The documentary Bedlam is a feature length film which covers the care of people with mental illnesses, or lack thereof in the United States. Throughout, we are shown the crisis of mental healthcare through the lives of doctors, patients, and their families. The film highlights that while healthcare practitioners—for the most part—have empathy for their patients, dehumanization becomes such an intrinsic part of their job that they simply roll with it just to go home at the end of the day. It also highlights the glaring lack of support outside of prescription anti-psychotics, the struggle for housing, and the chronic nature of mental illnesses and disorders. That last part is depicted startlingly clear through patient lives such as Monty and Johanna, who receive treatment and get better, but sometime later relapse after stopping medication for one reason or another.
Therein lies the crisis; treatment is the sole reliance on medication and very little else, such as therapy, is wildly out of reach for many. The expectation of these individuals to simply participate in a capitalistic society once cut loose from whichever hospital or jail they’d been, is cruelty in its basic form. Todd’s life and search for housing, in particular, showed this aforementioned lack of support outside of treatment facilities. He had to wait four years for housing, only to lose it three months after a relapse saw him arrested and jailed.
This documentary, and the realistic depiction of mental illness as a chronic, life-long affliction; the struggle to participate in society, and the insight of burnout by healthcare providers painted a bleak picture for me. I found the film to be incredibly triggering and had to stop watching at multiple points because of it; finding it difficult because I have been Monty, Johanna, and Todd. Yet, in the future—should I not relapse, of course—I will also be on the other side as a counsellor, social worker, or peer support worker facing burnout from the constant lack of resources and solutions to help people.
None of what was covered in the film surprised me, but I did find it interesting that the reasons patients stopped taking medication was depicted in a rather infantilizing way, placing the blame on them as a decision they made for themselves. It fails to touch on the financial aspect of being able to take medication, especially considering the inherent allergy America has of providing adequate healthcare to its citizens without bankrupting them.
In my opinion, the changes that need to happen are almost nothing short of total anarchy; burn it all down and salt the earth kind of style.
That, however, is not much of a realistic option, so I will settle for Basic Universal Income for all citizens, universal healthcare, and the removal of housing as a commodity that the wealthy have driven to unattainable levels. Healthcare, housing, and the chance to live a life a life of quality is a human right, and our country should start acting like it.
Once a person has a stable roof over their head, the means to purchase necessities such as food, water, and tools to maintain hygiene; recovery is that much more attainable for the vast majority of those with mental health struggles because it allows the individual the self-efficacy to care for themselves and take control back of their lives before their health has a chance to worsen further.
For the second section, I decided to focus on the histories of CAMH and the former Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital in Toronto; specifically, the treatment of patients and the exploitation of their unpaid labour.
Both facilities used patient labour to keep the hospitals running, and both feature a preserved relic, allowing us, today, a glimpse into the past where this dehumanization and slavery took place; CAMH with its wall and the (now converted) Humber College Lakeshore Campus with its intact tunnel system.
I find it undeniable that the closure of these facilities and the state of mental health support today is largely tied in with the use of that labour in the past; with the cost of housing and treating people with mental illnesses, the stipulation of forced labour helped to offset those costs up until the practice became increasingly looked down upon as the decades passed, eventually becoming unacceptable, and finally illegal.
The video by If These Walls Could Talk (Berlyne, 2013) gives credence to this while describing the initial reasons for the creation of the Provincial Lunatic Asylum in 1850, that being the overcrowding of Toronto jails by the ‘insane’ and how expensive it was to maintain them there.
The reason I believe that this affects the attainability of mental healthcare today—to repeat previous points in section one of this paper—is the financial aspect of caring for people who struggle with their mental health being the crux of the issue.
That is, the reliance on medication, the slow privatization of healthcare in Ontario making financial stability a necessity to access supports such as prescription medication and therapy, the lack of affordable housing, the rising cost of living; all of this is the reason so many people struggle once they’re cleared to leave Urgent Care, the hospital, or the crisis centre. It all comes down to financial responsibility, birthing the idea—which is based in eugenics—that mentally ill people are not worth the money it would cost to help them.
What happens when it is too expensive to house people struggling with their mental health, yet it is illegal and socially unacceptable to use their forced labour to maintain themselves?
What happens when the cost of living continues to rise, yet wages and social supports such as Ontario Works (OW) and Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) stagnates?
We see an increase in homelessness, addiction, and crime; an increase of violent attacks on the TTC, and an increase of incarceration rates.
The wall that continues to stand near CAMH today and the tunnel system underneath the Humber Lakeshore Campus is not only a glimpse into the past, but it is a daily reminder that mental health struggles will always be seen as a nuisance to those with the power to enact change yet won’t.
–
References
Rosenberg, K. P. (Director). (2019). BEDLAM: A Documentary. DOCDAYS Productions & Willow Pond Films. https://letterboxd.com/film/bedlam-2019/details/
Berlyne, N., & Likely, S. (Directors). (2013). If these walls could talk: Stories behind Toronto’s psychiatric patient built wall[Documentary]. Backwards Production. https://youtu.be/tEiq0irt370?feature=shared
Ciel. (2023, February 1). Photo of Tunnel under Humber Lakeshore.
ma guarda quante stelle nel cielo 