The morning headlines caught my attention: "'State of the art. And completely empty.':
A $30 M psych unit is going to waste in the Texas Hill Country."
Reportedly, the new psychiatric unit at Kerrville State Hospital was completed in September 2022, but has never been occupied. It reportedly is a state-of-the-art mental health facility.
Seriously, the setting in and of itself must be therapeutic. It overlooks the Guadalupe River.
Dr. Wallas J. Nichols, the author of the Blue Mind, asserts that living close to a lake, river, sea or ocean actually promotes happiness.
'Blue Mind' is a meditative state associated with being on or near the water that can bring on feelings of calm, peacefulness, and general happiness."
Dr. Nichols asserts that water actually "lowers stress and anxiety, increasing an overall sense of well-being and happiness, a lower heart and breathing rate, and safe, better workouts. Aquatic therapists are increasingly looking to the water to help treat and manage PTSD, addiction, anxiety disorders, autism, and more."
Actually, as I sit at my keyboard, just envisioning time on or near the water has been calming. We spent last week at Surfside Beach. Because the weather and wind were too cool for comfort, we primarily stayed indoors, but the sight and sound of the water were a refreshing experience.
We've got dear friends who have lived in three different homes on different lakes over the past 40-plus years. Perhaps I should nominate them as the picture of perfect mental health? They are consistently upbeat, content, and advocates for lakeside living.
Of course, there is always value in getting away and changing scenery. In addition, there is no place like home. Consequently, our friends also have a home on the water in Missouri. The wife's family is from Missouri. It was in that state that the couple met.
Lest I digress, the empty 70-bed psychiatric facility has not opened because the state struggles to find staff. There is a waiting list of 2,500 people waiting to be admitted to a state psychiatric hospital.
Reportedly, until recent years, Texas psychiatric hospitals primarily housed so-called civil commitments — people who needed a place to recover from a psychiatric emergency that rendered them a danger to themselves or others.
Texas' psychiatric hospital census officially flip-flopped in 2016, when forensic patient admissions for the first time officially outnumbered civil commitments. Today, two-thirds of state hospital patients arrive via the criminal courts.
Reportedly, criminally charged patients requiring high security wait for an average of a year locked in jail waiting for the psychiatric hospital admission.
Buried in today's article, I found this statement disturbing: "Mental health staffers use medication, therapy and time to restore their mental competency enough to face charges in a courtroom." That seems like a significant shift from the concept of "people who needed a place to recover from a psychiatric emergency that rendered them a danger to themselves or others."
In the interim for those of us who may be on the edge due to the pressure cooker environment in which we find ourselves, it might be therapeutic to go fishing.
All My Best!
Don
