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A path beckons...
Wishing you some time in nature.

Hope you have a good weekend everybody!

ME vs. THE HOSPITAL: THE BLATANT NEGLECT OF MY MOM by Mike Gaeta

Stunned. Disgusted. Outraged. Sad. These were some of the different emotions I felt a little over two weeks ago when my mom was allowed to leave a hospital against my objections, and despite her being in an obvious psychotic state and not medically stable or cleared. I already knew that the mentally ill often receive grossly inadequate care at hospitals. I never imagined it would happen right in front of me.

My mom, initially,  was admitted for breathing complications and slurred, incoherent speech. Upon arriving, she was sedated and put on a breathing respirator. She would be in the hospital a total of six days. I arrived on the third day, Christmas Day. The nice facilities, spacious rooms and uncrowded intensive care unit told me right away that my mom was in a private hospital. Many members of the staff were young, seemingly in their twenties and thirties. One of the nurses, who began training in the ICU that very week, told me she was a recent graduate from Bakersfield State College. Her inexperience showed a bit in her demeanor as she lacked the level of empathy and friendliness the rest of the nurses showed. Overall though, for most of the stay, the staff treated my mom well and readily answered my questions and concerns, of which there were many.

I did wonder how or for how long her Medi-Cal was going to pay for this private hospital and knew there would be some wrangling over her discharge. There always is. Hospitals want indigent patients out as quickly as possible. This can lead to premature or inadequate discharges, as it has in the past with my mom. But for the most part, I was being appreciative of the reduced stress the hospital was providing. 

The quality of care dropped precipitously, though, on the sixth day. Beginning around 4:00 that afternoon, and over the course of several hours, my mom would become increasingly hostile and agitated. Eventually, she would become fully non-compliant with her medical treatment and, though still weak and unable to stand or walk, would try getting up from her hospital bed to leave the hospital. She, in fact, would start stating that she wasn’t in a real hospital. Almost immediately upon my mom showing an acute psychiatric episode, the hospital staff, particularly the administration, showed little to no desire to help me or my frail, sixty-four year old mother.

You can read more of Mike Gaeta's story on his blog at benevolentneglect.com

FEELING HELPLESS by Janet Hays

I stopped at a RiteAid tonight on St. Charles Ave and Louisiana. There was a guy in there who, at first, I thought was going to try to jump the line. Then I realized there was something not right with him. He was dressed in street clothes and clearly not an employee but his actions were confusing because he was acting like one. He walked up to the counter where there were a stack of papers, a microwave, and some unopened boxes of various products.

The man started to shuffle through the papers dropping some on the floor. He opened boxes of products and placed them in nearby baskets, reorganized the counter in no logical order, and put an empty plastic container in the microwave like he was cooking something but didn't turn it on.

When it was my turn to pay for my items, the cashier told me the man used to go to charity for help. I told her I thought it was sad that society does nothing to intervene to help people like him. She didn't volunteer to share her real thoughts until I got real about it. Then she agreed.

I was afraid the security guard might react but he was super chill. The guy walked out with some items. I was in the car by then watching to see if anyone freaked out. I was ready to protect him if I had to. A store employee was standing on the corner very upset (I think about the things the man had taken). The security guard didn't bat an eye, thank God, but how sad this man may never have the chance to be well because society protects his right to be sick while people laugh at him or are afraid of him because he's so confused.

The whole thing is deeply disturbing because I feel so helpless to help him and he was clearly very, very mentally ill. We can CIT* train the world, but if we can't treat and care for people to help them get well, what does it matter?

*CIT: Crisis Intervention Team Training is a program to help police officers react appropriately to situations involving mental illness or developmental disability.

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Rock Family Portrait: "We don't all look alike, and we don't always see eye to eye, but, as a family, we're rock solid."

Hope you have a good weekend everybody!

NOT GIVING UP - Anonymous

Jan is a member of my family mental illness support group. (Jan is not her real name.) She writes:

I got online to write you because I've had a tough week, but thinking of you and our support group helped. I so wish I could come to the meetings, but I pick up my kids after school and so it makes it really hard.

I'm writing to send you love and to essentially say I'm in awe of all the members of the group for enduring to the end with your ill family members. Jason (not his real name) is really hard to raise, and lately I've been really discouraged and have lost much of my joy over it. But truthfully, he's about 8 times better than he was plus he's starting therapy next week. Yay!

I keep looking at our situation and essentially thinking I only have 6-10 more years of trying to raise my kids through school. Maybe I'll create a breakthrough with Jason in the next couple of years and he will suddenly be controlled and respectful.

But then I'll think of our many group conversations and I'll remember that I may never really be done raising him. And once again, my spirit will become swelled up with an abounding sweet respect for all of you who are committed to your children in an extraordinary way -- with intense love and compassion, continuing to endure, worry, and often take care of your adult mentally challenged children.

Often (as it is for me), you're frustrated, sometimes feeling abused and taken advantage of, sometimes living in worry or fear for your children/adults. You hang onto two things: You were blessed with these human beings at birth or through adoption. You know they deserve better in life, and sometimes you succumb to the thought that you deserve better also.

And the other thing that is much easier to hold onto, is the deep down love you feel for them and the love you know they feel deep down as well. For me, that last part is easy. Jason is one of the few people who can get me to absolutely crack up.  It's easy to tell him, "I love you."  And he says it more often than anyone else does in my life.

So thanks for being a great example of not giving up. When I read your blog, it described to a tee what I'd been processing this past month and why I'd missed you and the support group so much lately. I'm proud of you for starting the blog and the conversation that each of us has to start with the greater communities.

Thanks for reaching out to me on your blog this night when I've felt so hollow and withdrawn. 

LISTENING by Heidi Franke

I made a video to show how I am learning. My son is better off the more I can learn. My "mistake" I just realized, though I am curious as always, was to ask him, why couldn't he just enjoy the morning without having to smoke pot? 

That very question implies a deficiency on his part, which was not my intention. But in the video I, notice his face and his mood the moment I say this to him. My question was not helpful to his self-esteem which he struggles with. My question, no matter how innocent it may appear, has an effect on my child. I think of all the things I have said and done in the past to try to understand my son's evolving mental illness. It could and should have been different. But, I do not hold that against myself. I can't. You can't know, what you don't know. 

I share this to help other parents. We must watch how and what we say to ourselves and our children struggling with a mental illness. I hope this helps one person. I see my son on Sunday in his residential treatment facility. I will be a better parent. I love him so much. I want the suffering for anyone to stop.

We just keep trying new things,that's all we can do. I am currently teaching a NAMI Family2Family class and preparing for next weeks class. It's about being able to define a problem. After reading the material, I realized a lot of my issues I put on him, so to speak. One of the best things a therapist said to me when I started this "journey" years ago when he was 14, is to stop talking. Just listen. I have never forgotten that advice. It helps in crisis and critical moments.

See Resources: "The Art of Listening in a Healing Way" by James E. Miller

Photo Credit: Heidi Franke
Mitchell, age 22, post suicide attempt. In between hospitals and jail time.

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Well, hello. Love this face. 

Have a good weekend everybody.

FALL CONNECTION by Dede Ranahan

My son, Pat, had a serious mental illness but that didn't stop him from being a caring friend. Always short on money, he found creative ways to be a thoughtful gift giver. One fall he sent a box of New England leaves to a friend living on the West Coast who was homesick for seasonal color. Friend and poet, Gary Thompson dedicated the following poem to Pat. It appeared in Gary's book, On John Muir's Trail, Bear Star Press 1999. I found the poem among Pat's few possessions after he died. Thank you, Gary.

          FROM CALIFORNIA

Your package of east coast
autumn leaves arrived
just as my life
needed connection to the seasonal
reds of my earliest falls
in Michigan.
I confess, young migratory friend,
the western dogwood beside my porch
is a stunning welcome
flame,
but I miss the maples more
each November spent
here where mostly oafish yellow big leaf
and vine imitations
drop their uninspired leaves.
I like to say maple,
my grandpa's eastern kind: mountain, silver,
red, and best of all -- the sugar
he coddled as a seedling
and loved until the budless spring
he died. Later, in forbidden Snow
Woods, I gathered red leaves
in my lunch box, afterlives
I spirited home
in the childhood dusk.
Your airmailed leaves spill
from a basket on my desk; my thoughts
blow east. I'll send
along a single heart-
shaped California
redbud leaf I've kept around
to ignite a day,
a fragile western find I found
might make me cry.

For Patrick Ranahan

A MOM'S POWERFUL REQUEST by Teresa Pasquini

CNN aired This Life With Lisa Ling Sunday, September 25, 2016 - "Welcome to America's Largest Jail."  Teresa Pasquini's (See post Teresa and Danny) reaction follows:

Photo Credit: Teresa Pasquini

I forced myself to watch this last night even though I knew it would hurt. My day had started with my daily phone call from Danny. When he calls the message states, "You are receiving a call from an inmate at Napa Department of Corrections." I always hate hearing that but then I accept the call and hear my boy's sweet voice and know that I have to pull it together and give Danny the best 10 minutes of his day. Hearing his voice is always one of the best parts of my day. But, it hurts. 

So, last night when I watched this segment inside the LA County jail system Danny was with me but many others were, too. My brother had once been arrested during a psychotic break in LA. I forget how we even knew he was there but I remember that both he and Danny were in crisis at the same time. I remember reaching out to the Contra Costa County Conservator who had helped me with Danny. He helped my elderly parents navigate the jail system in LA. He got him out of there and back home and into a hospital, thank God! He was a partner in care who I will always remember.

As I heard about the description of the "exploding mental health population" inside of the LA County jail system, I thought of my own county jail here in Contra Costa whose mental health population has also exploded. I thought of the staff I have come to respect so deeply here in my own county being exposed to the conditions described in this segment like gassing, assaults and the crumbling infrastructure. I thought of the safety and sanity of my partners in care, both law enforcement and health. I thought about how they too must continuously balance "constitutional rights and employee safety" and public safety. It is such a chaotic dance that I have come to know too well. 

But what hurt the most watching this segment, was the description of the mental health inmates being "chained to tables" and the casual comment that "we don't have the mental health facility in California right now..." that would provide the right care. I was screaming at the TV that California should have those facilities. We have the money from Prop 63/MHSA. Or, we had the money but where did it all go? Nobody knows according to the State Auditor, State Finance Department and Little Hoover Commission reports and audits. And now, there is a 60% increase in the jail mental health population. 

So, please remember that while California spends millions of mental health dollars on coloring books, yoga, hip/hop car washes and fluff, we CHAIN people with serious mental illnesses to tables. They are tortured by seclusion and inhumanity because we designed it this way and too few want to call it out. We ALL have to start calling it out...everywhere, everyday, every way. 

This segment should be required viewing for every MHSA Stakeholder group in CA and every county Supervisor who approves their county mental health budget. It should also be shown to every state legislator, Diana Dooley, California's Secretary of Health and Human Services and Governor Brown. Oh, and the U.S. Senate should be required to watch it before they leave on their "extended break." It is time to #PassHR2646 in the Senate and #GetReal63MHSA in CA.

Photo Credit: Teresa Pasquini

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On good days and not-so-good days, my kitty cat does something that makes me laugh.
Pets are the best!

Have a good weekend everyone.