Everybody’s Got Something to Say

Everybody’s connected. It’s like the law of six degrees of separation. But in this case, it’s not simply through each other, but through an issue. As a newbie journalist, I’m finding that one of my favorite things is seeing what people have to say about the same issue. Even more interesting, is where what people are saying begins to converge, taking on a shape so solid that as your sources keep hurling it at you, it becomes almost impossible to dodge. So with marked enthusiasm you stand there and let it propel itself straight towards your forehead, where it leaves a welcomed, swelled imprint.

“Where do people go for mental health services in Madison County?” I asked.

“The building across the street is not the Advantage you’re thinking of. It’s not for mental health services,” the Health Department said. “This one is for the mentally challenged.”

“Well, we used to have an Advantage,” said the local agricultural extension agent.” “But we lost it a few years ago.”

A local parole officer said, “my parolees usually to go into Athens. That is, if they are getting services at all.”

A woman who owns a personal care home, speaks of how she works with the “disadvantaged.” “A lot of people don’t want to be bothered with them,” she said of her residents, most of whom she says has various mental health issues.

“Well depending on where they live, they come to us in Athens or go to Elberton. But, yes they have to leave their county to seek services,” said an Athens-Clarke Advantage Behavioral Health System employee.

My sources are converging. I ask the ABHS employee, “Well, they use to have one. Why don’t they have one anymore? I heard a few years ago, Georgia made huge cuts to their mental health services across the state.”

“Yes,” she said. “That’s when they lost theirs. And they’re still making cuts.”

“There’s your story,” she declares to the student journalist.

Cuts in funding. Rural counties. Mental illness still exists. Barriers to accessing services.

With Georgia having already made cuts and continuing to make cuts, are rural counties (already facing challenges of stigma and lack of knowledge surrounding MH), the first to be hit?

There’s that swelling imprint. Let’s see how much it starts to throb.