A POEM FROM SALINAS VALLEY STATE PRISON by Jorge Fajardo, Jr.

Dear Ms. Dede Ranahan,

I would like to express my appreciation for you response to my letter. Also the card. It really reached me at a good time. Thank you. I'm sorry you lost your son. I couldn't begin to understand how you feel. I'm sorry. The blog is a very good thing.

I'm at the mental hospital now and a lot of way out things happen here and it's like no one cares for anyone here and a lot of people here don't even belong in prison because they're so far gone. It's sad they even got convicted when you can clearly see they weren't ever stable.

I find myself trying to help them and get yelled at by the cops to mind my own business like they thrive on their suffering. It's disgusting. My toilet was broken for two weeks with piles of feces in it. I asked if I could eat my lunch in the dayroom cause the smells made me nauseous and they said, "No, I got to eat in my cell."

I felt dehumanized like I was some kind of animal. Prison disgusts me. I'm tired of it. Receiving mail is my way out. So I appreciate that. I would never ask for anything else. Mail is a blessing.

Much respect,
Jorge

Lonely ways, depressing days,
How much time will I have to pay?
Pain in my chest, it gives no rest.
On lonely days.

Click, click, clack the door goes smack.
When the day begins.
Click, click, clack the door goes back,
When the day ends.

Over and over as the days go on.
When will this time end?
Only time can tell...

Till then, depressing days
Cause my lonely ways.

By Jorge Fajardo, Jr.

Read more correspondence from Jorge on this blog: April 25, 2018. Click on it in the Archives on the right side of the page.

Jorge has no family. You can write to him at this address:
Jorge Fajardo
#AN9115
Salinas Valley State Prison
(PIP) C-5-131-L
P.O. Box 1050
Soledad, CA 93960

Salinas Valley State Prison

Salinas Valley State Prison

A LETTER FROM CALIFORNIA STATE PRISON by Travis Christian

Dede,

I haven't been reading your book lately. I borrowed some books from someone at my church so I've been concentrating on finishing them. I want to do the exercises in your book. I cherish your book. I read it slow. I'm going to start reading it again. So now that you think I never read the book you got me jlk :-)

I still haven't heard if your visitor's app has been cleared. I'm looking forward to your visit.

The Carr fire has affected the air quality a little bit here, not too bad. We have been praying for the firefighters and families affected.

I'm getting along good with my new cellie. I play less guitar. We get tired of each other sometimes. But overall, I feel blessed to have my cellie. I like him a lot. We're building a friendship. He's like family. 

I still battle my mental illness. I've had some obtrusive thoughts that plagued me and made me fearful but I recognized they were just thoughts. I talk to my clinician about them.

Thank you for the birthday card. We don't get anything for birthdays. I'll probably work out and make something to eat. Thanks for the virtual cupcake :-)

Well, I'm glad you got to visit your daughters. I love Tahoe. I used to drive there to grocery shop sometimes when I lived in Mono County. I went to Carlsbad with my family one time. It's a nice area. What is the Retreat Center like in Encinitas? I mean what is a retreat center? Do you do something every year for the anniversary of Pat's passing?

I think of my dad all the time. I'm sorry for your loss. When I think about my dad, I smile. His memory is so fond to me, it's like a treasure I'll always keep. I can't wait to talk about Pat and him.

That's good your back to working on your blog. I know you helped my mom and myself. You helped my mom a lot. Thank you for doing what you do. I pray you continue to be a blessing to many more moms, dads, inmates, and mentally ill people. I pray God gives you the endurance to get your book published, the perseverance to see your dream come true, and the patience that produces character, and character that produces hope.

I am in contact with Jorge. My mom has been sending him cards and drawing material. He wrote me a poem so I wrote one back to him. He's my buddy. I write to him.

I'm sending good thoughts to you now. I look forward to meeting you. I'm going to seal this letter with love.

Love, Travis

See more correspondence with Travis on this blog: Feb 3, Feb 10, Feb 27, March 14, April 18, May 16, June 6, 2018. Click on the stories in the Archive on the right.

Travis's Mailing Address:
Travis Christian
BB8099
B1-2-11
California State Prison - Sacramento
P.O. Box 290066
Represa, CA 95671

California State Prison 

California State Prison

 

THERE'S NO LIMIT TO WHAT A MOTHER WILL DO by Theresa Assunto

My father told me, "No one said life was fair,
Put a smile on your face cause the world doesn't care.
Our family's there to help you through."
I found out that this isn't true.
I wish they'd help - an ear to listen, a heart to care.
They can't understand mental illness from fear.
Fear that it's in their blood and, if it's true,
It can happen to their children, too.
So they blame me, my husband, my son.
It must be something that we have done.
I struggle alone to understand the disease you can't see.
I wish for the person my son used to be.
I'll do anything, fight anyone, learn all I can
I wish I'd known when this illness began.
I could have helped my son sooner, maybe.
I should have listened to the mother in me.
There are days I cry for the future I dreamed he would live.
I cry because sometimes I think I've given all I can give.
I cry because I'm loving a boy who can hurt me so,
Feeling guilty because I can't take more, I want to let go.
Then the days happen when I see him once more,
The son with the gentle soul I adore.
He will fight this fight and I will too.
There's no limit to what a mother will do.
My world has become all about this disease,
Praying to God to help him please.
Tomorrow's another day and I fear how it will go
I have painfully learned that I never know.
Some day I believe we'll rise from this storm,
Until then I'll fight, and I will be strong.

WHAT PARENTS WANT FOR THE SERIOUSLY MENTALLY ILL by Dede Ranahan

A couple months ago, I was asked to write an opinion piece that became part of a week-long series on Pete Earley. I'm reposting it here with his permission.

Image 7-30-18 at 9.48 AM.jpg

Mother of Son Who Died In Psych Ward Asks NAMI To Do More. What Parents Want For The Seriously Mentally Ill

Posted: 11 Jul 2018 04:30 AM PDTMother of Son Who Died In Psych Ward Asks NAMI To Do More. What Parents Want For The Seriously Mentally Ill

(7-11-18) This is the second in a series of blogs about a telephone call conducted by a strategic consulting group hired by the National Alliance on Mental Illness that was held with parents of individuals with serious mental illnesses. A majority of the participants on that call were members of an organization called the National Shattering Silence Coalition.  Most were long time NAMI activists which is why I agreed to post their blogs. You can disagree or agree by commenting on my Facebook page. )

What NAMI Needs To Do by Dede Ranahan

My son, Patrick, suffered from serious mental illness (SMI). In 2014, he died in a hospital psych ward where I thought he’d be safe.

So why am I still here as a steering committee member of National Shattering Silence Coalition, and as a former Mental Health Policy Director for NAMI California? Passion, I guess.

An inability to walk away from so much suffering. 

In 2016, I set up a website and blog in honor of Pat’s life and memory. I began posting two stories a week from SMI family members.

This blog has turned into a first-person testament and running record of the horrors and struggles SMI families go through.

It documents their efforts  to try to get help for their loved ones. It highlights the voices of those who are losing their children to prison, the street, and/or to death. If NAMI is sincere about wanting to hear us and help us, it may be worth its members time to visit this website at Sooner Than Tomorrow: A Safe Place To Talk About Mental Illness In Our Families. 

On the recent phone call with NAMI’s strategic planning consultants, I listed seven points that I, as a parent and advocate, want NAMI National and the affiliates to give import and attention to:

1) Establishment of a Family SMI Council. NSSC wants to work within NAMI not outside it. It wasn’t clear on the phone call that this request is being given serious consideration.

2) Reclassification of SMI as brain/physical diseases. This would be a first step to gaining more parity in mental health care and more funding for research. It would also address stigma.

3) Remaking of HIPAA. When my son was on his last hospital journey, I couldn’t get a doctor to talk to me. I was on my son’s Advance Care Directive which we filled out together in good faith but that didn’t matter. Finally, after three weeks, a doctor called. He said, “I’m sorry. Your son died fifteen minutes ago.”

4) Assisted Outpatient Treatment promotion with regulations that it be delivered with respect and compassion.

5) Repeal of the IMD exclusion.  Sleeping on the ground is not better than sleeping in a bed.

6) Peer/Family Reconciliation: This point is a big one for me. When I worked for NAMI California over ten years ago, I wasn’t prepared for the hate and loathing that flew my direction from consumers who wanted nothing to do with talk about involuntary treatment, family rights, and anosognosia. I got it. These peers had suffered at the hands of our medical and judicial systems. They were competent and wanted to make independent decisions for themselves.

But families like mine had different stories about people so ill they couldn’t make good decisions for themselves, would never achieve meaningful recovery, and, if not for their families, would be in much worse circumstances.

Can we please acknowledge that all of us, peers and families, are suffering and that everyone’s experience is valid? Can we simultaneously acknowledge that everyone’s experience is not the same? We must seek a range of solutions to address needs across a spectrum. We need peers and families to work together.

7) Incarceration Reform: On my blog, I’m beginning to exchange correspondence with some mentally ill inmates in the California prison system. On 6/26/2018, I received a letter from a patient in a prison hospital psych ward. He writes:
“I’m at the mental hospital now and a lot of way out things happen here and it’s like no one cares for anyone here and a lot of people here don’t even belong in prison because they’re so far gone. It’s sad they even got convicted when you can clearly see they weren’t ever stable. I find myself trying to help them and get yelled at by the cops to mind my own business like they thrive on their suffering. It’s disgusting. My toilet was broken for two weeks with piles of feces in it. I asked if I could eat my lunch in the dayroom cause the smells made me nauseous and they said, ‘No, I got to eat in my cell.’ I felt dehumanized like I was some kind of animal.” 

NAMI must promote treatment not prison. It must be a watchdog against criminal and inhumane care of mentally ill prisoners.

This is a big, overwhelming list. I didn’t even mention the need for supported housing, for supported education, and for mental health/illness practitioners. There are many moving parts that must be prioritized and synchronized. NSSC wants to work with NAMI to address these issues.

Photo of my son before our world came undone.

Image 7-30-18 at 9.48 AM (1).jpg

About the Author: (Taken from National Shattering the Silence website ) Dede Ranahan established the Institute for Mental Illness and Wellness Education at Cal State Hayward, served as walk director for the first two NAMI walks in San Francisco, and was the first Mental Health Services Act Policy Director for NAMI California.

She also created the website, Sooner Than Tomorrow, A Safe Place to Talk About Mental Illness in Our Families. One section of the website publishes first person stories of families with serious mental illness. Another contains a diary that she kept from 2013 to 2014 not realizing she was capturing the last year of her son’s life. He died in 2014 on a psych ward where she thought he’d be safe.

Dede’s essay about serious mental illness, “A Canary in the Coal Mine,” is included in a new book, We Rise to Resist: Voices from a New Era in Women’s Political Action  available on Amazon.

The post Mother of Son Who Died In Psych Ward Asks NAMI To Do More. What Parents Want For The Seriously Mentally Ill appeared first on Pete Earley  

WHAT WOULD YOU DO? by Sherri McGimsey

Tomorrow, I have to go into a team meeting to discuss my son, Matthew, who suffers from schizophrenia. They want me to sign papers giving permission for them to start looking for a new placement for him. For my son and his beautiful mind. He has (for how many days?) been housed in a mental hospital ward, not the ideal place for your son to live but it’s the only place he’s been stable and safe for the past year.

After fourteen years of watching him suffer through depression, delusions, and overwhelming fear, (“Having a rough time“ — that’s what he would call the bad days) how does a parent do this? Sign their sick child away?

If you’ve never seen a young adult decompensate from schizophrenia, it’s like watching your loved one being tortured by his mind. You stand by helpless. Nothing you can do but love him enough to fight him to get the help he needs. I'm not sure if I’m brave enough to let him go after 53 odd hospitals stays, and five times tracking him down when he gets paranoid and does a walk-about. Will all the progress he's made, all the stability he's gained be lost?  

The only place they can find for him to live is far away. Too far for weekly visits, too far for passes on Saturday or Sunday afternoons, too far to cherish the few family moments this illness allows us. Moments others take for granted — to sit and relax, to walk the dogs, to just be with family.

Yesterday was the best he’s been in years. Finding a comfortable, safe, and caring place for him to live shouldn’t be so difficult. But it doesn’t exist — not for our children who suffer from serious mental illness.

So I sit here shaking and wondering if will we survive another calculated risk. Another shift that could send Matthew back into the dark of his illness. He fights the horrible betrayal of his mind, and I fight a system that is broken, and a world that really doesn’t understand the failure to help those who suffer with serious mental illness unless it happens to one of their own. 

I’m going to let this rest for now and enjoy the remainder of my day with our other son and his family. But tell me, what would you do if you had to walk into a meeting tomorrow and sign your sick child away? Would this broken system break your heart too?

 

Postscript:  I want to thank everyone who had us in your prayers and thoughts yesterday. You will never know how much that means when we're navigating the unknown of finding a forever home for our son with SMI. I would also like to say thank you to his team who has cared and worked to get him so stable.

I could not sign our child away.

There is no cure for schizophrenia. Stable is as good as it gets and I want Matthew this stable for as long as humanly possible. Sending you all thank you's, hugs, and love.

Matthew and Sherri

Matthew and Sherri