Hi. I am sharing this story in the hopes that others have had similar experiences and would like to know if you had a successful resolution. I have a history of family mental illness. One brother has schizophrenia and the other is showing signs of mental illness for some time now, however, his is complicated with abusing medication which continue to be prescribed by his psychiatrist. Anyway….he lives with my parents and last week he had an episode where he was at the house behaving very dilusional and aggressive toward my parents. My dad called 911 in the hopes that they would come and help calm him and get him to a psychiatric facility. In the course of the call my brother ran out of the house, jumped in a car, and took off. My dad followed him and told the 911 dispatcher where he was. Shortly later, three police cars pulled my brother over and instead of trying to help get him to a facility - they arrested him for a DUI because he admitted to taking medication that day. Kept him in jail in a freezing cold detox cell overnight until my parents could bail him out. Now, we are trying to battle a DUI on top of getting him the proper psychiatric/rehab treatment. Anyone else have similar experiences? What did you do?

It’s time to lobby for sharing of information between parents, therapists, schools, police, gun sales outlets and others involved when young adults are showing signs of distress. HIPPA laws are well-intentioned but too many young people are falling between the cracks during the time when major mental illness sets in (late teens thru mid twenties.) This, of course, is the age when families and care providers lose the right to discuss the individual’s behaviors among themselves, based on HIPPA laws (unless the patient is willing to sign releases). The current scourge of killings by young people must be addressed through a multi-systems approach.

Two of my own children have mental illnesses. Fortunately, they’ve never had violent tendencies. But when my daughter and son became adults, I suddenly lost the right to advocate for them, which caused a terrible wrench in their treatment and care. I think HIPPA mental health laws should extend to when a youth is 23 or even 25 years old.

My mother’s manic depression and alcohol abuse has affected my family tremendously. It has lead to a lot of fighting and turmoil, and has now ultimately lead to her husband, my step-dad, divorcing her. He has been through so much pain and the history of her hurting him is irreversible. For the past 7 months or so, she has been in and out of a mental health facility where she stays for a period of 3 to 5 days at a time. She is on medication, but because of how much alcohol she consumes, I fully believe the medication doesn’t get a chance to do what it is supposed to do for her brain. She is a beautiful mess. Today, I will be visiting her at the facility, where I hope to learn that they will also help her with her alcohol abuse, as they have failed to do so in the past. My job today, is to also make sure we have a set plan/course of action for her because we as a family cannot keep doing this every 2 months or so. The Mental Health system needs to change in that they continue to help the patient after they have left the facility, even if it’s years from now. Bipolar and depression is a lifelong battle, and she needs and army to help her the rest of her life.

One last thing I’d like to add: the Mental Health system also needs to change in that my mother should not have to go through the ER first, where they make her wait an average of 7 hours, so that she can get admitted into the mental health facility. That is just ludicrous. The Mental Health facility should have their own program where she can walk in, get physically checked and admitted in a reasonable amount of time. The ER is the wrong section of the hospital for her, and she becomes worse in those 7 hours they force her to wait.

The recent incident in Santa Barbara, Ca. brings a lot of thoughts, to share.  For one, the National Mental Health System is weak and broken in this country.  The laws are a blur, action when needed is far removed.  This serious epidemic continues to escalate right beneath our eyes, and we do nothing.  For example in this recent situation, the cops show up at this guys house before the killings.  Do they search it no, better yet do they access a national gun control manifest to see if he owns guns, no.  Does anybody jump in and put this kid under watch, lock him up, no.  Why because with the screwed up laws in our country you can’t only if suicide attempt is being made.  His father and mother knew he was off, yet did they grab anybody of authority, mental health specifically and raise the awareness for action to take place, no.  Or let’s say they did, could an authority detain and examine this individual, maybe look at his videos and manifest, what about his 3 room mates that were killed?  How does this stuff go on right underneath our noses, and not addressed?  Again no proactive approach to these type of situations, no program in place, no funding to extend the program where it needs to be, including for our veterans who come back from the battlefield, torn and tortured mentally.  Not enough, never to soon, too late!  All of it. 

When is this country going to wake up and realize that there is a problem facing us in every sector, a problem that needs to be aggressively addressed and not handled delicately rather abruptly and swiftly, and without hesitation.  All the victims in this country, lives leveled by murder and torture, some could have been saved if we as a country took Mental Health with the seriousness that it requires.  If more people got involved and actually talked to one another rather than text or emailed or social media.  A convergence directed at those who need help could just save those who have died unnecessarily.

I blame the government Federal, State and Local.  For not spending the money that is needed to put programs and shove awareness in each and every one of our faces.  Too much emphasis on gay, racial or other political agenda.  All of us are affected by this, and might just be an innocent victim someday.  How about a national, and local hotline specifically for these kind of problems.  Rather we have 911 lines for every single incident that happens, no specific for Mental Health problems and I am talking the whole circle of problems that are Mental Health related.

People react to stress differently, we don’t know what goes on inside another’s mind, we don’t know if one will “act out” their twisted thoughts or they are just thoughts.  But in this case, the guy had been posting videos, wrote 140 pages, purchased multiple firearms and lived with 3 roommates.  HELLO, enough signs for someone, or some institution to have taken a hint.

A Mothers Determination and Love

Beth Albaneze, CTRS CPRP

I am writing to tell you a story about Alberta and her 42 year old son Eric who has been diagnosed with chronic mental illness. Alberta is an RN at the oncology unit at suburban Hospital in Bethesda Maryland.  Alberta has exhausted her efforts navigating the mental health system. She contacted House Calls to help get her son’s life back. She could not accept that the day program where he had been for over seven years (after many years in a state hospital) was all there was for him. She even wrote the President of the United States.

Alberta described Eric as a popular active high school student, he was on the football team, had a girlfriend and many many friends. His life turned upside down in his senior year of high school when he became depressed which led to his first onset of psychosis. He had been distraught over his girlfriend and suffered a couple of concussions playing football and also during an altercation with aggressive strangers.

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COLLATERAL DAMAGE

Collateral Damage: injury inflicted on something other than an intended target.

Although I do not suffer from mental illness, my family has suffered, and continues to suffer, from the effects of mental illness. You could say it’s collateral damage.

My daughter had bipolar disorder with associated schizophrenia.

My first-born child, she came into this world as a cute little strawberry blond. Her father’s bipolar disorder soon came to light and, due to his abuse, I divorced him when she was just 3 years old. Our nuclear family then consisted of my actively-involved and supporting parents, her younger brother, and me.  When she was 10, I remarried and soon thereafter, we added another son to the family.  She had a very normal upbringing in an upper-middle-class neighborhood and had many opportunities that other children did not have in life. She was a strong-willed child, but, as she grew older, her issues presented primarily through anger and “emotional issues” which disrupted our family life and for which we all received counseling.

As a teen, in order to give her a new perspective and to allow our other children to live without her daily rantings, she went to live with other family members until she graduated from high school. She excelled in these situations. She enrolled in college, but when the 9/11 tragedy occurred, she completely lost it. She quit school and returned home. She had a few jobs and even worked as a stand-in for a movie that was filmed in our town.  

All in all, she was a beautiful young lady who had a zest for life, a sparkle in her Caribbean-blue eyes, and so many opportunities. She fell in love, moved out of town and married at age 19. Within four years, she had three children and their marriage was on the rocks.

A single parent at 24, she needed help raising her children, so we moved her, and unbeknownst to us, her growing bipolar disorder, back to town. 

Bipolar disorder, quoting NAMI, “is a mental illness that causes dramatic shifts in a person’s mood, energy and ability to think clearly. People with bipolar experience high and low moods—known as mania and depression—which differ from the typical ups-and-downs most people experience.  The average age-of-onset is about 25, but it can occur in the teens, or more uncommonly, in childhood.”

The last 12 years have been full of few “ups” and so many “downs.” 

The “ups” are her four children, and spending time with them.  She remarried as soon as her divorce was final, and had another child. Although she loved her children with all of her heart and soul, she was unable to keep up with all that entails raising four children, all boys, and I mean “all boys.”  Her new husband did the best he could to work and care for the family all the while her mental health issues were becoming more prominent.  My husband, two sons and I all did our best to support them, and to give her children a foundation from which to grow. 

The downs are too numerous to mention, but I’ll hit the highlights (lowlights?): 

• There were many family court battles over visitation and custody with her first ex-husband.  Eventually, he was granted custody of the three oldest boys and her rights to her own children were terminated. 
• He also refused to allow me any visitation with my grandchildren, and after almost 2 years of litigation, I lost my fight. As it stands now, I have no way to see or even communicate with my three oldest grandchildren.  Even worse, my youngest grandchild has lost his three brothers, and the three oldest have lost their youngest brother.
• Her second marriage also ended in divorce, and he was granted custody of the youngest child. 
• Her manic moods became much more severe, and schizophrenia soon set in.  She did receive medical and psychiatric help as an in-patient and out-patient, but either she failed to follow her prescribed treatment plan, or the plans weren’t effective.
• Despite my helping her in so many ways and, particularly, in helping her to get approved for monthly Social Security Disability payments, she became homeless, sometimes living in a tent, homeless shelter, storage shed, etc.  She lost all of her possessions through neglect, foolishness, etc.
• She threatened “great harm” to me.  In order to protect myself and those who live/work with me, I was forced to get a restraining order – against my own daughter.
• She was arrested numerous times as a result of her manic episodes and the behavior she exhibited during those episodes.  (Each time, I pleaded with the court to get her more treatment, not jail time.  Unfortunately, our jails are filled with the mentally-ill.)
• She left town on a bus one day, not really knowing where she would go or what she would do.  We’re not really sure what happened from that point on.

In late July, we received the phone call we had always dreaded.  A call came from the County Coroner’s Office in a state 700 miles away.  We still don’t know the “what” or “why” of her death, but it doesn’t really matter.  She was a victim of an inherited mental illness, and the side-effects thereof.

We brought her home and, remembering what and who she was when she was at her best, we celebrated her life and laid her to rest.  She is no longer suffering.  We are no longer burdened with worry.  Maybe God decided it was time for an end to her misery that wore on us all.

The damage has been done, and we have our scars.  As to the three oldest grandchildren we have now “lost,” I pray that they are well, and that we will be reunited at some point. Her youngest child is, thankfully, part of our lives on a consistent basis.  My husband, two sons and I are all happy, well and thriving. Life goes on.

November 2015

Parents and Teachers as Allies presenter (part four living as a youth with mental illness)

Hi. My name is Ayesha. This is my story. I have been living with Schizophrenia for 20 years. My mental illness started at age 13. I was hospitalized two weeks after I turned 14 in February of 1995.

I didn’t feel like I could talk to my mom and my family that’s why I became very withdrawn around the age of twelve or thirteen, but as far back as age ten I was dealing with verbal and emotional abuse from certain kids at school and in the neighborhood we lived in Brooklyn. I got picked on and verbally abused sometimes. If I had a child psychologist I believe that would have really have helped me in my middle and high school years. I believe I would have seriously benefited from that. If my teachers paid more attention to Ayesha (me) outside of class during breaks like lunch time they would have noticed me feeling like an outsider. At school I was not socializing enough and that’s not normal. If my teachers had picked up on this and called out the bullies and the bullying I dealt with sometimes I think I would have felt less anxious and much less like skipping school during all my years in high school in grades 9th through 12th.

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I am 42 years old and since I could remember, my mom suffered from mental illness. She has been diagnosed as Bipolar and suffers from Schizophrenia, of course I had no idea what was wrong with my mom or even if something WAS wrong with her, because I was so young and lived with it all my life. I thought this was how things were in every home. She was a single parent of four daughters (including myself) with no help from others and no one to talk to about her feelings of depression. When I was about 8 years old, I remember coming home from church and finding my mom in her room unresponsive. She had tried to commit suicide.

Me and my older sisters had no clue of what to do after she was released from the hospital. Speaking for myself, I had no idea if it was something we did as children to cause her sadness and sometimes erratic behavior. There were times when I didnt see my mother for up to two whole days and she was in the same house I was in. She would lock herself in her room for days without any reason, I just thought she was sad. My mother loved us very much and took outstanding care of us until the depression would set in. My oldest sister would then step in and take over until she was able to come out of her room.

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My name is Robert Hagee and I have a mental illness, I have had the illness since childhood, it was believed to be schizophrenia when I was young but came to schizoaffective disorder. If I was to write anything about my illness it would be this: that without my mother who was very strong from her life struggles as a child and as an adult, I would not have survived; I look back and realize if I was to know of all my issues and struggles to come when was a young and not to know of the good I do not believe I would have continued. There are other issues with my health and the hardest thing I face is that my mother will be at my funeral and my only regret I would ever change is the fact that my mother has had to experience my life with me.

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It was never about how dirty the house was or how many newspapers you had saved overtime or the amount of magnets you had on both fridges. It was the draining effect of what your mental illness would bring. What mom was I going to see today? Will she be nice and funny? Will she be mean and hurtful? Will she be sad and kept to herself? Everyday was different. Each had a little twist to them. From bipolar to manic to depression the things that are forbidden to be talked about. Yet they take so much away from people. I never hated you I just hated your illness. I hated that you became mean in a blink of an eye or you get sad within seconds and I did love when you were funny because we could crack jokes but all it took was for one little thing and you’d switch. I never wanted this for you. All I wanted was my mom. Your illness took over and it was so hard to love you. When you knew how to take the wound you opened and twist and dig it deeper. I know one day ill look back and be thankful for all the lessons learned and maybe help others one day, but for now I just want to help you.