Can you imagine the double blow it must be to have your spouse struggling with addiction or severe mental illness, and know that your friends are likely avoiding you as well? Is there stigma directed at you for being married to someone with mental health issues?
What we don’t hear a lot about are the details, specifically, about what happens when the treatment resources don’t exist to meet the need. We may not think we are rounding up unhoused people and putting them in jails, but where do we think they will go when there aren’t enough treatment options? That’s going to include a lot of kids escaping abusive homes. Other kids end up hanging around the ER waiting for treatment if they aren’t in a penal facility already. Plenty of others remain in dangerous situations while they and their parents stay and search for somewhere to get treatment.
It all comes down to having safe, supportive, and involved adults (parents and others). Kids need that more than anything else. No social media or screen bans can replace that.
If we want to advocate for mental health, we need to advocate against policies that make mental health issues worse for so many people. Prisons do that. Putting more people in jail does that. The number of incarcerated people in the US is the highest in the world. Many of them need mental health treatment, not criminal records, and a felony conviction that prevents them from getting jobs, housing, and care even once they are outside of prison.
The last thing I want you to consider as you read the article below is that some of these effects are contradictory. For example, sexual abuse can cause hyper-arousal and sex addiction, while also causing survivors to not want to be touched. Two different survivors, despite suffering from similar abuse, may have opposite reactions to that abuse, while others may have some combination of both of the contradictory effects. (For example, that same person who is hyper-aroused may also cringe at certain kinds of sexual touch.)
The point is that this list of possible effects is helpful. It will help you understand some of what is going on with your partner. It’s not a replacement for open conversation about the effects that individual is dealing with.
Unspoken in her article but implied by the risk associated with loneliness, we’d also do well to create more community. What I think takes many of these risk factors from challenging to overwhelming is when we are left to deal with them alone. We might see these trends reverse when we have the proper support and mental health resources, but we’re not there yet. Too many people are alone.
