The Mental Health and Recovery Services Board of Seneca, Sandusky and Wyandot Counties thanks every voter in Seneca and Wyandot counties. Regardless of your support for renewing the mental health and recovery levy, you exercised your right to vote.
When the levy renewal passed, it sends the message the community takes care of its own in a time when more individuals than ever have been exposed to stress and anxiety about jobs, homes, putting food on the table and clothes on their family. This office has seen the devastation these stressors have had on individuals who normally go through life with little difficulty. But, adding these stressors, may be just enough a dormant depression becomes a full-blown major depression or anxiety attack. This is a really simple explanation for what is a biological brain issue, but you get what I mean, right?
Over the past several months, the calls from those seeking help for a loved one have become daily rather than one or two a month. Pleas to put someone in a hospital because they are extremely depressed are common. By the way your loved one must be assessed by a mental health professional to determine what treatment they need. The days of putting someone directly into a hospital ended in 1988.
The majority of calls this office receives tell of situations of a loved one using painkillers and moving on to heroin when the cost of obtaining painkillers (read as opiates) becomes too high. This epidemic and yes, it truly is an epidemic is not just in Seneca, Sandusky and Wyandot counties, it's in all of Ohio and across the country. Get online and look for the maps of Ohio that show the progression of opiate drug use over the last 10 years; it will scare you. The website is www.odadas.ohio.gov.
If you've been reading this newspaper for the past few months, you've read of the local initiatives this board funds with your levy dollars. This renewal will allow the board to continue local initiatives, as well as funding treatment services provided by Firelands Counseling and Recovery Services. Again, thank you for placing your confidence in the Mental Health and Recovery Services Board. If you would like to be notified of the meetings in which local initiatives are proposed, contact this office to be placed on the invitation list for January.
If you would like more information, call us at (419) 448-0640. Office hours are 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays.
Nancy Cochran, executive director
