Mentally Ill People and Disabled People need to be given more Resources

Dear President Trump,

I know you have a lot to attend to. So thank you in the first place for spending your valuable time reading my letter. This job demands a lot from you. You have an agenda that you must try to complete in a short four years. I hope increasing the benefits and awareness of mentally ill and disabled people is one of your priorities, and if it is not, please reconsider.

The topic on mentally ill people and their benefits really hits close to home because I have two older mentally ill brothers. Even though I am the youngest of my siblings, I am probably the most independent.

My oldest brother Ricky is 29, turning 30 in December. He lives in another house, and needs to be seen by my mom every morning and night for his daily doses of medicine. Looking at him, you wouldn’t notice anything wrong with him. After a while, you start to notice signs, that he’s a little strange. His hands fidgeting, him making fast unexpected gestures, and probably most apparent, him saying random gibberish that doesn't make any sense. Things such as, “Today I saw a vampire ride a unicorn into the bank.” And I am not exaggerating.

My other brother is Alec. He is 16 and won’t turn 17 until next July. My brother Alec is more social than my older brother Ricky, so when people talk to him, they don’t even notice that he has Autism. You don’t really start to see symptoms of his disease until you start doing school work. Alec is in the 11th grade, and if you ask him to do a simple math problem like what 2 x 2 is, it’ll take him five minutes to answer what would take us less than a second. I just thank God he is on the high functioning part of the spectrum. That he is high functioning overall: he can talk, move around on his own, do schoolwork (even though it takes him longer he still is able to do it.) He in fact plays on the varsity football team for San Fernando High School, even though he goes to a special needs school. His school is Bridgeport, and it’s in Sherman Oaks. Bridgeport is underneath the umbrella of the Help Group, an organization that specializes in special needs kids. Alec needs to take medication just like Ricky.

Medicine costs a lot of money. I’m not those types of people that just say make everything free, but lowering the cost of any or all mediation to a reasonable price would help the families in need a lot! Especially in today’s economy where what you earn from working isn’t enough to not only make a living, but to just pay for your necessary bills, like water and electricity.

One last, but certainly not least, request is that you make the opportunities for resources for each diseases accessible to everybody. For example, there are more resources for someone with Autism than someone with Schizophrenia.

Thank you so much Mr. Trump for your time and for reading this and I hope this letter will help better not only the United States but the entire world.

Sincerely,

Alexis Messing