Another Mom speaks out -- 'saturation point'!

Yet another mother has finally reached her saturation point.  I must speak up.

Karen Easter, winner of the 2012 TORREY ADVOCACY Award

Today I read yet another opinion letter on the evil, sinister, demon-filled Connecticut shooter.  The writer laments, “Let's be reasonable. Guns aren't the problem and never have been. The problem is the hearts of men.”  

To the writer, I would say this:

Second, serious mental illnesses are biologically based brain disorders, not heart problems.  

Third, it is opinions such as yours that perpetuate the stigma that human beings with serious and persistent mental illnesses are evil, sinister, demon-filled, horrible monsters. 

Now although I do believe evil exists in this world, I do not believe it is evil to be seriously mentally ill without opportunity or access to timely treatment. 

In fact, I believe the word evil better describes how our society has literally and intentionally turned our backs on the weakest of the weak and the sickest of the sick.  

It’s all in how you look at things. 

You see EVIL; I see LIVE.  

All human beings have a right to:

LIVE a life without delusions and hallucinations,

LIVE a life free of incarcerations for safety's sake,

LIVE in a real home, not under a bridge,

LIVE a life without constant hunger pangs,

LIVE a life connected to families and friends.

Read more here: http://aot4tn.blogspot.com/2012/12/its-all-in-how-you-look-at-things.html


or read TAC's review here:
http://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/about-us/our-blog/123-tn/2221-qyet-another-mother-has-finally-reached-her-saturation-pointq-personally-speaking

Reprinted with permission from: http://aot4tn.blogspot.com/

Mental Health Services Erode As States Slash Budgets

(Repeats story moved Dec 29 without changes to headline or text)
 

* State mental health budgets slashed since 2009
* 11 mln mentally ill report 'unmet need' for care
* 'Cycling through the system' 
 
By Sharon Begley 
 
NEW YORK, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Lori, a 39-year-old mother in New Jersey, would like to save for the usual things: college, retirement, vacations. But those goals are far down her wish list. For now, she and her husband are putting aside money for a home alarm system. They're not worried about keeping burglars out. They need to keep their son in. 
 
Mike, 7, began seeing a psychiatrist in 2009, after one pre-school kicked him out for being "difficult" and teachers at the public school he later attended were worried about his obsessive thoughts and extreme anxiety. He was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder. 
 
As she keeps trying to get help for him, "I am learning firsthand how broken the system is when dealing with mental illness," said Lori. (Surnames of patients and their families have been withheld to protect their privacy.)
"We fight with doctors, our insurance company, educators, each other; the list goes on and on ... It isn't even a system. It's not like there's a call center to help you figure out what to do and how to get help."  Read more here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/31/mental-health-services-erode-state-budgets_n_2387413.html

It should be against the law that family members are forced to turn to the criminal justice system, due to the failure of the mental health system, when our loved ones become too ill to know they need help. Please read the entire article for a deeper understanding of the seriousness of 'criminalizing the mentally ill' -- GG Burns, KY mental health advocate

"Did Nancy Lanza live in fear? Why many mothers of the mentally ill do."

Republished with permission from the author: Asra Q. Nomani from December 21, 2012 -- Washington Post  http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-12-21/opinions/36017164_1_mental-illness-mothers-public-psychiatric-beds

When the doorbell rang one night in 2006, I opened my front door to find a diminutive figure standing before me, her face crestfallen.

“Mom, what happened?” I asked.

“I thought I was going to die,” she whispered, my father gently guiding her inside.

(Edel Rodriguez for The Washington Post/)

My brother, then 43, had suddenly spun into a rage, she said. She rushed to her bedroom and locked the door; my brother broke it from its hinges, chasing her. She curled into a fetal position on her bed as he pummeled her back and head before walking away as quickly as he had sprung on her.

“Why did you let this happen?” I asked. But I knew the answer. My mother, like countless other mothers on the front lines of America’s mental health battle, is in a risky position. She cares for a mentally ill child.

We don’t know whether Nancy Lanza ever thought her son Adam might hurt her — news reports say he had Asperger’s syndrome and a personality disorder and wasn’t known to be violent. But she’s part of an alarming number of parents who’ve been killed by their children.

Parricides, or the killing of parents, were 13 percent of U.S. family homicides in 2008, up from 9.7 percent in 1980, according to the FBI. About half of parricides involve children killing their mothers. The typical offenders, according to researchers, are adult sons who are ill and unemployed. Nearly half of them are 24 or younger, an age when, scientists say, the cognitive mind is still maturing; Adam Lanza was 20.

But what goes largely undocumented is the many mothers who live in fear of their children.

Kathleen Heide, a professor of criminology at the University of South Florida and the author of “Understanding Parricide: When Sons and Daughters Kill Parents,” says that most often, when people kill their mothers, they are sick and untreated.

As mental health services are cut, mothers become the agents-in-charge, serving as constant reminders to these children that they’re not well. “The moms are trying to keep their children safe. In illness, the sons many times resent their mothers,” Heide says, and that becomes particularly acute without treatment.

Even in popular culture, matricide is a theme for troubled youth. Rap star Eminem wrote a song, “Kill You,” lashing out at his mother for the dysfunction in his life that he attributed to her.

Too often, mothers search desperately for beds for their sick children, fighting with insurance companies and treatment teams. According to the nonprofit Treatment Advocacy Center, by 2010 the number of public psychiatric beds in the United States had dropped to levels last seen in the 1850s — about 14 per 100,000 people. Since 1955, the peak of psychiatric hospitalization, 95 percent of the nation’s public hospital beds for people with acute and chronic severe mental illness have been eliminated.

From Tucson to Aurora, Colo., young men suffering from mental illness have taken the lives of others.

“Those who kill are untreated most of the time. It’s not about access to weapons. . . . It’s about treatment,” says Dominique Bourget, a forensic psychiatrist at the University of Ottawa who has studied parricide. With the killing of mothers, she says, those who are sick often strike out at “the people most loving to them.”

Our failure to provide sufficient mental health support was highlighted further when Liza Long’s blog post — “I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother,” about the difficulty in caring for a mentally ill son — went viral this past week. She struck a nerve with other mothers desperately struggling in their homes with ill, untreated children. Last year, a mother who chronicles her battle to find treatment for her son wrote on her Web site, “Saving Zach”: “Living in fear became the norm in my house.”

Sometimes mothers send SOS messages to each other by e-mail, too afraid that their sons might overhear a phone conversation seeking help. In my parents’ home, my mother hid her cooking knives when my brother was very ill.

In April 2006, just before my battered mother stood at my doorstep, Amy Bruce, of the small town of Caratunk, Maine, was struggling to get her son, Will, then 24, treatment for paranoid schizophrenia. He had been discharged from a facility despite his parents’ protests.

One day two months later, after getting the mail, he walked up behind his mother and killed her with a hatchet. He is now in a forensics unit at a local hospital.

“I heard the pope telling me to kill her because she was an al-Qaeda operative,” Will told me by phone this week. He seems lucid and clear-thinking now and is receiving treatment.

He says he misses his mother. “I try to do everything to honor her memory. We had our differences, but it was petty. I miss hugging her. She used to hug me all the time.” But, he admits, “she was a little afraid of me.”

Ironically, it was only after killing his mother that Will got the right treatment.

Read more about mental health treatment laws and Asra's journey here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702 053.html

Action Plan -- What can YOU do!

President Obama said the federal government has to do something meaningful to prevent future shootings, like the recent massacre of 26 children and adults at a school in Newtown, Connecticut.  Here is what the federal government can do to prevent violence related to mental illness:
 

Five-Point Action Plan for President Obama to Reduce Violence by the Mentally Ill

Here is what states should do.

States should make greater use of Assisted Outpatient Treatment, especially for

those with a history of violence or incarceration. AOT allows courts to order certain mentally ill people to stay in treatment as a condition of living in the community. AOT works. New Yorkers remember Larry Hogue, the “Wild Man of 96th Street,” who kept getting hospitalized, going off meds, terrorizing neighbors, and going back into the hospital.  Connecticut does NOT have an AOT law on the books (see these facts about the Connecticut mental-health system), and we can’t say for sure if it would have helped in this case, but all states should have one to prevent similar incidents.

• 
States should make sure their civil-commitment laws include all the following, not just “danger to self or others:  (A) Is “gravely disabled”, which means that the person is substantially unable, except for reasons of indigence, to provide for any of his or her basic needs, such as food, clothing, shelter, health or safety, or (B) is likely to “substantially deteriorate” if not provided with timely treatment, or 
(C) lacks capacity, which means that as a result of the brain disorder, the person is unable to fully understand or lacks judgment to make an informed decision regarding his or her need for treatment, care, or supervision.


• When the “dangerousness standard” is used, it must be interpreted more broadly than “imminently” and/or “provably” dangerous.


State laws should also allow for consideration of a patient’s record in making determinations about court-ordered treatment, since history is often a reliable way to anticipate the future course of illness. (Currently, it is like criminal procedures: what you did in the past presumably has no bearing, so the court may not know past history when deciding whether to commit someone.  In fact, there are ways to know which mentally ill individuals become or are likely to become violent.) 

– D. J. Jaffe is executive director of Mental Illness Policy Org.

DJ Jaffe is the founder of Mental Illness Policy Org http://mentalillnesspolicy.org which provides the media and public officials with unbiased information about "serious" mental illness from a pro-treatment perspective. It covers issues of violence, deinstitutionalization, not guilty by reason of insanity, assisted outpatient treatment, involuntary commitment, involuntary treatment and other issues.

DJ has been advocating for better treatment for individuals with serious mental illness for over 30 years.

DJ has served multiple terms on the board of directors of the Metro-New York City Alliance on Mental Illness, New York State Alliance for the Mentally Ill, and National Alliance on Mental Illness. He is a member of the Leadership Council of the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression. He was a cofounder and former board member of the Treatment Advocacy Center in Arlington, VA.
 

Why can't America care for the mentally ill?

Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatrist and member of the Fox News Medical A-Team. Dr. Ablow can be reached at info@keithablow.com
 

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/12/17/why-cant-america-care-for-mentally-ill/#ixzz2FN5gt9au

Suggestion #8

In most states there is no way to arrange court-ordered, involuntary outpatient use of medications (including antipsychotic medications) even if someone is very violent or has reported extremely violent thoughts in the hospital, even if that person is psychotic and also addicted to cocaine or heroin, and even if that person is court-ordered to take such antipsychotic medications in the hospital.

Once that person hits the streets he or she is too often free to never visit a psychiatrist, again, to never take another medication and to never be drug-tested.

My response to: 'I Am Adam Lanza's Mother'

painting: the mental health nightmare

Once again, the news of a nightmarish killing spree had descended over our nation! Yet again by a disturbed young person, (barely a man) who is no doubt been surviving some form of mental illness.

Since early Friday, I have received dozens of text messages and emails from relatives, friends and acquaintances around the US, who are aware of our personal challenges to help my son or from those who support our efforts to amend Kentucky's Outpatient Treatment laws. 

One such response to the tragic deaths in Sandy Hook, is an article written by a Mother and Blogger named Liza Long. Liza published an entry on her daily blog titled: 'I Am Adam Lanza's Mother'.  Within a few hours, her story was republished on the Huffington Post as:

'I Am Adam Lanza's Mother': A Mom's Perspective On The Mental Illness Conversation In America

Within hours, it had been re-tweeted or republished over 810,000 times. On Liza's blog, the The Anarchist Soccer Mom, over 2000 people have left comments.

This is my response about this tragedy, to the victim's families and to Kentuckians:


I TOO COULD BE ADAM LANZA's MOTHER. 
(Except I would have never had guns in my home.)

Our son, who has suffered his entire life with an mental illness, has been bullied and tormented by people in his schools, our neighborhood and yes at Church. I am certain these horrific scars have impacted him. I am fearful of my son's threats and abuse toward me, but can only learn how to protect myself from him since the adult system gives me few options otherwise. 

Just recently when I attempted to communicate with my son regarding how concerned I was of his increasing mania, he replied, "I'll blow your f___ing brains out if you send me to the hospital again. The second I get out I'll murder you!" Yet a few hours later, my son never remembers he said such horrible things.

The process families must endure to obtain an emergency 72-hour hold is unthinkable. People with acute psychosis are literally arrested by law enforcement officers, transported to a state hospital, (or most times jail) in handcuffs and more times than not are released within a few hours. Why? Because by the time they are finally evaluated by a mental health professional -- they no longer present as a threat to self or others. The entire process is inhumane and goes without reason why those individuals living with a mental illness, who are in recovery -- strongly oppose involuntary treatment laws.

At one time or another, our son has received all of the labels the media has discussed regarding the CT tragedy. By the time our son was 10 years of age, he had been evaluated, diagnosed and treated by psychiatrist, psychologist, neurologists, nutritionist, allergist and behaviorist ... for sleep disorder, ADHD, sensory integration, Tourette syndrome, obsessive compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder, psychotic disorder, frontal lobe and executive function deficit.

With much effort, special accommodations, supports and services where available for our son in the school system. In addition, my husband and I traveled as far away as Cincinnati, Ohio seeking help from experts. Before mental health parity, we paid 100% of our son's medical bills. Insurance companies discriminated against us also, blaming our son's symptoms on bad parenting and his free will to be different and to have challenges I suppose.



Time and time again, we were ridiculed by family members and our peers for giving medications to our explosive and often out of control child! Once, after our son's doctor admitted him to a local psychiatric hospital, we were later investigated by Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, CHFS for the possibility that perhaps we were abusing our son. Even our own parents suggested our son's behaviors were our fault. Amazing, parent's aren't blamed if their children develop cancer, yet with mental illness everyone blames others.

As difficult and challenging as it was for all, our son did succeed. Labeled as a gifted genius, he was doing well and even attended college and worked at a skilled job in the community, while still in high school. He was able to achieve this success due to medicine, therapy, case management and a counselor from the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation.



At age 17, in an attempt to escape the stigma of his mental illness, our son refused treatment! It was not long before he quickly became aggressively psychotic.
 
My husband and I filed an out-of-control petition in the court system, just 6 months prior to our son’s 18th birthday -- hoping to save his life and us from his reckless and often dangerous behavior. But instead of going to a hospital or treatment facility, he was ordered to jail, punished for behaviors that were symptoms of his untreated brain disorder!
 


Months turned into years. He was homeless, desperate for food and still refused to accept treatment. When he was petitioned to a hospital, he was not held long enough to stabilize. Now, our son frequently threatens homicide or suicide which makes our life -- and his -- a living hell. He is trapped in a carousel of insanity and without long term treatment will never escape.

As our son aged into the adult system, a well meaning 

therapist who I dearly respected told me, "I must learn to let go". She suggested I buy the the book titled: 'The Sociopath Next Door', attend Al Anon classes and learn how to disconnect my love. She said, "you will not be able to help your son". She did not want to see me self destruct. At the time, I was riddled with serious autoimmune diseases due to the chronic caregiver stress. It has taken years of effort and training to become healthy enough to advocate for my son's life and others.

The very resources and laws in place to support my son as a child  --  are not available for him as an adult! Why? Because of his civil rights, our federal and state mental health laws and the fact that state funds had been redirected from the department of behavioral health to the criminal justice system. It is absurd! 

If a young person lacks insight to their illness (anosognosia), regardless as to how complex their symptoms are -- parents and 'ultimately the community' can do nothing until they fail or 'explode' and become part of the criminal justice system, commit suicide or homicide as Adam Lanza did!

Regarding the comments from readers on Liza's story, who believe GOD is the answer and 'if' we just prayed more our troubled children would be rid of their demons -- for years, church members turned their backs and avoided us! On more than one occasion, church leaders condemned us for our son's impulsive and disruptive behaviors and made it clear they didn't want our son in the same Sunday school classes or private Christian Schools, with their own children!

Children or young adults are not born with evil in their hearts. But they are born with brains that malfunction!  It is society's reactions to these troubled children's symptoms that create monsters.

 Mothers told their children that our son was bad and they could not play with him! Imagine the pain children with special needs like my son must endure? They may look normal, but their brain dysfunction -- regardless of the label, does not allow them to act normal.

Yet in spite of it all, our son did graduate due to the compassion, special accommodations and supports of a few key people. In the adult system, there are few special accommodations for those who act differently -- they quickly become outcast. And then we wonder, what could make a young man snap and kill children or worse  -- his own Mother?


Bless all the Mothers like Liza Long.



Bless all of those victims families suffering across the US.



And, yes God, Bless Adam and Nancy Lanza's soul -- because they were also victims of a cold, broken mental health system.

GGB -- Mother, Artist and Kentucky Brain Advocate

Comments on: Across nation, unsettling acceptance when mentally ill in crisis are killed

Posted: December 10
Updated: Today at 1:55 PM

By Kelley Bouchard kbouchard@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

Even as they face a growing number of disturbed people, police often lack crisis training. And the leadership and data-gathering needed to stem the bloodshed are largely absent.

To read the entire 4-part series, click here: http://www.pressherald.com/specia/Maine_police_deadly_force_series_Day_4.html

or read:

Families mostly powerless when mentally ill adult resists help

With headlines such as this, what family member in their right mind would call the police for help -- when their ill loved one becomes to much to handle? With civil commitment laws making it almost impossible to get needed medical attention for those who lack insight and refuse treatment -- what should a family do? My husband and I call this difficult decision the 'carousal of insanity' that is worse than Russian Roulette!  GG Burns, KY Mental Health Advocate

A few quotes from this very long, but informative article:

In many cases, mentally ill people shot by police have threatened, injured or even killed others. Sometimes, they have threatened suicide or expressed a desire to be shot by the police. Frequently, the use of deadly force seems excessive, if not utterly unnecessary.

It also could save taxpayers money, they said, if government leaders were able to demonstrate that it's more cost-effective to fully fund mental health services and police training up front, rather than risk more expensive responses and sometimes tragic results when crisis situations go wrong.

The Justice Department typically only steps in when police shootings of the mentally ill or other minorities ignite public outrage. Then, its Civil Rights Division requires police departments to make after-the-fact, local policy and operational changes -- including crisis intervention training promoted by NAMI and other organizations -- that can produce questionable, unverified results.

NAMI's Honberg acknowledges that even his group has failed to push for a unified, national approach to the problem, though the organization targets over-incarceration of the mentally ill as a major concern. At least 17 percent of the 2.2 million people in U.S. jails and prisons are mentally ill, according to recent studies.

Honberg agrees that similar attention should be paid to police shootings of the mentally ill.

"(It's) not a national priority, and it should be, not only for humanitarian reasons, but for economic reasons as well," Honberg said.

Alabama Deputies' shooter struggled with mental illness -- another preventable tragedy!

By MELISSA NELSON-GABRIEL — Associated Press

FAIRHOPE, Ala. — The mother of an Alabama man accused of shooting two sheriff's deputies wrote of his increasingly erratic and threatening behavior in three requests to have him placed in mental institutions against his will in recent years, according to court documents that have surfaced since the shooting that left one of the men dead. Read the entire article here:http://www.kentucky.com/2012/11/27/2422992/deputies-shooter-struggled-with.htmlhttp://www.kentucky.com/2012/11/27/2422992/deputies-shooter-struggled-with.html

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/11/27/2422992/deputies-shooter-struggled-with.html#storylink=cpy

Editorial review: By GG Burns, KY mental health advocate and founder of the Change Mental Health Laws in KY project.

I recently read about this preventable tragedy and took the time to GOOGLE Michael Jansen, who obliviously needed help. After a few minutes search, I realize this preventable tragedy had hit the associated press and was repeated in over 70 newspapers across the US. Violence sells newspapers, not educational solutions to an ever growing problem of individuals suffering with serious and persistent mental illness who need to access medical treatment.

I immediately identified with his 84-year-old Mother, Mrs. Helen Jansen and wondered if my life or my son's life could one day end in a brief newspaper article like this. Stories like this appear in the news frequently, sometimes daily and make my heart weep. I understand all too well the hopelessness a Mother feels when they are unable to help their adult child receive the necessary medical care needed to be a productive citizen in the community. I can't imagine how this Mother feels now that she was unable to help prevent her son's death and the death of another. 

My thoughts turned to what kind of headline would have been 'if' Michael Jansen, had received an 'assisted' outpatient agreed order 2 years ago and had remained in treatment? I wonder if this slain deputy's family will blame Micheal Jansen for the death of their son, husband or Father -- or will they blame the broken mental health system? I wonder if any good will come from this pointless and preventable tragedy?

Alabama, like every state, has its own civil commitment laws that establish criteria for determining when court-ordered intervention is appropriate for individuals with severe mental illness who are too ill to seek care voluntarily. The state authorizes both inpatient (hospital) and outpatient (community) treatment, which is known in Alabama as "court-ordered outpatient treatment." It is one of the 27 states whose involuntary treatment standard is based on a person’s “need for treatment” rather than only the person’s likelihood of being dangerous to self or others.  

For inpatient treatment, a person must meet the following criteria:

• be a real and present danger to self/others or,
• without treatment will continue to suffer mental distress and deterioration of ability to function independently, and
• be unable to make a rational and informed decision concerning treatment.

For assisted outpatient treatment, a person must meet the following criteria:

• without treatment will continue to suffer mental distress and deterioration of the ability to function independently, and
• be unable to make a rational and informed decision concerning treatment.

For more info about AOT laws in all 50 states click here.

Pay-Now-or-Pay-Later

Mental illness is a pay-now-or-pay-later disease. People who don’t get routine treatment when they are more stable often end up needing emergency treatment after they become less stable – and when it costs more. Along the way from more to less stable, they also often generate significant public costs from arrest, incarceration, victimization, etc.

Click here to read a recent article written by Treatment Advocacy Center on:

Chicago’s Psych Patients Didn’t Disappear, They Just Got Sicker

KRS 202A.081 Court-ordered community-based outpatient treatment.

Kentucky's legal policy for assisted outpatient treatment, AOT. 

(1) Following the preliminary hearing but prior to the completion of the final hearing, 
the court may order the person held in a hospital approved by the cabinet for such 
purpose for the committing judicial district, or released, upon application and 
agreement of the parties, for the purpose of community-based outpatient treatment. 
No person held under this section shall be held in jail unless criminal charges are 
also pending.

(2) A hospital shall discharge a patient there held and notify the court and attorneys of 
record if any authorized staff physician determines that the patient no longer meets 
the criteria for involuntary hospitalization. 

(3) If a patient is discharged by the hospital pursuant to subsection (2) of this section, 
then the proceedings against the patient shall be dismissed.
(4) The release of the person pursuant to subsection (1) of this section for the purpose of community-based outpatient treatment does not terminate the proceedings against the person, and the court ordering such release may order the immediate holding of the person at any time with or without notice if the court believes from an affidavit filed with the court that it is to the best interest of the person or others that the person be held pending the final hearing, which shall be held within twenty-one (21) days of the person's further holding.
(5) If the person is released pursuant to subsection (1) of this section for the purpose of
community-based outpatient treatment, the final hearing may be continued for a
period not to exceed sixty (60) days if a provider of outpatient care accepts the
respondent for specified outpatient treatment. Community-based outpatient
treatment may be ordered for an additional period not to exceed sixty (60) days
upon application and agreement of the parties.

Effective: July 15, 1994
History: Amended 1994 Ky. Acts ch. 498, sec. 6, effective July 15, 1994. -- Amended
1988 Ky. Acts ch. 139, sec. 8, effective July 15, 1988. -- Created 1982 Ky. Acts
ch. 445, sec. 10, effective July 1, 1982.
Legislative Research Commission Note.  This section was enacted in 1982 Acts,
Chapter 445, which contains the following language in Section 45 of that Act: "This
Act shall become effective on July 1, 1982." The Ky. Constitution, in Section 55,
requires that a reason be set forth for the emergency. However, no reason is set forth
in this Act. The effective date for 1982 Acts with no emergency provision is July 15,
1982.

Did you know?

By: Robert Friedman, Attorney with the Department of Public Advocacy in Lexington, Kentucky

Did you know? I didn’t think so. Neither do many law enforcement officers.
KRS 202A.251 Prohibition against detention in jail without criminal charges pending --Criminal charges not to be placed to avoid transportation.



No person held under the provisions of this chapter shall be detained in jail unless criminal charges are also pending. No peace officer or any other person shall place criminal charges against a person who is mentally ill and in need of hospitalization pursuant to this chapter solely or primarily for the purpose of avoiding transporting the person to a hospital or psychiatric facility.



This is the law, but it it widely disregarded. A lot of police officers are simply unaware of it. A few just wink at it and take persons with mental illness to jail.

Here’s the “cash value”: if the officer knows the person is mentally ill and thinks he/she might be dangerous, the officer cannot legally place charges without taking the person for a psych exam first. 

People need to demand that the police observe the law ... probation officers, too. If your elected officials turn away when you bring it up, vote the crooks out!
Otherwise, people with serious, chronic, mental illnesses—schizophrenia, bipolar I, schizoaffective disorder—end up getting arrested for petty garbage—criminal trespass 3rd, disorderly conduct—and taken to jail. 

This is both cruel to person with mental illness and costly to the public. (Jail ain’t cheap to the taxpayers, nor should it be.) We don’t have to change the law to do better. We just have to know it and observe it.

Note: "These are my views, and I am not speaking on behalf of the DPA."  ~ Robert Friedman

AOT Myths: Debunked

There is a lot of misinformation about assisted outpatient treatment.

Here is a quick look at some of the myths and realities involved.

MYTH: Assisted Outpatient Treatment is going to fill hospital wards.

REALITY: Assisted Outpatient Treatment is designed to help people succeed out of the hospital. It helps those with a history of non-compliance induced dangerousness comply with treatment and therefore prevents them from deteriorating to the point where they need hospitalization.

MYTH: Assisted Treatment will empty hospital wards.

REALITY: Inpatient hospitalization will still be needed for those incapable of surviving safely in the community. Assisted outpatient treatment facilitates early short-term rehospitalization for those noncompliant and likely to become dangerous.

MYTH: Assisted outpatient treatment does not work.

REALITY: Studies in Iowa, North Carolina, Hawaii, Arizona and other states have definitively proven assisted outpatient treatment works.

MYTH: Assisted Outpatient Treatment will bust the budget.

REALITY: Assisted Treatment is not expensive because it does not mandate any services that individuals with brain disorders are not already entitled to (example: case management, medications, rehabilitation). Assisted Outpatient Treatment Orders merely require the system to facilitate compliance for non-compliant individuals by giving them the services they need to keep well and the surrounding community safe.

MYTH: Assisted outpatient treatment is unconstitutional.

REALITY: Forty-one states and the District of Columbia have assisted outpatient treatment laws. The Supreme Court has overturned none of these laws.

MYTH: Assisted treatment infringes on civil liberties.

REALITY: It is the illness, not the treatment that restricts civil liberties. Medicines can free individuals from the “Bastille of their psychosis” and enable them to engage in a meaningful exercise of their civil liberties. Assisted outpatient treatment cuts the need for incarceration, restraints, and involuntary inpatient commitment, allowing individuals to retain more of their civil liberties.

For more information: www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org

Anosognosia Fact Sheet

When a person cannot appreciate that they have a serious psychiatric illness, a tremendous challenge to family members and caregivers follows. About one-half of people living with schizophrenia, and a smaller percentage who live with bipolar disorder, have this clinical feature. Individuals with Alzheimer's disease and dementia also often have this feature. The medical term for not seeing what ails you is anosognosia, or more commonly known as a lack of insight. Having a lack of awareness raises the risks of treatment and service nonadherence. From the person's point of view, if they feel they are not ill why should they go to appointments, take medication or engage in therapy?

Why can't a person see what is so apparent to those around them? The best thinking indicates this is a core feature of the neurobiology of the conditions. Frontal lobes organize information and help to interpret experiences. In conditions like schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease, frontal lobe difficulty is central to the neurological processes that underlie the disorders. Psychological denial is not the reason for the lack of insight in these illnesses.

There are situations where a person's lack of insight can, at times, create dangerous situations. This combination of no insight and dangerous acts often requires intervention. In more than 40 states, there are laws for Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT), also known as outpatient commitment. AOT status requires a person to engage in treatment and gives the state authority to bring the person to a treatment center if they do not. All states that have these laws have protections and a process for assessing whether this intervention is appropriate. In most states, doctors are required to submit an affidavit of the person's state and the reasons for the requested AOT status and a judge decides.

NAMI: www.nami.org

LEAP: I Am Not Sick I Do Not Need Help by Xavier Amador

AOT: For a list of current state laws see www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org

Violence Against Homeless Persons

By:David Christiansen

In the dark hours early on August 27, while sleeping behind a building near Winchester Road in Lexington, a 61-year-old homeless man was set on fire. He is currently in intensive care at UK hospital, but is expected to survive. So far the police have no suspects in this hate crime.

However, the incident is not considered a hate crime at all because current law does not include homelessness as a eligible category for such an offense. The National Coalition for the Homeless is seeking to change that. In their on-going effort to highlight this type of crime, they publish a bi-annual report detailing their research into hate crimes committed against homeless people. In their most recent edition, Hate Crimes against the Homeless: Violence Hidden in Plain View, they tabulated these crimes from across the country. Kentucky is barely noted in their statistics with just 3 incidences in the last twelve years (California had 225 and Florida 198). These statistics exclude any acts of violence committed by homeless individuals against each other and a crime is included only if the attack was primarily motivated because the victim was a homeless person. The scope of the problem is highlighted in the report as follows:

"Over the past twelve years (1999-2010), hundreds of homeless people have been attacked and killed. While this report provides alarming numbers, many attacks go undocumented. Homeless people are treated so poorly by society that their attacks are often forgotten or unreported. In 2010 alone, one hundred thirteen incidents resulted in twenty-four deaths. Since 1999, The National Coalition for the Homeless has recorded one thousand, one hundred eighty-four acts of violence that have resulted in three hundred twelve deaths".

Another section of the report seeking to understand factors associated with these hate crimes, states that:

"There is a documented relationship between increased police action and the increasing numbers of hate crimes/violent acts against homeless people. Many cities...... have enacted severe anti-camping, panhandling, anti-feeding, and other criminalization of homelessness laws. Many of these cities ..... are also cities where hate crimes against homeless individuals have frequently occurred. One possible explanation for this is the message that criminalizing homelessness sends to the general public: “Homeless people do not matter and are not worthy of living in our city.” This message is blatant in the attitudes many cities have toward homeless people and can be used as an internal justification for attacking someone who is homeless".

Homelessness in Lexington has been accorded increased attention recently with a number of city ordinances proposed to our City Council and now under review, including such items as a "nuisance" ordinance to give police more options to control unwanted street behavior and another proposed ordinance change that requires any group planning to open a daytime drop-in center for homeless persons to undergo greater public scrutiny before being allowed to proceed. In addition, the city's Board of Adjustment is moving forward with closing down the Community Inn, a shelter for homeless men and women operated under the auspices of Emmanuel Apostolic Church.

The Mayor has recently established a Commission on Homelessness to address these and other homeless issues in Lexington. Given concerns about increasing violence against homeless persons and public policies that seek to criminalize homelessness, it seems far better for our city to approach concerns regarding homelessness in a collaborative and compassionate way as an inclusive community and not slip into the ugly and hostile patterns to which some cities have succumbed. As we increasingly move toward objectifying homeless persons as "them" and not "us", we risk our sense of community.

"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection". It is time to better appreciate these words spoken by Kentucky's most famous native son, Abraham Lincoln. Our city will be far better served by allowing ourselves to listen to "the better angels of our nature", as Lincoln suggested, as we seek to understand and find solutions for homelessness. Demonizing our homeless neighbors as the enemy will only lead to more fear, hatred and violence.

David Christiansen, MSW
Executive Director
Central Kentucky Housing and Homeless Initiative

Read the edited version of David's Story here on the LHL.

Demonizing the homeless leads to fear and violence

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/09/10/2330686/demonizing-the-homeless-leads.html#storylink=cpy

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Larry Dale Keeling: Ky. can't party forever on borrowed money

Demonizing the homeless leads to fear and violence

Published: September 10, 2012 

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/09/10/2330686/demonizing-the-homeless-leads.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/09/10/2330686/demonizing-the-homeless-leads.html#storylink=cpy

http://www.kentucky.com/2012/09/10/2330686/demonizing-the-homeless-leads.html

Mental Health Diversity from Kentucky's Appalachians

 [A Peer Recovery Support Specialist (P-RSS) is an occupational title for a person who has progressed in their own recovery from alcohol or other drug abuse or mental disorder and is willing to self-identify as a peer and work to assist other individuals with chemical dependency or a mental disorder. Because of their lived experiences, such persons have expertise that professional training cannot replicate.]

Waltr Lane, has been described by some as a controversial Appalachian social commentator. His first person stories about resisting authority, moon shining, dynamiting fish and cockfighting have made him a person of interest across Kentucky. Waltr, (a hit and run survivor) is married, has a family and is a contract employee of The United Mine Workers of America.

Please read Waltr's story and poem and learn from his words. Additionally, consider how ‘supportive employment' and evidence best practices combined with an AOT law could help individuals stay out of jail and give them the incentive to stay in treatment, therefore assisting them to find the 'bridge to recovery'. GG Burns - KY Mental Health Advocate

______________________________________

Recoverized, But NOT Cured
By:Waltr Lane, who lives in Eastern Kentucky and is a Certified Peer Recovery Support Specialist.


When I was put in jail for loitering, people said that made me a certified public nuisance. It really didn’t annoy me, because I was happy in jail. I had more freedom there than in the State Mental Hospital. Besides, the coffee tasted better.

I have always had problems with being therapized. Years ago, I believed a live psychologist. Many times the psychologist said she threatened to kill the President of the United States and nothing happened (that is freedom of speech). I decided I wanted to threaten somebody more important than that. I started threatening the President of the University, because he was someone everyone knew.

Wham! Bam! There were carloads of cops and off to jail I went for loitering. The police had more sense than that lying psychologist. Threatening people is called terrorist threatening and a 'go directly to jail' offense. Yet police are discreet and use common sense. They didn’t want to publicize our stupidity. I was arrested for loitering and then shipped to the state mental hospital. The hospital social worker told me the judge sent word that I would be in jail or the hospital until I got out of the city. I have been run out of the city but I went to trial and plead guilty and apologized. The judge asked me how he could stop me from loitering. I said that I had nothing else to do.

And, bam, back to jail I went and then back to the state hospital, where I have spent several seasons off and on.

I finally escaped from a locked ward and hitchhiked home to the mountains. I went to the local Mountain Mental Health Center. Idleness is the enemy of good behavior. So the therapist helped me find a minimum wage job. I behave for the money. This paid more than the Pepsi a day I made working in the hospital. I have been therapized, psych rehabbed, recoverized -- but never cured. 

Recently, I imagined something again. It was recommended that I imagined to regale the staff at the mountain state hospital about how I enjoyed my stay. I thought I was to talk about every available male staff laying hands on me at once as a pacification technique. Because of the nature of the questions the schedule maker asked, I thought I was to give a first person account of some inherently private experiences. My wife, who heard the state man give me the date and time, shared my delusional ideation. But he never called back and said I misunderstood.

Apparently the hospital man had contacted a PhD person for the politically correct and official view of mental hospital life from an academic standpoint. I ain’t cured but I know better than to argue with the hospital man’s story.

I wonder why publishers print my writings and I get to speak nearly everywhere except I wasn’t going to speak in the next state where I was given a printed invitation and not interviewed. I still ain’t. I don’t like going where people recognize that a satirist is a dangerous person to mislead.

The Hillbilly Poet, Prison for Minds
By: Waltr Lane

The four staff sat in a circle seance,
Keyboarding iPhones in a silent gaze,
Ignore the mental patients,
Who gave their raison d"etre.

A mental ward is another climate
where emotional winds
blow not from God's reason.

Forgive me, I pray, for saying
Sex is a necessity
Rape is not.

The psych ward staff pronounces,
Karen gives people an evil look;
Grabbing their momentary attention.
It is easy to ignore,
those who are social mutes.
The Hillbilly is the only witness
with a voice:
He cries, "help my people"
out of this prison
      without bars.

Kentucky stakeholders petition on behalf of mentally ill in Personal Care Homes

North Carolina settles with US Department of Justice in similar case

By Bruce Scott

The Secretary of the Commonwealth's Cabinet for Health and Family Services has deferred a response to a request for a meeting by Kentucky mental health stakeholders to discuss how Kentucky might provide community housing choices to the thousands of Kentuckians with psychiatric disabilities currently marooned in Personal Care Homes. The stakeholder group is named "Advocates for Community Options," and MHA-Kentucky is a member. The Secretary promised a response after the Legislative Research Commission finishes a study due in November.

The Kentucky stakeholder letter, sent July 18, argues that the state's system of Personal Care Homes, licensed and financially supported by the state, violates the Olmstead decision of the US Supreme Court. The Olmstead decision holds that the segregation of people with psychiatric disabilities in institutions violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

A case statement accompanying the petition says that at least 1500 individuals with psychiatric disabilities lived in 81 Personal Care Homes and finds that housing and serving them in the community would be no more costly for most. Also sent with the petition were stories about individuals with psychiatric disabilities who are recovering in their own homes with evidence-based services and supports from stakeholder organizations like Permanent Supportive Housing. The mailing also included the recent satisfaction survey of PCH residents by Kentucky Protection and Advocacy.

Sharpening the issue is the announcement on August 24 that the State of North Carolina has settled with the US Department of Justice in a similar case advanced in the federal courts by a stakeholder group there. Here are some of the requirements of the North Carolina agreement, according to the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law:

• The state must develop 3,000 new units of supported housing over 7 years for people with serious mental illnesses living in large adult care homes with significant numbers of residents with mental illnesses, coming out of state hospitals, or diverted from admission to adult care homes.
• The housing units must be permanent, afford tenancy rights, and enable people with disabilities to interact with people without disabilities to the fullest extent possible and must not limit access to the community.
• Virtually all of these housing units must be scattered throughout the community.
• The state must provide the array and intensity of services and supports necessary for these individuals to live in integrated settings.

A key service and support for individuals in the North Carolina settlement will be Assertive Community Treatment (ACT), an evidence-based practice that is widely available there but must now be expanded. The state is further required to bring its ACT services up to standards in the research literature on evidence-based practices. Except for a small team in Lexington, ACT is not available in Kentucky except for veterans through the Veterans Administration.

Advocates for Community Options will next meet in late September to review alternatives available through the US Department of Justice and in the federal courts. To join the group, contact Bruce Scott.

Bruce Scott is Secretary of the Board of MHA-Kentucky and served as Interim Executive Director. Previously, he was the Director of the Kentucky Division of Mental Health. He chairs the Kentucky Olmstead stakeholder group.

SAMHSA’s Lack of Focus on Serious Mental Illness Is Concerning

(Aug. 9, 2012)  Treatment Advocacy Center Reports on Barriers

"Del Vecchio is also known for his very public stand against mandated treatment for the very few and very ill it is designed to help, going so far as to compare court-ordered treatment to a “personal Holocaust.” This week, SAMHSA announced his appointment as director of its Center for Mental Health Services."

Read more here: http://treatmentadvocacycenter.org/about-us/our-blog/69-no-state/2137-samhsas-lack-of-focus-on-serious-mental-illness-is-concerning