Rodney Dangerfield the 1980s comedian and mental health peers have one thing in common: we get No Respect.

You can Google Rodney Dangerfield No Respect and watch his 1979 video on YouTube where he’s doing his No Respect stand-up act on TV.

Outsiders love to parrot that people with SZ die 25 years earlier and have a higher mortality rate. They balk that we don’t receive the medical care we need.

I’ll tell you why we don’t get the right medical care: M.D.s don’t want to treat us when we show up with a physical complaint.

After a guy I know told  a new primary care doctor that he had SZ the M.D. refused to accept him as a patient. The doctor had alerted his receptionist to tell my friend this. As soon as he arrived at the front desk she told the guy he had to seek treatment elsewhere.

M.D.s don’t take people seriously when we have mental issues. They think our physical complaints are all in our head. Or they think we’re lying.

Elyn Saks the famous SZ author needed an operation. After telling the M.D.s she had SZ they wouldn’t treat her after all. Yet without getting the operation she had a greater risk of dying.

In this climate even those of us with the confidence to seek medical treatment for other issues are denied treatment.

Sadly no one else except you and me has a vested interest in our health and fitness.

We’re left to our own devices to heal ourselves. We’re left on our own with hardly any integrated healthcare resources for our convenient access.

Whatever you do refrain from diagnosing yourself via a Google search for the symptoms you’re having. You should not be complicit in the sorry state of healthcare in America. You can’t treat yourself. Most illnesses you can’t cure totally on your own.

Doctors need to do their jobs. We need to hold them accountable for treating us. We need to hold them accountable for their bedside manner.