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Photo Credit: Marisa Farnsworth

Pumpkins! Ponderous Pumpkins!
Hope you have a good weekend everybody!

BE YOUR BEST SELF MINUTE BY MINUTE by Heidi Franke

In court with my son, Mitchell. He was doing a good job with self-surrendering on a drug possession charge, but as most know, he had attempted suicide and now has a new diagnosis of schizoaffective bipolar type. His drug possession charge was from the time he was psychotic and feared there were several men in his apartment with guns. He used a bat and broke out his window and used a neighbor's phone to call 911. The police did a sweep of his apartment and found meth. My son was delusional and beginning to have increasing symptoms of a serious mental illness. The drugs exacerbated, if not quickened, his decline in executive functioning. Thus his pending charge.

I let my son stand on his own in court and it started going the wrong way and he had no public defender. We had been cued by the mental health attorney what to say. It was a state case. I had to slowly step to my sons side just as the judge was going to take my son into custody. I said, "No!" Calmly I explained the course of his co-occurring mental illness with drug use. A nice legal defender stepped up to help. I was in tears at that point, and my son was quiet just waiting to see what would happen to him.

I would have been the mother in court holding my son back from the bailiff taking him. My son is mentally ill and doesn’t belong in jail. If he went in without his meds, it would be horrible. You see, my father was mentally ill with bipolar disorder and was untreated until the last 6 months of his life. He was in his 80's. 

I was just 12 when we landed in LAX and the FBI took my father into custody as we de-boarded the plane. My father wasn't with us so I went back. The FBI was putting him in handcuffs and taking him away. I remember holding onto my father, crying and begging them not to take my father. A little girl tried to take control of something beyond what her mind could grasp. If I was only strong enough to hold on they wouldn't take my father away. I remember someone pulling me off of my father and then the world fell apart. So yesterday, that little girl saved her son who could not save himself.

I remember, in my tears, the judge saying he understands about mental illness but I don’t think he really did. There was a court clerk looking up data and feeding information to the judge that I can't recall. Then I heard a recommendation from a prosecuting attorney to drop the warrant. I told them over and over Mitchell was just released from the hospital and, though the drug charge is real, there was a much bigger picture.

They saw a parent with knowledge and accountability willing to take care of her son. We left together, a court date reset. We went to a very nice case manager with pretrial services who asked Mitchell to check in by phone everyday. It was close. Please do not give up, whatever your struggle is in life. Be your best self minute by minute. Stand up for those less fortunate. Be a voice. Believe.

Photo Credit Heidi Franke
Mitchell Franke

Follow up note from Heidi this morning:  Mitchell moves to sober living home today. I am proud of his work. The bigger tests will keep coming. He still wears a gps ankle bracelet for mental health court. His mind and attitude are healthy. It's just fighting the brains attempt at hijacking the vunerable that will keep me worried. I hope he engages in new pursuits. There will be people around him to help.

ACCEPTANCE by Sherry Hunter

My son's diagnosis with schizophrenia is the monumental lesson that finally got through to me.

Life isn’t about finding those perfect sets of rules. It’s about seeing my own child, other people’s children, and other adults behaving in ways that society may find "unacceptable," and then challenging my own prejudices and reactions. It’s about learning to broaden my narrow perceptions of normal, thinking carefully about what others mean when they say “different,” and how I define happiness.

Photo Credit: Sherry Hunter
Mitchel and his therapy dog Charles

Note: Today is Mitchel's birthday.  Sherry writes on Facebook:  "Thirty-two years ago today, a beautiful, dark haired, 10lb baby boy came into this world. I named him Mitchel John. You, Mitchel, have brought so much happiness into my life. When you came into this world, you brought a love into my heart that I had never before experienced. May you always know your worth and how incredibly precious you are! As your mom, it is my privilege to impart these important truths to you."

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MITCHEL!

CAN I JUST HAVE A MINUTE TO FALL APART? by Kendra Burgos

Photo Credit: Kendra

There’s a sadness that gets into your bones.  It climbs on your back and weighs you down, seeps into your lungs and clenches on to your every breath.  It lays in the empty space where your loved one should occupy. It’s the dead air on the other side of a telephone line.  It takes the song out of your voice, and the words out of your hands making it taxing and difficult to get it on paper.  That is the sadness, if you’ve ever felt it you know what I mean.  If you’ve never felt it than I am happy for you. It comes once you’ve gotten too comfortable, when your shoulders start to come down, and you begin to feel like you can actually breath again.  This type of sadness doesn’t just creep up on you, this is the kind that hits you like a brick and leaves you reeling, trying to find your bearings. It is the caregivers sadness.

I don’t have a mental illness but I live with it.

I am the wife of mental illness. I am the mother of mental illness.

I have been silent for the last couple of weeks, so overwhelmed from the current state of events that have taken over our family. The depths of my emotions so cutting and deep its hard to put into words.  I am numb. I feel like the wind has been knocked out of me. I feel beat and broken.  It’s my own fault. When things are level you have your everyday ups and downs you take those good times for granted because it just becomes normal.  You forget how bad it can get when your loved one is not well.  We know that life with mental illness is unpredictable.  One day everything seems fine only to come crashing down on you the next.  There are of course the signs that you’re heading for imminent disaster, but by the time you begin to notice that something’s off often times its too late.  The disease comes roaring at you like a lion. You're caught before you even had time to run.  We are caught.

With mental illness, when things are good you start to get a false sense of security, you start to breathe a little easier. Hoping maybe this time everything will stay level and we can just be, but mental illness is cruel it doesn’t work like that.  Eventually it comes creeping through the door.  Bipolar came pounding on the door. I begged you not to answer but you let it in any way.  It took you far away and in your place left the madness.

We’ve been for a long time, level, balanced navigating the course. It lingers in the background, the mental illness. It’s present in our lives but it’s certainly not the focus of it.  It’s just a chronic condition that is managed with medication. Much like any chronic condition you take your required medication, regularly check yourself to make sure your on the right course, stay up to date with your doctor, live a heathy lifestyle and that’s it.

He’s done well to keep it at bay. This isn’t the kind of thing where he’s non med-compliant, in and out of hospitals trying to find the right formula. He provides for the family and holds a job. He’s a skilled worker.  He knows his limitations and I’ve done my best to protect him as well as I could from the everyday stressors and burdens, especially since Ranee became ill.  But it wasn’t enough.

You can only help, offer advice, provide support but you can’t control someone else’s thoughts and actions.  You can’t live inside someone else’s brain to really see what’s going on in there.  How it processes information, or reasons on what they feel is best for them.  You can only trust that they’ll make decisions based on the well-being of everyone not just themselves. The mind can be deceptive, but a mind that’s been overrun by mental illness is a battlefield of sorts.

We’ve been through so much together, things that can test the bounds of a relationship --  loss of a parent, loss of dear friends, financial stresses, teenagers that question a faith they once clung to. We’ve ridden the storm with a sick child. We did that together.  We weathered the seasons of change and the storms of our life together.  Now for the moment it feels I am weathering this storm alone.  I am fighting for him and he fights against me.  In his delusion I am the enemy, not trusting his judgment that he’s okay.  He is not okay, we are not okay.

How do you care for someone who doesn’t think they are ill?  Caught up in the grip of sickness they believe they are fine, blind to how far off course they’ve become.  The ones closest, bending over backwards to care for their needs take the brunt of the abuse.  For the moment their world revolves around them as it rightfully should. They are sick. There’s little appreciation, or recognition. Most of the work of the caregiver goes unnoticed while the faults are layed bare.

As much as you want to place blame -- they should have stayed on the meds, they should have said something sooner, they should have….it doesn’t matter because you just have to deal with what’s in front of you. You can’t reason with someone who is not well.  Your voice falls silent.  Except you can’t stay quiet. It is your job to be the voice of reason. The doctors look to you. Your loved one is looking to you to be their voice.  But in sickness they don’t like what they hear.  In wellness there are things that you discuss, an emergency preparedness plan of sorts.  They ask if you start to notice them doing this or acting this way, the red flags.  Say something do something.  But sometimes it’s just too late. He won’t remember half of what was said and done when the mania ultimately subsides.  I will be left to sort out what the madness has done in impulsiveness.  He won’t remember but I will.  And love will cover that.

Read more of Kendra's story on her blog: mamatothemadness.com

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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.