By Bob Gaydos

The Mental Health Association Bell.
RJ Photography

A while back I ended a column on what I perceived as the insanity of my daily “news” feed on social media noting that one post had informed me that May was Mental Health Awareness Month. “Sign me up,” I wrote in an attempt to end a column on an unfunny state of affairs with a bit of levity. A writer’s gimmick.

Now I feel a need to clarify. I don’t think mental health is a joking matter and, in fact, I’ve already signed up.

On May 1, I had the honor of reading The History of the Bell at the annual meeting of Mental Health Association in Orange County (N.Y.). The honor was mine as the outgoing president of the board of directors of the private, non-profit agency, a post I was privileged to hold for five years.

I’m including that history here because I believe it deserves a broader audience.

***

The History of the MHA Bell

During the early days of mental health treatment, asylums often restrained persons with mental illnesses with iron chains and shackles around their ankles and wrists. Clifford Beers, the founder of the Mental Health Association movement, experienced and witnessed many of these and other abuses. After his own recovery, he became a leading figure in the movement to reform the treatment of, and attitudes toward, mental illness. With better understanding and treatment, cruel practices eventually stopped.

In the early 1950s, in the lobby of the National Headquarters in New York City, the Mental Health Association collected discarded chains and shackles from asylums across the country. All of these restraints were then shipped to the McShane Bell Foundry in Baltimore, Maryland, where they were dropped into a crucible and cast into a 300-pound bell.

The inscription on the bell reads:

“Cast from shackles which bound them,
this bell shall ring out hope for the mentally ill
and victory over mental illness.”

As we seek the vision of victory over mental illness, we need the participation of all citizens in shaping the future of mental health services. We need to remove the shackles from the wisdom of recipients of mental health services and their families and recognize the value of their experience in shaping future policy. Through full citizen participation,

This bell will ring for hope,
This bell will ring for freedom,
This bell will ring for victory.

***

We’re big in this country on designating special months and days for special causes, but I don’t think mental health awareness should go away on June 1 for another year.

Not in a time when those with the power to return us to the years of chains and shackles are talking about slashing or eliminating financial support for agencies like MHA and thousands of others that were called upon to provide the care and assistance needed by those released when those oppressive asylums were closed down across the country.

Not in a time when persons without proper health training, experience and credentials are in charge of national health policy.

Not in a time when Congress is discussing eliminating Medicaid, which pays for much of that support to thousands of Americans.

Not in a time when thousands of federal employees who provide research and other vital assistance to those suffering with mental illness are being let go.

Not in a time when when federal funding for agencies that address addiction problems is being eliminated.

Not in a time when programs for veterans dealing with mental illness are being eliminated.

Not in a time when politicians are talking about eliminating the national suicide hotline.

Not in a time when anyone who doesn’t fit the powers-that-be’s increasingly narrow profile of “acceptable” is in danger of being snatched off the street and placed in shackles.

May is almost over, but the bell for hope and freedom for the mentally ill needs to keep ringing. Mental health is health. Sign me up.

***

By Bob Gaydos

    How messed up is America? This messed up:

    Having written far too many editorials and columns in my lifetime on violence and the need for sensible gun control and more resources for mental health programs, I stopped after writing a couple of paragraphs on the murder by a teenager of 10 black Americans who simply happened to be in a supermarket in Buffalo one afternoon.

     I was too depressed. It’s the same, old story. Do some yard work. Give it a couple days.

     He who hesitates. A couple of days later I was watching the escalating body count as yet another teenager slaughtered virtually an entire fourth grade class in Uvalde, Texas.

     Nineteen children. Two teachers. The slaughter in Texas knocked the massacre in Buffalo off the front pages before we had time to properly grieve that senseless loss of life.

     That’s how messed up America is.

     After reading the early reports of the escalating body count in that fourth grade classroom in Uvalde, I turned off my phone and shut my eyes.

     I cried. If you’re a parent, you’ll get it. Hell, if you’re just a normal, caring adult who appreciates the joy and promise of children, you’ll get it. I pictured myself as one of the parents standing outside the school, screaming and crying as police stood frozen, also outside, while a deranged teenager with a military-style killing machine blew their children apart inside. And I wept. And I cursed.

   And I said, what the hell, I’ve written this editorial dozens of times already. We know the solutions.

   Apparently, we don’t. Not all of them. We know that universal background checks for purchase of a firearm makes sense. Most Americans support this. We know that banning the sale of military-style assault rifles will reduce the civilian death toll. It’s already been proven. We know from sad experience that more mental health resources, especially for young people and schools, are vitally needed in our social media era.

     We also know that the National Rifle Association and gun manufacturers have the Republican Party in their pockets. Bought and paid for. They will fight gun control measures to the last student’s dying breath.

      And that’s the last, obvious, part of the solution to mass shootings in America: Voting for state and national representatives who will support the necessary changes. The one we keep ignoring.

   It has been said that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insanity. Well then, screaming about the need for changes in gun laws and repeatedly voting for people obviously opposed to them — paid to oppose them — is a form of insanity.

     Worse yet is screaming for the need for change and not bothering to register or even bothering to vote for people who would fight for those changes. Deadly apathy.

      It comes down to this: For whatever their individual reasons, Republicans don’t seem to care about the slaughter in our schools. They have sold their soul for some votes, power and their twisted image of what “liberty and justice for all” means.

       We know very well what needs to be done. We just need to get the final part right. If we want to clean up this mess, we have to behave like responsible Americans and stop voting for Republicans. It’s time to stop expecting different results. Otherwise, nothing will change but the body count.

(Full disclosure: The author is not now and has never been a member of any political party. He is a registered independent voter.)

rjgaydos@gmail.com

Bob Gaydos is writer-in-residence at zestoforange.com.