Tag: mental health

Prop 1

Here are my quick thoughts on California’s Prop 1, since a lot of you are asking. I just read over the description on the primary ballot. I am not a professional legislative analyst, by any means. But I get why you all are here reading this.

-It may end up being a very good thing for residents who suffer from severe mental health challenges. If the state’s estimates are correct, and this bill will provide 6,500 of 10,000 needed mental health beds in the state, then that is a big win.

-The effect that this bill will have on homelessness will be negligible. If the stars align, it will lead to a 2% reduction in homelessness over the next 10 years – with a 20% reduction of veteran homelessness in that time as well. This rosy projection is reliant on buildings getting built and/or acquired somewhere in the state to house people. We all know how challenging that can be.

-It takes some mental health money from the counties and gives it to the state, for some reason. This is perplexing, and pushes me from “it’s flawed but probably still good” to “it may not be worth voting for such a flawed piece of legislation” – knowing that there is not a heck of a lot stopping the state from putting something better on the ballot next election if this one fails. The reality is that money to be spent on mental health services will get taken from each county right away, and then some years later a mental health facility may or may not show up in that county from the money that comes from this bill.

-It’s really malpractice that this bill would be marketed as addressing the homeless issue. The percentage of our homeless population that faces severe mental health challenges is very low (not that we have good numbers), certainly no more than 5%, maybe as low as 1 or 2%. The idea that most of our homeless population is suffering from severe mental health challenges and/or life altering addiction is a long-dead myth at this point. The actual portion of the bill that addresses homelessness is a drop in the bucket. I’m not sure how I’ll vote, since I’m not opposed to voting for flawed legislation that will still do some good, but the stench of the political machinations behind this bill are a turn off for me.

The Satisfaction With Life Scale

I came across the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) in my general meanderings in life… as authored by Ed Diener, Robert A. Emmons, Randy J. Larsen and Sharon Griffin in the Journal of Personality Assessment. It’s notable enough that I thought I would post it here:

No pressure to share how satisfied you are 🙂

I’ve Been Making a Movie, To Death

The process of making this film outlasted my passion for it

I’ve been making one movie since I was 23. I’m 38. I’m done with it. More precisely, I’ve been sick of working on it for years – but I finally have an edit of it that feels finished.

I’ve learned a lot making this movie. It’s a documentary, and the big lesson I learned was how not to film a documentary. Even though the raw footage was only about 20 hours; because I did not have an idea of how the final product would look, I spent countless hours watching the footage to find the story, refining the story, organizing it, putting it into a digestible format….

All while life continued. I had a day job, or multiple day jobs. I met the love of my life, and we got married. We got dogs. We had kids. We bought a house. We got a cat. So a project that I wanted to take three years on, became this. I never wanted this to be a fifteen year project. I never wanted to spend the amount of money or energy on it that I did. But it’s my first feature film, and it never felt right to give up. Even when emotionally, I was long done.

What’s the documentary about? It’s a focus on the gaps in the mental health system that lead to people who are depressed, bipolar or suicidal to average 5-7 years after onset of symptoms before seeking help. It illustrates the structural reasons that exist that lead a to huge number of Americans to live lives without the mental health assistance that they know they need.

What’s sad is, those conditions haven’t changed notably in the fifteen years that I’ve been working on this project. I’m sure that the content of the film is just as real and relevant as when I kicked off this project a decade and a half ago.

From a filmmaking and communication perspective, the structure of the film is wrong. But it would take at least one more re-shoot to do it right… and I don’t want to spend a few grand more of my money on another shoot. I don’t know if this film is going to go anywhere, anyway.

I want to be proud of this film, like I am of my first music video. But I’m not. I’m sick and tired of it. I’m embarrassed that it took this long. I’ve been embarrassed for a while. I think my feelings toward this film kept me from finding a structure for it I like – I have certainly lost the capacity to think creatively about it anymore. I’m writing this blog in the hopes that by writing and posting this I can unload some of the burden that this film has become.

I wasn’t originally going to post the film here, but here is the link. After I’ve done such a great job of selling this movie, I’m sure you can’t wait to watch it 😉

It’s a little less than an hour long. If you’d be so kind to take a look, I need to know what it this film is, and if it’s worth pushing forward with it. I lost perspective on it too many years ago to know. That link is a private listing, if it gets a bunch of views I’ll take it down.

Thanks for listening, friends.