My jaw hurts and I’m not sure if it’s my tooth or my jaw it self. It hurts to eat, it hurts to talk, laugh, drink, anything that involves using my mouth creates this sharp pain on the left side of my face. But I also sometimes talk to a lady I’ve never met, she’s young and sweet and I think we might have been married in another life. Sometimes I get sad and miss her. Sometimes I get depressed and don’t want to leave my bed for weeks.

I don’t have insurance either (and I’m broke) but I’m much more worried about that damn voice in my head than fixing my jaw. The jaw pain could turn in to some sort of tooth I need pulled or maybe just a twinge muscle but this voice and depression thing…this could be a real issue. Lucky for me, health care reform could mean changes in mental health.

Judging from an article in the Baltimoresun.com things could be looking up for some mentally ill.

‘’If they are successful, advocates say, reform legislation could be a huge step forward for the mentally ill. Of uninsured Americans who might gain coverage, an estimated one in four has a mental health condition’’

Providing more mental health care will cost buckets of money but it’s worth it. Being mentally unhealthy will affect every aspect of someone’s life and in the article it says mentally unhealthy people die 25 years earlier than the general population.
That’s a very bad for the voice and me.
I never quite understood why more people don’t advocate or pay attention to the issues and needs of the mentally unhealthy. Almost like they are worried if they pay attention, it would rub off on them. Whatever “it” is.
Do you think mental health should get as much respect and money as other kinds of health care? Do you even care? I know I do, and the voice of the nice young lady I talk to in my head that sometimes sings me to sleep, cares too.
—Donny Lumpkins