Changing How People Look At Mental Illness, Stand Up For Mental Health

Just came back from having major oral surgery-what a joy. Paid the $995 bill (on my Vancity Visa, of course) prior to the procedure. That was only the beginning of the pain!

While i was horizontal and helpless in the surgeon's chair, waiting for the anaesthesia to take effect, overheard a patient in the next room saying to the nurse " then this older woman with full shopping bags kept following me after I told her i had no money. She had no teeth and she smelled,and she was yelling and cursing at me. I never realized that so many street people are mentally ill. I mean, there seem to be so many of them."

Surprise, surprise. Welcome to the reality that is the streets of Vancouver. Amidst the insane overbuilding condo-boom that is now going on-the frenzied construction on every corner, the poisonous city air that is now so full of construction hazardous waste particles, their is a lack of social housing and services that is astounding, even by Vancouver standards. The so-called "eco-density" building has become a buzz word for less social housing and services and more people with mental illness on the streets.

Some of our members at Stand Up For Mental Health have lived on the streets for many years. They have lived in the flea, rat and cockroach-infested "Hotels"  on the Downtown East Side's mean streets. They have fallen through the cracks of a mental healthcare system that is stretched to breaking point from lack of funding. But don't worry, there is always money for a new condo development or 10, and of course we are building social housing, a few rooms at a time.

I find it astonishing then, that Stand Up For Mental Health comedians can find the humour in all of this, and yet they do. Really wanted to get up and give the woman in the oral surgeon's office who had been accosted by an elderly street-lady, a pair of tickets to our Stand Up For Mental Health's 2008 Fundraising Performance on Granville Island Art's Club on Sunday April 13, but the anaesthesia was working, and I was paralyzed in the surgeon's chair, like the victim of a cobra's bite.

Please remember to vote for us-changing how people look at mental illness on the What do you think? link of the New Year's Resolution part of the site. March 20th is the deadline to vote!

For more info about Stand Up For Mental Health, please visit www.standupformentalhealth.com

pat