SSD Trust Fund Projected to Run Out Of Cash By 2016

Edited by Dan Frey

The disabled become victims of a failing economy

I am summarizing a report written by Brian Faler for The Washington Post May 30, 2012. The Social Security disability program’s trust fund is projected to run out of cash far sooner than the better-known Social Security retirement plan or Medicare. That will trigger a 21 percent cut in benefits.

Part of the reason for the rapidly increasing costs is that the 77 million baby boomers projected to swamp federal retirement plans will reach the disability program first. That’s because almost all baby boomers are at least 50 years old, the age at which someone is most likely to become disabled.

The growing costs are also a result of the failing economy. When people can’t find work and run through their other benefits, many turn to disability benefits for assistance.

Applications to the disability program have risen more than 30 percent since 2007 and the number of Americans receiving disability benefits is up 23 percent.

The disability program pays benefits averaging $1,111 a month, with the money coming from the Social Security payroll tax. The program cost $132 billion last year, more than the combined annual budgets of the departments of Agriculture, Homeland Security, Commerce, Labor, Interior and Justice. That doesn’t include an additional $80 billion spent because disability beneficiaries become eligible for Medicare, regardless of their age, after a two-year waiting period.

The disability program is projected to exhaust its trust fund in 2016, according to a Social Security trustees report released last month. Once it runs through its reserve, incoming payroll-tax revenue will cover only 79 percent of benefits, according to the trustees. Because the plan is barred from running a deficit, aid would have to be cut to match revenue.

People whose benefit applications are rejected can appeal to administrative-law judges, and statistics show some judges are far more likely to approve benefits than others. One reason is that the program, which once focused largely on people who suffered from strokes, cancer and heart attacks, increasingly supports those with depression, back pain, chronic fatigue syndrome and other comparatively subjective conditions.

Statistics show that once people enter the program they are unlikely to leave, with fewer than 1 percent rejoining the workforce. Many worked “menial” jobs that didn’t offer health insurance, and the program gives them an opportunity to join Medicare long before they might otherwise qualify.

The agency faces a backlog of 1.4 million reviews it’s supposed to periodically conduct to ensure beneficiaries are entitled to stay on the rolls. The agency has said it doesn’t have the money to do the reviews.

Some government officials are more optimistic than others about adequately funding the disability program and avoiding this catastrophe.

Recovery International at 75

By Marilyn Schmitt, Ph.D.

The effectiveness of a little known program

In 1937, a movement began to be shaped that would improve the lives of many thousands of people suffering from mental and nervous disorders. The movement became a group-based training protocol developed by a Chicago neuropsychiatrist, Abraham Low, M.D. In the heyday of Freudian psychoanalysis, Low saw his patients in the University of Illinois Psychiatric Research Hospital discharged and returning in a revolving door of relapse. He began to experiment with tools that would train them to manage their symptoms and develop resistance to the illness. And he founded an “association of patients,” choosing the word “Recovery” as its name. Today its name is Recovery International.

Fifteen years after that beginning, in 1952, the program was complete: a group-based, peer-led cognitive behavioral training program that has enabled tens of thousands of sufferers from mental and nervous disorders to achieve peaceful, productive, and normal lives. Today, with hundreds of weekly group meetings across North America and abroad, led without required fee by trained volunteer former sufferers, Recovery International is the “best kept secret” in the psychotherapeutic world.

The Recovery International System uses highly structured meetings in which participants describe a disturbing everyday event, their reaction to it, and their coping strategy, ending with acknowledgement of their improvement compared to the past. The group then comments on the story using the principles, concepts, and language established by Abraham Low. This deceptively simple format continually restructures the thinking and behavior of each individual at whatever pace that person can achieve. Readings and other resources reinforce this “getting well” process. Between-meeting practice of the principles is constantly stressed.

The Department of Psychiatry of the University of Illinois-Chicago has just concluded a study of 126 participants, most with long-standing serious disorders, attending Recovery International meetings. The study concludes that after one year of attendance, most subjects experienced significant reductions of depressive and anxiety symptoms as well as decreased domination by symptoms. They were using fewer mental health and social services, displayed increased coping skills, self-esteem, and feelings of hope. The more meetings they attended, the more benefit they experienced. See the report at www.lowselfhelpsystems.org.

In a 1973 issue of Psychiatric News, Karl Menninger publicly expressed regret that he had not paid attention to Recovery International. He spoke of "legions of people whose lives were saved or fulfilled by" this self-help organization. How many more legions have been saved since then, and yet the Low System remains a secret to the vast majority of mental health professionals and the public.

As Recovery International celebrates its 75^th anniversary in 2012, it is time for that disregard to come to an end, for consumers and professionals alike. The Low System, as delivered in Recovery International meetings, offers a time-tested, broad-based, low-cost—and now verified—benefit to those suffering from mental and nervous disorders.

Note: Learn more about Recovery International and other Low System-based programs at www.lowselfhelpsystems.org.

Book Review: Living for the Moment

Reviewed by Jack M. Freedman

A collection of poetry by Stephen J. Fernbach

I will admit that sometimes I fall victim to procrastination, which is why I am glad that I now have a spare opportunity to review a book of poetry. As a self-published poet myself, I can always appreciate work written by authors who genuinely enjoy the art of poetry. In many cases, we get to see the evolution of the poet as he or she progresses throughout the years and develops an astute maturity. This is the case of Living for the Moment, written by Stephen J. Fernbach.

This is Mr. Fernbach’s third book of poetry. He has written quite a number of personal accounts over the span of his life. Oftentimes, while I read a book of poetry, I randomly turn to a page and read it instead of reading the whole book from cover to cover. While engaging in this process, I found a couple of poems that stuck out.

Many of these writings dealt with the Jewish experience. As a person of the Jewish faith, I was able to relate with many of the sentiments expressed in the book. Such poems include “Israel Is My Shambala” and “First the Dinner Bell, Then the Shofar Sounds.”  The first poem expresses a deep love for the land of milk and honey. Such memories expressed include landmarks, such as the Sea of Galilee and the Western Wall. My own memories of staying in a kibbutz for a couple of days and being moved to tears while praying against the oft nicknamed “Wailing Wall” were evoked. The second poem includes some free-floating thoughts on the high holiday of Rosh Hashanah. For those unfamiliar with this holy day, Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish new year and a shofar is a ram’s horn used as a musical instrument to ring in the new year in a somber fashion. I liked the memories expressed, including the Jewish customs and a dissenting message regarding Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visiting Ground Zero and speaking at Columbia University.

I would make one friendly recommendation though, which is for the author to flesh out his ideas a little bit more. This piece of advice is given for poems that sometimes ended abruptly. It takes a lot of talent to create imagery that inspires people and Mr. Fernbach definitely has that talent. However, in the words of Oliver Twist, “Please Sir, can I have some more?” That is, more complete thoughts that are wrapped up without leaving something to be desired.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this book. I personally hope that Mr. Fernbach writes a fourth book. I would like to see his craft further develop. Please write on, Mr. Fernbach. Keep poetry alive!

Nutritional Psychiatry Blackballed by U.S. Psychiatric Establishment

By Michael Gottlieb, B.S.

Ask your doctor about minerals and supplements for your mental health

In 1945, two Canadians psychiatrists—Dr. Abram Hoffer and Dr. Humphrey Osmond—began treating Canadian soldiers returning from Japanese prisons in treatment protocols for severe mental illnesses including schizophrenia and depression. They provided a healthy diet including avoidance of sugars and sweets with added minerals. They sought to publish their research and clinical experiences in the U.S. around 1955 but were blackballed by the medical and psychiatric journals who feared losing advertising dollars from the pharmaceutical companies who were bringing out their first generation of psychiatric medications.

By now some three quarters of a million Canadians have been successfully treated via nutritional psychiatry (aka orthomolecular psychiatry). It has virtually no side-effects vs. the metabolic poisons touted here in the U.S. and yet it remains virtually unknown and unused.

The foods we eat and the liquids we drink have a profound effect upon our brain chemistry. Certain supplements of vitamins (some in mega doses) and minerals and amino acids have demonstrated remarkable healing effects upon severe mental illness. Often a nutritional psychiatrist will use nutritional psychiatry along with a sharply reduced dosage of traditional psychiatric medications. But here in the U.S. the psychiatrists and medical doctors have no education, no training in nutritional healing. It would be, alas, the blind leading the blind. And the consequences are severe toxic side effects (Toxic Psychiatry by Dr. Peter Breggin) along with the non-compliance of many patients due to these toxic side effects.

The brilliant, life saving work of Dr. Hoffer and Dr. Osmmond appears to be virtually totally ignored here in the U.S. The consequences are severe.

If the mass media is either ignorant of nutritional psychiatry or muzzled by fears of retaliation from the powerful pharmaceutical industry, what happens to those who desperately need healing? Apparently, making money and profits supersede any priority of bringing healing to the patients.

Short-term use of chemical medications may be appropriate for certain individuals. Dr. Carl Pfiefer added to our knowledge of the biochemistry of Schizophrenia and how to utilize zinc and manganese to control elevated copper levels. Some 70% of schizophrenics have elevated copper levels in their brains, 20% have depressed levels. The 2^nd benefit is that symptoms are alleviated but not suppressed so patients are not drugged into submission.

Editor’s Note: The team at New York City Voices encourages you to talk to your doctor and pharmacist about all possible treatments for your health, including minerals and supplements. Please always consult with your doctor and pharmacist before trying any new treatments.

I Quit Smoking by an Act of God

By Miriam Wexler

It’s the toughest thing you will ever do

I started chain smoking at an early age when I was confined to a ten-month psychiatric hospital. I was concerned about my weight-gain so my thought was that if I smoked I would be able to lose weight. Initially I forced myself to inhale—at the start smoking was not very pleasant. No one at the hospital told me that the psychotropic medications along with the unhealthy bedtime snacks would increase my appetite and cause weight-gain.

I left the hospital about 80 pounds heavier than when I came in. I was obese and a chronic chain smoker. My self-esteem was below rock bottom.

In total I chain smoked for thirty years. The first time I stopped I used hypnosis; it was relatively easy. I told everyone at work that I was going to stop and used candy (lifesavers) to curb my appetite. I used lifesavers as a substitute for tobacco. I lost weight and stopped smoking for about five years. I never thought I would smoke again but unfortunately I did.

During another hospitalization, I did the unthinkable. I started chain smoking again. Stopping to smoke the second time was one of the hardest things that I have ever done. The fact that it was so difficult motivates me to never pick up again. Also the cost of tobacco today is so expensive. I would rather spend the money on things I enjoy than something that poisons my body.

I smoked for another twenty years. I was extremely depressed and cigarettes were my best friends. In the early 1990s I was homeless and went to live with a friend for about a month while waiting for permanent housing. I was not allowed to smoke at all during that month.

When I moved to a more stable living situation I started smoking again. I was alone and isolated and again cigarettes were my best friends.

At one point I realized that cigarettes would kill me if I continued smoking. I focused my energy on kicking the habit, using many methods both alone and with the help of others to stop. For me perseverance was strength.

Here are some of the ways I tried to kick the habit:

1)      Binghamton University in upstate New York had a 24-hour warm-line for people trying to quit that I called and found very helpful;

2)      I went on two tobacco withdrawal retreats that were failures because I was too socially inept to connect with other smokers who probably never had to deal with mental illness;

3)      I tried the patch, smoked despite the patch, so I stopped it;

4)      I went to several NA (narcotics anonymous) groups, which were somewhat helpful; and

5)      I was able to get acupuncture through my medical coverage—I kept at it—and it cured my urges for one or two days at the most.

Over the summers of the early to mid-1990s I tried to quit about 30-40 times. Then on one seemingly insignificant day I had a cold and by an act of God, perseverance and much practice I stopped at long last.

Sometime later, with the help of therapy and DSNY (dress for success New York), a program that provides professional clothes to low-income women, I joined a running team and came in 3^rd place in a 5-kilometer race in Central Park. I became a runner.

Almost Torn Apart by Psychosis

By M. Johnson

I finally have some hope for a life

My struggle with schizophrenia began with paranoia at college and at work. I began reading messages in litter and in graffiti, and eventually overhearing people I thought were tenants living adjacent to my apartment. I was a school dropout and lived through school with the (false) assumption of being infected with HIV and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA, a type of antibiotic-resistant strain of harmful bacterium). I also lived through what I believed were the monitoring of my actions, emotions, thoughts and sensations through what I thought were cameras and a microchip installed in me by an enemy sexual partner. I eventually stayed indoors except for work, afraid of being shot by people outside my apartment. I slept in the bathtub to avoid radiation from things I thought the apartment manager allowed to be installed in the walls—all part of an upper-class plan, I thought, to frighten me into committing suicide.

I was living alone, and I eventually fled my apartment late one night. I had awoken to a voice which said: "It smells like cancer..." A smell like a hospital seemingly dropped from the ceiling. I got up, opened the windows, and left my apartment. As I left the apartment, I heard a voice say, "Let it out..." I had overheard talk of a propane tank being connected to something. Outside, cars made aggressive u-turns as warnings that I should not venture further. I had had enough experience with what was “outside,” so I returned to my apartment and was hit by a wall of noxious gas as I opened the front door. I breathed it in and it stung my lungs. I fled the apartment in my pajamas, carrying only enough change to make phone calls as I was afraid of being tracked by my cell phone GPS. In my wandering for a pay phone, people would come out of the late-night bars, saying condescendingly, “It's just Mucinex…”

Several weeks later, my “technological” voices clarified, “Did we say ‘Mucinex’? We meant ‘Terminex’.” I went to the hospital after falling down unable to breathe two weeks later, which the doctors declared was an anxiety attack and asthma. I didn't return home for six weeks, thinking homeless people infected with MRSA were sleeping in my bed, and that biological weapons were being released from nozzles installed in the ceiling, spraying my belongings. 

This type of story continued minute-by-minute for two years. No one but me knew what I was going through. Eventually, I was living with my mother, who had me voluntarily detained where I received a clinic phone number. She changed the locks, afraid I was going to poison her for her efforts at trying to resolve my illness through religious means. After my mother called the cops, I was homeless, couch-surfing, and still am. This was the reason that I said I'd have to kill her, because I would be homeless if I couldn't accept my mother’s impossible, rigid beliefs, while at the same time not being able to be financially independent due to the financial issues which had accumulated during my illness.

While still living with my mother, I found some relief using a therapeutic dose of Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA, from fish oil). This resulted in turning challenging, conversational voices into “thought echoes,” which allowed my objectivity to recognize the possibility that I might be suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. I eventually moved in with a contact of my mother, a family which included a man under treatment for schizophrenia. His sister suggested I try medication, allaying my reservations by suggesting that I tell the doctor my concerns about side-effects. I did this, and the doctor responded with several medication options, and the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. Thanks to the medication, I no longer suffer intrusive symptoms. To me this has been a lifesaver, as I thought I would always hear voices.

I learned that faith in the pleasure of life, seeking out new goals, and remaining honest with myself while accepting help, has been the most beneficial stance taken in recovery. It is really just going with the flow, and taking the medication and being honest with the doctor about my concerns, while learning as much as possible, and at the same time remembering that I am a person, with a life outside of the diagnosis.

I am no longer fascinated by voices and delusions, because the medication has made them minimal. I can now concentrate, and have “my own” thoughts and ideas. A feeling of ownership of my person and my life has resurfaced, something I thought I would never know.

With my renewed hope in life, and a return to a sense of myself, I hope to make friends, while finding success in my endeavors appearing on the horizon. Schizophrenia ravaged my mind to the point of not knowing dream from reality. Now with the help of medication and the full acceptance and understanding of friends, I can live an active and relatively undisturbed life, with the hope of forgetting the delusions and voices which had become my constant fearful companions. Life, it seems, is possible again.

From Confusion to More Stability

By Lisa Marie

How I faced my mental illness, found love, motherhood and studies I enjoy

The dark days of my illness started in high school. I was full of confused thoughts and insecurities, feeling that something was wrong with me but not knowing what. My mom would say how smart and lovely I was and that nothing was wrong with me. I rebelled against her denial about my condition and I acted out to try to get her attention so she would finally listen to me. I played practical jokes all the time; I fought with my sisters and called them nasty names. I insulted my mother—I was not very nice; but I could not fully control my behaviour. On the other hand, I was always depressed and I avoided people. I tried to kill myself with an overdose of Advil I found in the cupboard. When my mom found me and saved me, I told her I was just sick and I didn’t know why.

I went on to university and I became a hermit, just sitting in class staring at the teacher, making disorganized notes and not bothering to socialize. I failed the first year and I was asked to leave. I was heartbroken that my dream of becoming an engineer was crashing and burning. I tried again and again to complete my engineering degree. Finally, I gave up and pursued fashion design. My illness had not yet been diagnosed and I showed up dishevelled to class. The fashionable classmates avoided me, barely talking to me despite my pleasant attitude.

I found a job as a cook, which I loved. I could focus on one thing without needing to socialize; and I could produce food very fast. It was good, honest work. Most of the employees laughed at me, but my boss was a great man and he protected me. My illness made me misinterpret this as romantic love, and I got myself in trouble with the law for harassment. This was at the lowest point in my illness. I just wanted a boyfriend to give me the kind of love which I had never felt before in my life.

Later on, I did find love, which resulted in my giving birth to our first child. However, despite great determination, I was not ready to overcome the obstacles in my way. My husband and I ended up in divorce and he took custody of our child. It was a most devastating blow for me. I was in tears for months. I can't forget the mistakes I made that led to my losing my child. I will never make those kinds of mistakes again.

This experience led me to accept the reality of what I couldn’t change on my own and I decided to seek treatment for my mental illness. Things improved greatly from there on.

I was started on medication that allowed me to live calmly for a couple years—long enough to find love again and to figure out the kind of mother I really wanted to be. I am now taking Abilify and it has changed my life for the better. I receive additional support from a psychiatrist, social worker, my mom, my sisters, my husband, my in-laws and my friends.

I succeeded in taking myself off the streets and out of a shelter and moving into my own apartment in Montreal; and I began attending a prestigious university in the heart of Montreal to study computer science part time.

I hope to be a great mother to my second son, and to make up for the trauma my first son went through. I would like to get him back with me one day. I am not sure about my personal life right now, whether the man I’m with is with me because he loves me, or he just feels obligated to protect me. But I am happy that I am healthy and I can at least take good care of myself now. I’m working on that personal journey to discovering the riches of lifelong love, now that I have faced and have successfully treated my mental health issues.