Mental health from the mental healthcare worker

With another shooting in America, the focus always turns back inevitably to mental health.  I have remained mum on this topic, because there are so many things I have yet to learn and I know that my view does not encompass entire field.

Most people working in mental health won't tell you how hard it really is.  You have to be present, listen well, empathize, confront, carefully construct questions in such a way not to offend, but to push people beyond their boundaries of comfort...to change.  Most people in mental health leave the day feeling emotionally drained.  It is hard, it is difficult, it is sometimes rewarding.  I have several people who tell me that they don't know how I do what I do and assume that there must be some intrinsic motivation, such as the inherent part feedback from helping people, that allow for them to feel as if the pain was all worth it.  However, there are many more things that motivate people toward mental health.  Sometimes it is because they have an unhealthy need to be needed.  Whatever the reason, it's not the money.  Counseling may cost an arm and a leg out of pocket, but it is not something that will make people rich.  I know bachelor's level mental health workers who still receive government assistance and master's level clinicians who still make under the national average for a household income.  The paperwork is very, very cumbersome and, like most other healthcare fields, has restricted the use of government funds for the use of healthcare costs.  There are some mental health diagnoses that are not considered severe enough to receive services beyond office-based counseling.  Autism is not even considered to be a mental illness, and therefore, anyone with this disorder is unable to receive purely mental health services (there must be a present mental illness as well).  Mental health agencies are burdened with the demand for their services and are combined with the mass exodus of retirees.  How will they keep up with the demand for more services?

Mental healthcare has to have a top priority in legislation to make it easier to do the services, have more incentives for working in the field, and have better incentives to eradicate the stigma.  I still work with doctors and nurses who make derogatory comments about the mentally ill.  There is a ginormous book of diagnoses that would allow for any right-minded person to begin to question their own mental illness.  And yet, there continues to be a continual discussion for mental health services every time another human or nature inflicted tragedy strikes.  Mental healthcare workers assist with processing what has occurred, are told that they are the key to prevention (which is not always true), and yet are paid a little more per hour than a manager at a grocery store.  Legislation and change is not always easy and takes time, but I had to say all of these things in the interest of defending my field.