to jump round his little isolation room naked. I used to get a bit scared when I went to feed him, having to don a gown and mask. I had to wash his plates very carefully. There were others, mostly elderly patients, suffering from various forms of dementia, alzheimers and parkinsons.
There was one teenage boy on the ward. His name was David, he was 16. He was in there for an attempted suicide. He used to come and talk to me while I worked or washed dishes. He was grateful for the company, I was only person he got to speak to all day long who wasn't old and crazy or an overworked medical worker. I in turn liked talking to him. He was a very sweet kid, very lonely. His friends and parents could only visit him in the evenings. Leaving him with only his own thoughts and medicated mediatations for hours everyday. I liked being there for him. You could see the pain in his eyes as nurses shunted him back to his ward for blood tests and the like.
The next day I was removed from my post and sent to work in Intensive Care. Cleaning out storage areas and medicine. The screams were too much. Asking why I was transferred, I was informed that I had spent, too much time talking to David. That wasn't my job they said. I quit the next day.
How any child be expected to regain health when they are surrounded by adults in various forms of madness, I can not understand. How a government can set about reforming the age of consent when there are so many more pressing concerns for the youth, again, baffles me. If you asked me the theme of 2006, I would say this year, was the year of Mental Illness. It is growing around us, while people look the other way. Blaming bad parenting or plain ignorance.
This summer I was accused of being the reason another friend of mine hurts herself (Me and Richey Edwards, a team set on corrupting the stable minds of all and sundry). Just because I do it and I am older, makes me a culprit and a bad influence. Nevermind the insult this is to the person in question, as if they are such a follower and mindless being that they would follow another off a cliff. It also failed to occur to the person that only one person can cause harm to themself (hence the name self-harm, yeah. Idiot!) And that the only reason anyone would do such things is because it is a coping mechanism. Because there is an underlying issue there. Every year over 18,000 people in Ireland check into casualty with injuries caused by self harm. It is a common coping mechanism and it saddens me that nearly everyone I know has undertaken this route at some point in their lives. That so many people hurt so badly and nothing is done about it. If anything can be done.
So back to the children. That listen to westlife and mcfly and wouldn't know bad music if it hit them in the eye. The something like 1200 children a year who mutiliate themselves because of their mental anguish. What happens to them? How can a diagnosis reasonably take 4 years? The kids being thrown out of school for bad behaviour because the system can't cope for them. There are plenty of teachers aids seeking work in this country, but the jobs aren't there. The places in schools arent created to help these kids. And so they suffer, we suffer. Everyone suffers.
But we do get a railway upgrade. Woot.