My name is Teresa and the mother of a beautiful talented artistic creative kind and pleasant human. seems like since her illness I speak of her in past tense as if she’s gone somewhere. because she has in a way she’s not the same. Haley was 20 when she came out of her room with her hair in a knot from the very top of her scalp to very end of her 2 ft long hair and couldn’t comb it. And I combed and worked and calmed and worked and homes in brushed until I finally had to cut a lot of it out to get it from down when I asked her what happened she said Mommy and I don’t know I can’t comb my hair. now this was odd for Haley because she was very particular about her clothing her hair her nails everything had to be just right. There were other things that were going on with her prior. All of her food had to be bought in a package and sealed and if she was sending YOU to the store you would call her from the cell phone and she would say okay mommy don’t take the first shampoo off the shelf take the third one as if she was scared of a certain bottle of shampoo or certain package that might have previously been opened. I didn’t think much of those things BUT when she came out of her room and couldn’t comb her own hair. I knew something was drastically wrong.

Haley had been spending a lot of time with this much older guy who was giving her meth and I think this was adding to her confusion and what was wrong with her she would go up there and stay for 2 or 3 days at a time and then she would come back home and she be screaming and crying and and clawing at her face crying saying she’s so sad and can’t do this anymore and please mommy help me help me Mommy make it stop. I called the guy several times and asked him to stop giving her methamphetamines he would not listen he thought I was crazy he said she was fine when she was up there that the only time they had a problem with her was when she was back down here then other things started happening like one time she barricaded herself in My Sister’s Closet for 3 days without eating or drinking or going to the bathroom that episode ended her in the hospital I think she came home with some medications but at that point was still non-compliant with the doctors plans and I had no rights to make her take medications or to make her go to the doctor’s appointments because she was an adult.

Another occasion I would be looking for Haley and she would be at times on top of the people’s RV down the street with my blankets and like cups and like a whole kitchen worth of stuff on top of somebody’s RV with blankets and all cuddled up and made herself a little home up there we don’t even know the people another time I found her inside of a brown paper box across the street where they have been doing construction the box was made for a toilet and she was inside of it when I asked her Haley what are you doing here I’ve been looking all over for you and she looked up at me like a little tiny girl that she was and said Mommy I don’t know why I’m here I don’t know. several phone calls to the Sheriff’s Department to the behavioral health to the doctor’s office give me no answers all I got told was you have no right she’s an adult she has a right to not take medicine if she wants to she has all of her rights to make decisions about her life one Sheriff actually shared a story with me that he had seen my daughter eating garbage out of a garbage can and therefore it proved that she was not Gravely disabled because she could provide for herself on her own. what kind of a system considers eating out of garbage can proof that a human being can care for their selves. I just wonder if it was the sheriff’s daughter that was eating out of the garbage can wand just walk away and allow that to happen and that would be okay with and just walk away and allow that to happen and that would be okay with him. Wow.

One day when Haley became super agitated when she got back from doing meth in me what she took off running when the sheriff came around the corner and they tried to catch her and she got away she was gone for about 3 days it was in the newspaper we made flyers trying to figure out where she was we finally got a search and rescue group together and they started looking and she was on channel 58 news as a missing child and finally they found her with a child molester. it was the same child molester who called me about a month later saying that he saw Haley walking down the railroad tracks holding her private area and crying I tried to find her but could I call the sheriff and let them know that I was looking for her and what had been told to me.

When I did catch up to Haley I took her to her doctor because she told me that she had got assaulted all night long on the railroad tracks by homeless men when the doctor and did his exam he he had missed the rectal tearing on the first exam and he did a chlamydia test and it came back positive. I was devastated to know how badly my daughter was injured and when I called a sheriff to ask him how do I go about reporting this he said there really is no way for you to report something like this from a week ago and how will a girl with schizophrenia who has delusions be able to report delusions and be able to tell them apart from real life. when most of her delusions are of people raping her. this made me so angry to know that I had no rights to help my daughter on top of that I took my daughter to the Center for nonviolent community and she wouldn’t get out of the car because she’s sick and scared and they said there was nothing they could do to help him if she didn’t want the help herself because again she had her rights. This was my chance to get a lawyer and maybe I could change the law.

No I live in a rural area and I guess we don’t have a lot of mental health Advocates nor a very strong mental health department here we do have a thing called the drop in and we have a Enrichment Center where they can take showers because most of the mentally ill people here are homeless and we just let him just live homeless and camp out on the outskirts of town I’m not sure why this happens to these people I guess their parents turn their backs on them and just can’t deal with their drug abuse and they just wash their hands of them and let them live like that for me I absolutely cannot stand the thought of my daughter living in a homeless camp. For a moment there she was doing it she was living with some guy in a homeless count down in there and I would March my butt down there and I would pull her out say come on let’s go let’s go to the store let’s go do this let’s go to that anything to get her out of there. Then as time went on the meth would come and go and she finally had another break where she was cutting plants and oleanders and she made a plate of these plants and set it at the table and poured liquid lighter fluid all over it I called the sheriff that day and this was after she had locked herself in the garage and it was 110 out there and Behavioral Health had been to my house and said well she has a right to lay in the garage if she wants to so anyway right after that she made the plate of weird food I called the sheriff and she took off running and they caught her down at the end of the street and I think that was a turning point the doctors kept her that time for about 2 weeks and gave her medications and she kind of got straightened out but again came home and didn’t take the medication and didn’t want to do the follow-up.

I got the papers together and I filed for conservatorship so I can make doctor appts and get birth control. The latter I’m still struggling with but I do have her on medication now. she has come so far from those days of total and complete chaos and Sheriff calling on a almost daily basis and Behavioral Health Emergency Line almost on a daily basis. Don’t get me wrong we still have some really kooky days but both of us have learned to deal with this together I love my daughter and I love how strong she is and she faces some very hard situations that I don’t understand and she gets through them somehow and I just keep hugging her and loving her when she will let me and every once in awhile and incredible moment will happen and she’ll look over at me and say Mommy and I’ll say yeah she’ll say Mommy thank you. I’ll ask her thank you for what Haley and she’ll say just thank you and it makes my heart so happy and every once in a while she’ll tell me Mommy I love you and thank you. Occasionally she will even hold my hand. those moments that keep me going and keep me strong and they keep on letting me know that God is working in our lives and making all this be okay

Under the clothes with a funny story in the beginning I couldn’t keep Haley dressed she would cut up all of her clothes until her arms would be hanging out and arm holes would be so big you can see her belly button it would drive me crazy because she would be half naked and she would wear hardly anything well now that she’s been on medication she wears long black t-shirts and leggings all the time.