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What Do YOU Want SANE To Tell The Government At Their Sit-Down With Them?

chibamSenior Contributor14 July 2021, 4:30 pm AEST

What Do YOU Want SANE To Tell The Government At Their Sit-Down With Them?

I've just discovered that people from SANE will be having a sit down with the government on Mon 26/07/2021(https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?hearingid=30066&submissions=false), as part of the government's latest inquiry into mental health and suicide prevention. So I thought it might be a good idea to start a thread where we, the members of the SANEForums community, can express what mental health and suicide issues we'd like to see SANE address with the government.

I'll get the ball rolling:

For my part, I would like SANE to tell the government:

* We need a massive increase in the amount of therapists who provide practical help for people with real-life issues that need to be resolved, not just therapists who sit in a room with a patient and browbeat them into "coping" with their living hells, or telling them that they've got to solve their problems all by themselves. (If they knew how & had the capability to solve their problems alone, they wouldn't be paying some therpaist $150/hr. to "help" them, would they?)

* Their interest in suicide prevention MUST acknowledge fates that are worse then death, and that suicide is not the worst outcome that can befall a person. This awareness must be applied to all initiatives that are geared towards helping people - patients must be able to state to their helpers what situations they considder to be a fate worse then death, and the helpers must treat such scenarios as being "out of bounds" areas that they must never navigate their patient in to. Some things are just not okay. They are even less okay then death.

* The government needs to do much, much more then simply throw money at people(i.e. jobkeeper) in order to give them a worthwhile quality of life. I know that a lot of people stress out about making ends meet. But for many, many others - such as myself - having the financial security that allows us to survive is utterly worthless so long as we have no reason to survive! Even the starving among us need initiatives to give us love, companionship, fun, happiness and a contributing role in society much more then we need food on our dinner tables or roofs over our heads.

* This currant government inquiry has a woeful lack of patient/'mentally-ill'/suicidal contribution. Everybody has been saying recently that patients & 'mentally ill', ect. people need to be at the center of all future design and management of the mental health system. But when you look through the documentation on this inquiry there is virtually zero presence in there from the actual patient/'mentally ill'/suicidal community. It's mostly input from large organizations, so-called "experts", and so, so much input from therapists. And this lack of perspective shows in the way that a lot of the issues are being discussed! IMHO, there's an abundance of people "just not getting it" in the way issues have been discussed thus far. The inquiry needs to make stronger efforts to gather direct input from patients of the system, and other "mentally ill" and suicidal people, as well. Our perspective is essential for effective outcomes to inquiries like this one!

That's my 2 cents. What do you want SANE to tell the government?

36 replies

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In response to: What Do *YOU* Want SANE To Tell The Government At Their Sit-Down With Them?

HistoryloverSenior Contributor14 July 2021, 11:44 pm AEST

Re: What Do YOU Want SANE To Tell The Government At Their Sit-Down With Them?

Thanks for your thoughts @chibam. I have been absent for a little while and had been concerned at your low profile when I looked around for you on my return. Hope you have been keeping alright, at least.

I'm cold, it's past my bedtime and my computer has been chewing up all my posts. Time for a new one, perhaps.

In response to: Re: What Do *YOU* Want SANE To Tell The Government At Their Sit-Down With Them?

chibamSenior Contributor14 July 2021, 11:51 pm AEST

Re: What Do YOU Want SANE To Tell The Government At Their Sit-Down With Them?

@Historylover wrote:
Thanks for your thoughts @chibam. I have been absent for a little while and had been concerned at your low profile when I looked around for you on my return. Hope you have been keeping alright, at least.

Sorry. I dip in and out of this place; I'm not a religiously daily poster. I guess I just didn't feel up to posting and didn't feel like I had much to say.

TBH, I've been reading through the stuff on this inquiry over the past couple weeks and I guess I've just been getting a bit uptight about it.

In response to: Re: What Do *YOU* Want SANE To Tell The Government At Their Sit-Down With Them?

HistoryloverSenior Contributor15 July 2021, 7:32 am AEST

Re: What Do YOU Want SANE To Tell The Government At Their Sit-Down With Them?

@chibam I dip in and out of the forum too. I need to receive and give support if I see someone I might be able to help sometimes, but I'm trying to establish in the real world - and it is just such a hard slog sometimes. Take care.

In response to: What Do *YOU* Want SANE To Tell The Government At Their Sit-Down With Them?

HistoryloverSenior Contributor15 July 2021, 10:57 am AEST

Re: What Do YOU Want SANE To Tell The Government At Their Sit-Down With Them?

And, @chibam, I'd like to tell them that it is compulsory that they sit down for a week and read the posts on this site. Read of the anguish, the suffering, the pain, the abundance of suicidal thoughts, the distortions of personality which result from unresolved problems which are left to deteriorate for want of competent, timely, affordable, (BULK BILLED!) compassionate treatment - nothing stays the same: that which doesn't get better inevitably gets worse; from exploitative, abusive intra-familial, intra-lineal, interpersonal relationships; from irresponsible assigning of positions of responsibility to persons without the necessary ability, maturity, lack of ego to actually get the job done.

And, @chibam, I'd like them to ask them if they were overwhelmed by all of this suffering going on in our society.

And then, @chibam, I'd like to ask them - if not, why not. And do they think they are really suited to their position in this clean-up of a destructive 'industry' which enriches some at the great suffering of so many.

In response to: Re: What Do *YOU* Want SANE To Tell The Government At Their Sit-Down With Them?

chibamSenior Contributor15 July 2021, 4:32 pm AEST

Re: What Do YOU Want SANE To Tell The Government At Their Sit-Down With Them?

@Historylover wrote:
And, @chibam, I'd like to tell them that it is compulsory that they sit down for a week and read the posts on this site. Read of the anguish, the suffering, the pain, the abundance of suicidal thoughts, the distortions of personality which result from unresolved problems which are left to deteriorate for want of competent, timely, affordable, (even FREE!) compassionate treatment...

That would be a learning experiance for them, wouldn't it?

And IMHO, that's where the bulk of their research needs to be done: places like this site. At least 80% of the input that formulates their conclusions ought to be direct testimony from the suffering citizens. But it isn't, and I get the impression that they like it that way. They prefer hobnobbing with the so-called "experts" (we are the true experts, IMHO. We're the ones living through this crap 24/7). As I said earlier, I often suspect that we are merely tollerated as a sideshow, rather then desired as valuable sources of insight.

There goes my inner cynic again.

Did you realize that they got dozens - maybe hundreds - of submissions from people expressing their concerns about the productivity commission's reccommendations to have 0-3 year olds monitored & treated by the mental health system, and all of those submissions have been bundled together as a single document and registered only as one submission?

Personally, I found that very disrespectful. Dozens/hundreds of citizens who have exercised their democratic right to express their grievances to their government; taken the time to type them out - and then they are just thrown onto a pile, like: "yeah, this guy is just another one of those people saying the same old stuff". They aren't seen as individuals, just a flock of parrots squarking the same drivel.

So how come the dozens of therapists who made submissions complaining that the government doesn't give them enough money are all seen as - and treated as individuals?

I despair sometimes at the way us little guys seem doomed to be kept under heel forever.

In response to: Re: What Do *YOU* Want SANE To Tell The Government At Their Sit-Down With Them?

HistoryloverSenior Contributor15 July 2021, 5:38 pm AEST

Re: What Do YOU Want SANE To Tell The Government At Their Sit-Down With Them?

Love your inner cynic @chibam and love your work. The nature of these enquiries brings out my inner cynic to the extent that I don't even read them. I have heard it all before.

And when the submissions come in their response will be - sure, sure, heard it all before - then add it to the pile.

They should be already working in the system and have their finger on all the pulses. They should be a tight team, fully conversant with an already fully functional, working system and be simply working to improve on it. Perfecting it, ongoing. After all, people's lives are at stake and the run-off effects are costly at every level of our society.

But they are asking us to tell them what is wrong with the system - and most of us can't even get or hold a job because of their total dereliction of duty! How ironic!

So what have they been doing all this time? Can't they see what a mess they have made? Words fail me.

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