I HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT RESIDENTIAL CARE by Gloria Hill

I have a question for those who've had experience with public mental health systems in California.

I lived in California for 40 years and left seven years ago to move to Florida because we found a residential program for our son, Bret, that looked better than anything I saw in California. It's a beautiful campus on a lovely lake in an area that's close to other lakes, springs, Disney, and the beach. It didn't work out for my son and he left in August 2012.  Now we want to move back to California but the county where we lived and where I worked for Contra Costa Mental Health has been devastated. It wouldn't be smart to move back to a worse situation.

My question is this: Is there any county that has a decent, effective residential program, either public or private, that anyone can recommend? I know about the John Henry Foundation in Santa Anna but we aren't interested in living in Orange County and we want to be near to Bret so we can visit often.

I'd appreciate any information that anyone can share about a facility in California that's helped your adult child; about a place that offers a real program with psychiatric care. Our son's on meds and is very savvy. He just needs guidance at night and lots to keep him busy.

Please leave your suggestions for Gloria in the comment section below.

See Gloria's post, November 1, 2016: No Respite

 

Bret

Bret

I'M GONNA BRAG ABOUT MY SON by Harriet B.

This afternoon I texted a friend to come over and pick up a bunch of my son's nice hand-me-down clothes for her son. This is a woman we used to carpool to school with. She's my sister's best friend and knows that we've had many difficult years, and that this year has been especially difficult.

I don't know how much my sister has told her, but it's pretty well known that my son had to leave school (where her daughters attend) and is in a treatment facility (for bipolar, anxiety and substance abuse). 

Anyway, she blew in and immediately began talking non-stop about where her daughter had been accepted to college, where all the people in their class were going to college, how well her next two children were doing, how her daughter should marry so and so, and how so and so's kid didn't get into Stanford even though he made a 35 on his ACT and had straight A's. Blah Blah Blah. She seemed nervous and uncomfortable.

There we were, standing over a table of my son's clothes, and she never once asked me about him. It was if he's dead or worse, never existed. This woman knows me too well to have not said something. And then to go on and on about all the other kids — it was really bizarre.

I just keep telling myself that my son has dealt with more challenges than all these kids put together. So I'm gonna brag about my son, Thomas (he has a name). He's doing great on Zoloft. He's passed four of his five classes this semester. He hugged me over and over again during Christmas. He's more aware of his anxiety and is expressing his awareness of it more than ever before. He's talking to us about his substance use. He's participating in his medical treatment. He's as smart as any of those other kids. He's beautiful and loved and mine.

Thanks, ya'll.

Photo credit: Anthony19318/Flickr

Photo credit: Anthony19318/Flickr

THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU, KEVIN by Ron Powers

I want to thank all my friends, and kind people whom I don't know, for your messages of congratulations in recent days regarding the appearance of NO ONE CARES ABOUT CRAZY PEOPLE on end-of-year book lists in newspapers and magazines.

To the extent that NO ONE CARES ABOUT CRAZY PEOPLE has given solace to afflicted and bereaved families, I am glad. 

To the extent that it has encouraged direly needed discussion and education as to the unique and hazily understood nature of serious mental illness - a genetically inherited brain disease that as of now can be stabilized yet not cured - to that extent, I can take comfort in being of some small use.

To the extent that it has shown a light into the mangled, dysfunctional, shamefully mis-managed or unmanaged universe of mental health care (especially as it intertwines with the criminal-justice system, public policy and law enforcement), I can feel that, in the twilight of a long checkered writerly life, I have finally lived up to that romantic journalist's mandate to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."

And yet:

All of this (to invoke a goofy profound phrase I heard years ago and have kept in my heart ever since) is duck feathers in the wind.

I neither expect nor require any further external accolades for NO ONE CARES ABOUT CRAZY PEOPLE. 

No more lists, no awards - that will all be fine with me, my wife, Honoree, and my son, Dean. To desire or congratulate myself over any of these transient things, given what the book is about, would be unspeakably obscene.

NO ONE CARES ABOUT CRAZY PEOPLE is ultimately a consecration of my family - especially of our lost son and brother, Kevin, whose absence still wounds us every day, and whose presence still fills my nightly dreams with his heartbreaking beauty.

And so this book is for you, Kevin. It's the nearest I can come to making you permanent. Everything else is lagniappe.

Click here to see on Amazon.

Dean and Kevin

Dean and Kevin

THAT F@CKING BUMPER STICKER by Ray Weaver

This is rough...but it's my heart…

I got angry at a woman, today. I don't know her, and she doesn’t even know I'm alive. And yet, her very existence, well, more to the point, the existence of the bumpersticker on her car, filled me with a stupid, unreasonable rage.

That f@cking bumpersticker. 

You know the one. It’s festooned with the same innocuous slogan that is plastered on every minivan in America. “My kid is an honor roll student at YourTownHere Middle School.” Really? Who cares? Who really f@cking cares?

My daughter is an inmate at Clifton T. Perkins psychiatric hospital in Jessup, Maryland. There’s no bumpersticker for that.

So, good luck to you, lady, and your honor roll student. Believe me, that sh@t changes without warning. My daughter was an honor roll student, a world-class musician, an actress, a funny, well-loved kid with a beautiful smile and laughing eyes. Now she has schizophrenia.

Or is it bipolar? Or borderline? Or schizo-effective disorder? Or none of the above? The fact that she was diagnosed — or misdiagnosed — under virtually every category in the DSM-V (or is it IV?) is part of the tragedy that has tormented my daughter and my family since she was a child. Because after a being let down and abandoned by medical systems on both sides of the Atlantic, my beautiful daughter could fight no longer and succumbed to the demons that have haunted her for nearly all of her short life.

They raged through her body and soul, writhing like snakes beneath her skin, robbing her of the ability to think, go to school, work or even show the most basic of human compassion and emotion. Her life became a wasteland of days spent searching for and then wallowing in whatever she could find to self-medicate her pain and fear away. The demons had won, it seemed. 

Despite our best and constant efforts, my good wife and myself, weary from the fear-filled days and sleepless nights felt like all was lost. At least, we would often console ourselves, things couldn't get any worse. 

Until they did.

Ray

Ray

THE BEST TEACHER I'VE EVER HAD by Deborah Fabos

My son, James, is 34. I'm so proud of the man he's become, and grateful to everyone who's helped him get where he is today. Mostly though, I'm grateful for him.

You see, although I'd take away his illness if I could, his journey's made me a better person. Although I'd eliminate all the pain he's walked through, his pain's enabled me to be more compassionate. Although I'd give him back the life he knew before his symptoms took it all away, I'm grateful each day that he is alive and able to give and receive love.

This picture was taken in January 2017. James looks the same except that he's thinner now. There were so many times along the way that I never, in my wildest dreams, thought he could enjoy such a wonderful quality of life. Don't get me wrong, he can't hold a full time job and will never be totally independent, but he's accomplished so much more than we dared to hope for.

James

James

A wise man once told me that what I needed to do was give my son something he didn't want to loose. This was what I built everything on. It's a solid foundation. Of course, as you well know, doing it takes a village! 

Just a little back story because I understand how hopeless and overwhelming caregiving for our loved ones can be — the pain, the endless stress, the blocked paths to treatment, the grief, and the feeling of isolation.  For my son, his journey started before his birth, really. I was high risk due to having placenta previa and he was in fetal distress during labor. They couldn't find a vein for an IV so I could have a C-section so other methods had to be used. James was blue from a knot in the umbilical cord that was wrapped around his neck.

When James was in second grade, he was diagnosed with ADHD and we started behavior modifications along with medication. He continued with behavior modifications until he became so ill that they didn't work well.

James was always a gifted athlete. In his freshman year of high school, his coaches told him to look for college scholarships in basketball, baseball, and football. But, by age 15, his symptoms were  severe and he was put in a locked down facility out of state because he was still a minor. I appealed to the court to release him into my care so I could get him treatment. He needed treatment, not punishment, and it's in the right treatment that we found our hope. That's why I do what I'm able to help more find their treatment in time. 

My son's been and continues to be one of my greatest blessings and the best teacher I've ever had. I'm honored to know him and to have the privilege of being his mom.  At long last, he's at peace with his life. He's on the other side of his horrific journey. His kindness, gentleness, and his never giving up have lead him here. He's able to enjoy the present and let go of what once was.