I think America is a great country. I especially appreciate freedom of speech. Here in Mental Health World we are fortunate in that the we are able to publish any view of mental health issues in the world.

I have tried to be honest about my illness, schizophrenia, in Mental Health World. I still have symptoms of this illness even though I am usually able not to show it. Occasionally, I have delusions of grandeur which sometimes meshes with being an editor for Mental Health World. In my daily life of little stress I don’t notice symptoms much, but as a writer and editor I do. Mental Health World goes out in the mail to thousands of people. Sometimes while reading the newspaper or watching the television, I hear words or phrases from my writing and I feel personalized in the media.

After September 11, 2001 the television images of the World Trade Center being bombed caused me to "cringe." Although I take Prozac every day, and am usually never able to cry, I cried a little after several days of the television reports. The attacks were the number one topic of conversation and I told several friends that I "cringed" whenever the bombing was shown on television. Then a U. S. Senator was on television and she also said she "cringed." This was the same word I used. Stuff like that gives me a big head and for a while I felt bigger than life. Unfortunately, I felt more important than I actually am.

For me, the situation was actually more dire than that, as I had given a speech critical of discrimination and stigma in Buffalo on September 10, 2001. On September 11 my neighbor was the first to tell me about the bombings. My schizophrenia started acting up under the stress as I found out the scale of what had happened in New York City. The deepest part is wondering why am I alive and living in the United States at this time in history. The other part of the delusion is that the terrorists had taken a cue from me when I gave the derogatory speech the day before.

My truth is that I think the United States is a great country. While there are supremist or Nazi groups in this country, I think they will never take over the country. I also don’t think the

United States will ever be a dictatorship. I referred to the murderous Nazis in World War II in my speech on September 10, but on September 11, I regretted it. That is when I started thinking about this article and how good the mental health system is in this country compared to the rest of the world.

In some countries in the world, poverty is so severe that people don’t have enough to eat much less have access to physical or mental health care. I had difficulty accessing mental health care when I earned a large salary and wanted to keep schizophrenia a secret at work (see Gilpatrick, MHW, summer 1997.) I couldn’t afford private care, but when I told of my greatest fear, I was accepted into the public mental health care system. That was 1989. In 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law. It requires that employers make reasonable accommodations for physically and mentally disabled employees. In 1999, the Surgeon General of the United States released his report on mental health. It revealed how many people who have a mental illness are not being treated, including 5.3 percent of the population who have unipolar major depression. Over the past 25 years much research has resulted in many new psychotropic medicines improving psychiatric outcomes.

In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, the national media brought attention to mental health. It said that millions were affected with post traumatic stress disorder. In October 2001, the World Health Organization (WHO) released its first report on mental health: Mental Health: New Understanding, New Hope. The report states, "an estimated 450 million people alive today suffer from mental or behavioral disorders or from psychosocial problems such as those related to alcohol and drug abuse. Many suffer silently. Many suffer alone. Many never receive treatment of any kind. Between the suffering and the prospect of care stand the barriers of stigma, prejudice, shame and exclusion."

In December 2001, as I write today, a bill requiring parity coverage in private sector health insurance plans for mental health care is again working its way through the U.S. congress. Maybe it will pass this year. Lack of this insurance coverage is a major barrier to going to work for many mental health care consumers. Even if a recipient goes to work in a mental health advocacy organization, the odds are that mental health care insurance coverage is not available or is of limited duration. The United States is a democracy and we have freedom of speech. As advocates we need not worry about writing a letter to our representatives in government or having our dinner conversation overheard in a restaurant. We can say or do anything we want so long as it doesn’t interfere with someone else’s freedom. This is the basis of all laws in the United States.

Certainly mental health advocates know of ways our lives could be made better by the mental health system in the USA. It is our privilege that we can advocate for improvements in the mental health system. Living in poverty or being homeless is the worst condition for a person who has a mental illness. Most of us live better than that. I have few doubts that things will get better in the USA. GOD BLESS AMERICA.