To: Members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions — particularly committee leadership and health policy staff.
Preventive Action, Not Retraction
America is at a crossroads.
An overburdened mental health system has led to the rise of mental health AI.
An overburdened mental health system has led to dependence on 988 to fill the gaps.
In the absence of prevention, desperation looks for anything that will listen.
People cry out — and are heard briefly, then unheard again — because we have been conditioned to expect very little.
There is no precedent for mental health prevention to be anything other than programs that end, pilots that expire, or brief support delivered through a call.
Prevention has never been allowed to hold.
PARity is about equality between two things.
Those two things are mental and physical health.
PARity exists between services and insurance.
PARity exists for treatment.
Treatment PARity exists because, in mental health, our rock bottom is someone else’s payday.
But where is Prevention PARity?
Physical health has coverage for prevention.
Mental health does not.
There is no incentive for mental health prevention to exist — let alone to endure.
Preventive Action exists to call for Prevention PARity.
We cannot continue to retract power from prevention and call that success.
Preventive Action comes from prevention as infrastructure — not programs, not pilots, not temporary solutions.
The Mental Health Preventive Care Act (MHPCA) calls for that infrastructure.
That infrastructure has never been built because it would change everything.
MHPCA calls forward a new credential and workforce:
the Mental Health Preventive Care Practitioner (MHPCP).
MHPCPs stand against a treatment-first system.
MHPCPs stand for putting prevention first.
America is at a crossroads.
You need to stand for a better mental health system.
You need to stand for more than the norm.
You need to recognize the power behind what you choose — and what you allow to disappear — in the name of PARity.
You need to stand for something new.
You need to stand up.
You need to start a ripple effect.
Conversations change systems.
Word of mouth changes priorities.
We take this power for granted — and we cannot afford to anymore.
You must speak to one another about the urgent need for MHPCA to become law.
Not prevention as a program.
Prevention as infrastructure.
Prevention cannot remain as it is.
Prevention PARity is not optional.
Prevention PARity is necessary.
You cannot keep doing the same thing and expect a different result.
Look at where we are.
Really look.
America is at a crossroads.
You stand at that crossroads with power.
And with that power, you must choose the path least traveled.
Preventive Action, Not Retraction.
Prevention Must Hold.
Now.
Why is this important?
Content Note:
This section includes personal reflections on suicide, death, and mental disability. Please take care of yourself as you read. Your well-being matters to me, and you are always allowed to pause or step away.
This is important to me because I was left behind without prevention for sixteen years.
At seventeen, I attempted suicide for the first time.
Not because I wanted to die — but because there was no one there to help me before I broke.
Today, I live with a lifetime of treatment:
psychiatrists, medications, therapy, group therapy.
I will be in treatment for the rest of my life.
I did not choose this.
No one chooses this.
This campaign is not just for me.
This campaign is not just for me.
It is for every person living with a mental disability who was told help would come later — after the damage was done.
They call us “mentally ill,” but that language hides the truth.
They call us “mentally ill,” but that language hides the truth.
A cold is an illness. You recover.
A flu is an illness. You recover.
Mental disability is different.
A flu is an illness. You recover.
Mental disability is different.
It is something we live with for a lifetime — something we must learn to carry, adapt to, and survive.
Prevention could have changed the trajectory — and it still can for others.
This campaign is for everyone with a mentally disabled loved one.
It is for every life lost to suicide, overdose, and preventable harm.
It is for every person without a mental disability who deserves the freedom to keep their life — and their future — intact.
Prevention exists for physical health.
Why is mental health treated differently?
Your mental health is worth protecting across the lifespan.
You deserve prevention that does not disappear.
There must be a future where support comes before crisis
There must be a future where prevention is infrastructure, not an afterthought.
There must be a future where prevention is infrastructure, not an afterthought.
Treatment PARity is not enough.
Prevention PARity must come.
I am standing for that future.
Will you stand with me?
How it will be delivered
Delivering this petition represents the collective voices behind every signature, story, and share. The petition will be delivered by sharing signatures and engagement with policymakers, including members of the Senate HELP Committee, and through strategic public-facing articles. It will be distributed across academic, disability advocacy, and mental health networks to demonstrate public support for shifting mental health care toward prevention across the lifespan.