Paper! And Mental Institutions!

I'm completely and utterly intrigued by mental disorders, and so for my paper I'm going to write about the (lack of) health care in the United States for the mentally insane and the mentally disabled. The nonexistence of health care in the United States not only harms the poor and the unfortunate, it royally screws those with mental disorders and their families. Medical institutions, where patients can go to be treated, cost insane amounts of money, and medications, without the aid of health care, are a financial strain on families. Even "simple" mental disorders, like ADHD, can affect a family both financially and emotionally. The United States has a disgusting history of abandoning and mistreating those with mental disorders. Throughout the 1840s and 50s, Dorothea Dix led a campaign to reform mental institutions. Before her campaign, patients in such care had been kept in cages and tied to chairs, the medical workers untrained, not knowing how to cope with seizures and outbursts. Her strides improved the system, but such horrors were not completely eradicated. Electroshock therapy, as detailed in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," would become popular, a treatment now seen as inhumane. In today's society, good care is available, but not all can afford this care. PEOPLE magazine just last week featured an article about an old woman who has a son impaired by autism. Wheelchair-bound, her health is failing, but she cannot afford to put him into an institution, and so was pleading in the magazine for someone to adopt her son when she dies. It was horrifying to read. Two weeks ago, I saw a special on "20/20" that discussed a program in Nebraska that allows parents to drop off children that they are unable to care for at state hospitals. The program was intended for newborns, but families began to drop off their mentally challenged children, some as old as seventeen, so that the state could deal with the stress and money that comes with mental disabilities. Some children were bipolar, others were autistic. The program showed a woman struggling with the decision to give up her young son. She ultimately is forced to, after her son has another angry, violent fit. In my paper, I intend to discuss the past of mental health care, the present, and what needs to be changed.