WHAT AN EFFING NIGHTMARE by Laurie Lethbridge Christmas

My son was in a locked ward psych unit involuntarily because he was a danger to himself (having schizophrenia and being off meds for eight months). He was psychotic and was losing weight because he'd not been cooking and eating. He didn't understand why he was there. He kept insisting that no one had the right to hospitalize him against his will. He asked to see a mental hygiene lawyer and, when she refused to get him out of the psych unit, he punched her.

My son was arrested and removed from the psych ward and taken to jail. He was charged with misdemeanor assault and sat in jail for a month. He was on no meds while in the hospital or the jail. I wrote a letter to the judge asking that he be re-hospitalized and he was then sent to an upstate hospital which was really a prison. He was in a section for pretrial detainees and his rights were more restricted than they were in the county jail. He sat there for eight months before they finally took him to the local mental health court down the street where an involuntary medication order was finally granted. All in all, he was 18 months without meds. Then, to add insult to injury, the charges against him for punching the attorney were upped to felony assault.  Why would the state charge a psychotic ill person with assault while in a locked psych ward? And why would a  lawyer, who is supposed to be an advocate, push the DA to raise the charges to a felony? And why did they let him sit so long without meds?  What an effing nightmare!

My son took his meds and was stable for 10 years before all hell broke loose. When it did, I started calling everyone I could find related to his issues — doctors, lawyers, and advocacy groups. Even NAMI (no help there). I was on the phone almost daily for a year. No one would help. I have a stack 5 inches thick of everyone I called. Then I had to stop for a minute. I was burned out. I even started a Facebook page for parents to no avail. This shit started in October 2012 and was not somewhat resolved until July 2014.

I still can't get over that my son sat in a psychiatric hospital for eight months without meds. My rage is often right under the surface and I have to take a break once in a while to keep my wits. After 2014 it was still a mess and it got bad again in 2015 even though my son was switched to monthly shots of abilify. He became psychotic again. The fight to get his meds changed took another year and a half. My son is somewhat stable now, but the 18-month psychotic breaks twice, caused some brain damage.

Laurie and her son

Laurie and her son

BUY THIS BOOK - by Anne Schmidt Francisco

Look what Amazon brought us today. Call it insane, screwed-up, broken or whatever you want but the US mental health industry took our son, Josh, from us by denying him access to care when he desperately needed it. The industry is like a robber, stealing the lives of people and wrecking families across the country. Our friend and author, DJ Jaffe, has been fighting the inadequate system for 30 years. Please buy it and read it and send one to your US Representative. Take it to your local library and ask them to purchase a copy. Nothing will change until we all become educated and speak up. Thanks to all for your support. ❤️

 

Anne and ThurmanInsane Consequences - How the Mental Health Industry Fails the Mentally Ill by DJ Jaffe 

Anne and Thurman
Insane Consequences - How the Mental Health Industry Fails the Mentally Ill by DJ Jaffe

 

ASK AND HONOR by James Callner

In 1994, I lost my brother Dale to cancer. He was only 46 years old. Being five years younger, I always looked up to him for his great accomplishments and humor. He was a child psychologist, a wonderful father to his two children, and a compassionate, intelligent, and funny man with a dry wit.

 He was my brother. I miss him daily.

Dale’s cancer was terminal, and he was hanging on one day at a time. The OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) I was dealing with at the time made me extremely anxious about getting on a plane and flying from California to Seattle to visit him. I call this “the harming fear.” Some define it as a “hyper-responsibility obsession.” In my case, it was obsessive, magical thinking that I could harm my brother by my presence, or a simple touch, thinking that I possessed some kind of deadly, magical germs. This obsession overwhelmed me. And it restricted me from doing many things with my family. This was a defining moment.
.
My brother was dying. What could I do?

I was filled with guilt and self-judgment about whether I could visit him. It would mean taking the risk of getting on a plane, flying to Seattle, and pushing through my debilitating “harming obsession” that was now in full gear. I wept for not taking the risk to get on a plane. The
shame was intolerable. I did something that I was not raised to do as a child. At night, I got on my knees and prayed to God to help my brother. It was beyond painful for all of us in the family. And my anxiety and panic went through the roof because I was about to lose my brother. I was riddled
with guilt and didn’t know if I should or could push through my fears to see him.

Then, I had an idea that would last a lifetime. I thought, “Okay. I have OCD. My brother is in bad shape. I should go there and be with him and his wife. But I haven’t asked him if he wants me to come.”

The key word was “ask.” So I did. I called him on the phone. “Dale, do you want me to come out to Seattle to see you?”

He responded quietly and compassionately, “No, I really don’t have a need to see you.” Dale was not trying to take care of me because we didn’t have that kind of relationship. I didn’t take his response as an insult, for we had a phone relationship for many years. He was simply being honest. I heard it as, “I’m in bad shape and don’t want company right now, so let’s continue our
phone relationship. I’m good with that.” And that’s what we did, with our last conversation
ending with a mutual “I love you.”

Not long after those last words, my beeper went off one night. It was my mother’s number. I knew why she was calling. Dale had passed. My brother’s memory lives on. His spirit lives on. His
energy lives on. I know at a deeper level that our last words to each other, “I love you,” will live on too.

The lesson of asking what my brother wanted and needed, and honoring the answer, was yet another tool for my own recovery and a lesson for all of my relationships. How does that relate to OCD? Those of us dealing with OCD have to open our mouths and ask for what we need
and want in order to take care of ourselves. It’s empowering.

Excerpt from James Callner's book, It's a Matter of Trust - How I Got Better from OCD with Compassion, Help & Hope.
 

 

I'M ON A MISSION - by Dede Ranahan

When I began hosting my blog last year, I set a goal for myself to post two stories and one HAPPY PIC a week. Piece of cake. Right? Wrong.

First, there's the issue of posting something versus posting something worthwhile. Anyone can offer drivel week after week. I don't/won't do drivel. 

Second, where does a blogger get her ideas? I certainly don't think of myself as an over-flowing font of blogging brilliance. That means I need heartfelt submissions from people in the know. People on the front lines of serious mental illness.

Now and then stories (like yesterday's "Dead Boy Walking") come to my blog over the transom, but that doesn't happen often enough. Some days I go fishing and troll for stories that resonate. Sometimes, for appropriate reasons, I approach someone about telling his or her story and they decline. More often, thankfully, storytellers respond positively. I make a few edits, send the edits back to them for their approval, and together we craft finished stories. Some are a couple of pages. Some are a couple of paragraphs. The blog that achieved the greatest reach, so far, is actually a video.

But I never know. As of this moment, I have one story in the queue.

Let me be clear. This blog is a labor of love. I'm not looking for sponsors. I foster no monetary aspirations. (In fact, this little endeavor is costing me money. I'm working, right now, with a web designer to get my website ready to host two blogs — the current blog and a new blog, my book, Sooner Than Tomorrow - A Mother's Diary.) So every story that comes to me puts a skip in my day. No. More than a skip. A  bounce. When my blog's working, I feel like I've found that magical place where my passion meets my talent. 

People tell me I'm on a mission. I am on a mission. We have to make the case for effective, compassionate care for the seriously mentally ill, and to do that we have to tell our stories. Stories about tragedies that could have been prevented. Stories about the need for beds and housing. Stories about outrageous HIPAA laws that prevent us from helping those we love. Stories about our missing and homeless children and mothers and fathers. Stories about our sons and daughters in jails and prisons and solitary confinement without treatment. And on and on...

We have to do this. Nothing else is working. Not healthcare. Not government. Not prisons. Not advocacy organizations. Everything's fraught with hidden agendas, bureaucratic incompetence, and self-interest. Or lack of interest. As Ron Powers says in his eloquent book by the same title, "No one cares about crazy people."

I hear many of you in the mental illness community say, "So much has happened I could write a book." I believe you could write a book. Why not warm up here? Let's bombard the public with accounts they won't be able to ignore. Send me your stories.

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."
Maya Angelou

        Patrick Ranahan 1968 - 2014                    My inspiration 

        Patrick Ranahan 1968 - 2014
                    My inspiration

 

DEAD BOY WALKING by Crystal Burks

When a mother's heard she's having her first son, it's a joyous event. I'd talk to my in-utero infant all day expecting his arrival in early 2000. He was a millennium baby — healthy pregnancy, healthy birth and hit all his milestones. He didn't even have any terrible two's. But about four, something happened. Something took my happy, charismatic, easy-going child and left a haunted, tortured, angry little boy.

We all know the next steps: intake, psych evaluation, diagnosis, prescriptions. It seemed to work for a while but it was intake after intake, drug after drug, and he was finally given the labels of ADHD, Bipolar Disorder, Oppositional Defiance Disorder, and the missing daddy syndrome (not a DSM5 diagnosis but, in the world of social work, a label for majority of low income boys).

I had no family and four children by the time my son was eight. At that point, he was so out of control I'd have to restrain him. He was kicked out of schools, daycares, and play groups and kids constantly taunted him. Then there were the voices. The voices told him to steal, climb through  windows, and beat on his sister. More drugs.

By the summer of 2008, my son was so dangerous to himself and his siblings, he was taken to a group home. Worst choice.  There, he was physically and emotionally abused. I yanked him out and off the countless drugs they had him on.

Fast forward to 2014. He began smoking cigarettes and marijuana, and stealing to get the money for his habits. He became abusive to his siblings. I continued to report this to the various agencies yet all they could say was, "He isn't dangerous enough to remove. However, if something happens to his siblings, you will be charged with failing to protect them."

I was told, if I wanted him removed, to call CPS. So I did, and they laughed at me and opened a case against me for neglect. I had a total of four open cases against me due to his behavior, yet he still wasn't dangerous enough. He was arrested for domestic violence against his little brother and was sent back home two days later. My two younger children were terrified of him at six-feet-three-inches and 350 pounds . He threatened to burn his sister with cigarettes, to kill his family, and slice my throat, and still he wasn't dangerous enough. My daughter now suffers from depression, anxiety, and low self esteem from the emotional abuse she's endured.

My son was arrested six times for possession and theft and all the system did was hand me a court date. It basically told my son that he was above the law and that if I or his step-dad attempted to physically discipline him, he should call the police. I was told by the court that he had to get enough arrests or seriously hurt someone before law enforcement would step in. This monster-sized kid, with a really bad anger problem, was shown that he could do what he wanted and face no consequences.

Finally, in March of last year, my teenage boy was recognized as needing services. He'd refused his medications and had a psychotic break. I admitted him to an emergency stabilization unit in town and then he was sent to a psychiatric hospital, and then to an inpatient facility for two months. In the meantime, I'd lost countless jobs, dropped out of college five times in six years, and fell deep into debt and depression. All the while, the law and therapists threatened me that I'd be liable for anything that happened.

He went through the first round of treatment only to come home and return to his same ways. He smashed a two-foot-by-two-foot hole through his bedroom wall. He went back for treatment to an expensive group home that gave him unlimited food and activities — basically, a vacation. He returned home and started misbehaving again. He refused his medication, got high and abused his siblings. I lost another job because of depression. Back to a high-priced group home with food, cable games, and outings. A home where somebody thinks two months of playtime is rehabilitation. A home where somebody thinks that's enough time to undo all the damage.

My son will be 18 in less than a year. As it stands, he has no high school credits, no real job history, and no motivation to do anything but drink, get high, and run around with drug dealers. Everything I've tried has been a waste of time and money. Had somebody listened to me years ago, had the system used less stringent criteria for the removal of an at-risk youth, had the funding been in the right place instead of on ball parks, my son may have a had a chance. They may have been able to help him and he may have had a future. But no, the system created a monster who lives by no rules, and has to answer to no one including me.  Everyday, I worry I'll get a call from either the police or the hospital. Everyday, I worry I'll come home to my son's suicide because he stopped his meds and drank too much, or worse, did a different drug he knew nothing about.

My son's a dead boy walking. It's too late, now, thanks to a system that cares more about quota than quality of care. The saddest part is there are thousands of people in this situation and yet the powers that be keep taking resources away. My heart hurts for anyone who suffers these terrible disorders and is ignored. I was asked, once, if I had one wish what would it be. I replied, "To heal all the ugliness, disease, and horror from every heart in this world." It's possible, but it will take a miracle. God bless. 💙