Mental Health News

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Medical researchers find that for many, the problem of drug addiction and mental illnesses occur together.  It has long been known that people with mental illnesses ranging from anxiety disorders to bipolar depression commonly struggle with addictions.  These can be addictions such as nicotine, alcohol and cocaine or others.  In fact, Andrew Chambers, MD, cited that at least half of all people who seek help for their addictions are also diagnosed with a co-occurring mental health disorder. 

For a long time previously, doctors had assumed that the addictions were a kind of ‘self-medication’ for those suffering with mental illnesses who just slid into addiction.  However, Andrew Chambers decided to find out if this was the cause through the scientific method. 

He and his team at the medical school of Indiana University compared the adult mood- and drug addiction related behavior of two groups of adult rats.  One group underwent surgery to purposely damage their amygdalas and another group underwent a fake surgery to simulate the same conditions. 

The rats that underwent the real surgery were found to be significantly more sensitive to cocaine and developed an addiction to the drug when addicted to it much faster. 

Dr. Chambers theorized that the reason the amygdalas are damaged in humans can vary.  Sometimes there are relatively rare cases of temporal lobe epilepsy, tumors or early brain injury.  However, these co-occurring drug addictions and mental illnesses are more common than that.  Chambers believes they could also be the result of developmental damage to the amygdale during early childhood.  An early emotional trauma combined with certain genetic backgrounds can alter the early development of the neural networks involved in the amygdala leading to brain disturbances.

In Hastings, Nebraska a small program at Hastings Regional Center, focused on mental health care for adolescents is in trouble.  It is so little used that the $3 million dollar program could be shut down. 

This mental health care program is currently only treating one adolescent, but it has a multi-million dollar budget.  However, some of the funds in the program are being used in another program at the local community focused center where both programs have a home.

The program is focused on helping adolescences with major mental health problems who haven’t been successfully treated in other programs.  It is also geared towards a community focused treatement. 

The other program receiving some of the unused funds from this mental health care program’s multi-million dollar budget is full.  It has 40 adolescent participants who are being helped with substance abuse problems.  Children’s mental health care programs such as these are important in trying to help those with mental health problems and substance abuse issues while they are still young.  They may even have a better chance at full recovery as youths. 

The Director of Behavioral Health for the Department of Health and Human Services involved with the program stated that they have tried to remain good stewards of the money provided for the program.  When they noticed the number of participants in the mental health care program dwindling they reduced the capacity size from 16 to 8 adolescents.  They also worked to cut costs to preserve the $3 million budget. 

A state legislative task force issued a report after reviewing the mental health care program’s situation that recommended the program be shut down.  There are currently no plans to shut down the other full substance abuse treatment program at the Hastings Regional Center.

The mental health care of our kids is just as important as that of adults, maybe even more so since a mental ailment left untreated in childhood can lead to serious problems as an adult.  A recent Danish study has shown that one particular problem, thought common to childhood may actually be more harmful than once thought.  The study found that kids who experienced the iron thumb of a bully in school were more likely to need increased amounts of medication for everything from headaches to tummy aches.  This is presumably from all the duress caused by being bullied for a long period of time.

I can remember when I was but a child of 10 and met with my first real bully.  It was a short, brief experience, but was also extremely distressing.  He wanted to meet me at the flag pole before school to beat me up I wanted to stay home from school sick that day.  Unfortunently my mom didn’t feel the same when I told her about the bully and sent me to school anyway.  Not good for my mental health and I can remember the anxiety, fear and stomach upset that plagued me for the rest of the evening and the next early morning.  However, the bully problem seemed to have solved itself overnight as I never saw hide nor hair of the child again, saving my own hide from a thrashing. 

For those kids who aren’t so lucky and must endure the unwanted attentions of bullies on a daily basis the effects can build up into long standing nervous disorders and physical ailments.  So as a result the kids need more and more medications.   

As far as children’s mental health is concerned, what we should be worried about is not the fact that kids need more medications, but the underlying cause of bullying and its chronic damage to mental health and physical well-being.

A recent study released indicated that in all the admissions for drug addiction in boys and girls, the girls were more likely to enter a treatment program than boys at an earlier age.  This was across the board for different types of addictions too.  In addition, it found that while the main course into a treatment program for both sides was through the justice system, girls were more often than boys to be admitted for treatment by their families. 

It’s very difficult to accurately say what this kind of information means.  The study has shown that girls get into drug treatment programs at a younger age than boys for drug addiction.  However, it doesn’t show for certain that girls get into drugs at a younger age.  It could be that an addiction in boys is less apparent for longer than it is in girls. The acting out behaviors that are associated with drug addiction in kids could be more apparent in girls, in our society which is inclined to give emotional, unruly boys a break.  Or girls, who have a tendency to mature faster, may really be getting into drugs at an earlier age due to increased social pressure, self-consciousness, lack of positive reinforcement, etc.

The finding that girls are more often to be admitted to a drug treatment program than boys were by their families is also open for interpretation.  It’s possible again, that with the current societal values prevalent today, the behaviors associated with drug addiction and the simple fact that a girl is addicted to a drug are such an affront to the home life that families ship their girls off to a mental health clinic to get better again.  While drug use discovered in boys is to be punished and shook off as a ‘boys will be boys’ attitude, leaving them to engage in harmful drug addictions for a longer period of time.  

It could also be that boys using drugs are just more likely to take part in criminal behavior and get caught by the police, thus shunting them into the justice system for treatment. 

One thing is for certain with study findings such as these.  The answers reveal only more questions and more studies are needed.