No One Cares About Crazy People: The Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Health in America by Ron Powers

No One Cares About Crazy People: The Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Health in America is a hard-hitting book written by Ron Powers that exposes one of the great tragedies of our age: the tragedies of physical and emotional diseases afflicting millions of Americans who suffer needlessly and unnoticed.

In this explosive book, Ron Powers serves up a powerful indictment of the U.S. health care system and its continuing failure to provide adequate mental health treatment. Powers holds no punches in his description of the chaos, the systemic abuse, and profound emotional heartbreak that remain all too common among sufferers of mental disorders.

The book is told as a narrative and follows the stories of a number of people—ranging from inmates to airline pilots—with an array of mental health issues such as depression, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and schizophrenia. But no matter the illness, the stories all share something in common: a need for quality health care that is not easily obtained.

Powers eloquently lays out the case for how society has failed the mentally ill, including his own experiences in which he had to fight for both diagnosis and treatment for his son's schizophrenia. Many of the stories are heart-wrenchingly sad, but there are also moments of great hope as Powers showcases both successes and failures as seen through the lens of advocacy and service on behalf of those in need.

In this book, Powers makes the case that our system of health care in America is a deep reflection of how well or poorly our society values those with mental health issues. He brings to life many cases of family members or strangers who have gone to heroic lengths to help those who need it, only to be stymied by a burdensome bureaucracy and a society that too often pretends mental illness does not exist.

No One Cares About Crazy People is an urgent call to action for all of us to finally address the growing mental health crisis in our society with meaningful reform. It provides an invaluable resource to those looking to better understand how our mental health system fails not just its sufferers, but all of us as a society. But most of all, it serves as a passionate plea to all that we owe it to those who suffer to finally give mental health the attention and resources it rightly deserves.