The article reflects on the author's personal experience with severe mental illness and homelessness from 2003 to 2007 during Mental Health Awareness Month. It highlights the critical lack of psychiatric hospital beds available today, which has drastically reduced from 500,000 in the 1940s to just 40,000 presently. The author emphasizes the need for systemic changes to provide better support for individuals suffering from psychosis and mental health issues, advocating for more resources and interventions that address the urgent needs of this vulnerable population.
I was entirely unaware of my illness, which is a condition in its own right called anosognosia. I thought I was one in a million and would be rich and successful.
More beds for people with acute illness... I never should have been allowed to remain homeless, confused, and severely mentally ill for four years without intervention.
Today, we have the opposite problem. Following a movement of deinstitutionalization in the 1960s and 1970s, the number of beds has been reduced from half a million to 40,000.
It is so difficult in the United States to get people like myself, in desperate need, admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
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