Last week, as I watched Rep Tim Murphy’s latest briefing I cheered with total triumph! For too long families like mine have been ignored. We have watched our loved ones suffering with acute psychotic episodes, deteriorating to the point we're afraid for our safety and the safety of others.
Instead of systems working together for solutions, people look the other way, ignoring the warnings – yes this happened in Isla Vista, it happened in the Navy Yard, and it will happened again – somewhere in the USA.
And oh my God, what do these very individuals say after the latest preventable tragedy hits the airways?
“How could we have prevented this unspeakable tragedy? Do we need better gun laws? Where were the parents of these individuals, and why didn't they do something?”
Let me explain what it’s like to be a parent of a brilliant young man who has a 21-year documented history of living with a neurological brain disease. Now as an adult, it has developed into a psychotic disorder and like other diseases will continue to deteriorate without treatment. Currently he lacks capacity, due to anosognosia or an inability to recognize he has symptoms and refuses treatment!
1.) We have reached out to our family and church – but they alienated our son by turning away, not knowing what to say.
2.) We reached out to the local community mental heath system (CMHC) and they are unable to help unless our son seeks help voluntarily. He doesn’t believe he has symptoms so there is no way he’ll agree to see a doctor.
3.) We reached out to our local and state law enforcement agencies and they said, "It's not our job” or “it's not against the law to be delusional.”
4.) Out of desperation, we turned to the justice system, criminalizing our son, hoping to have him hospitalized against his will – a horrific ordeal that no family or individual should endure! Yet instead, our son wound up behind bars, punished for the brain disease he was born with.
Yes, only in America!
Many naysayers report that ‘trauma’ causes brain diseases. The lack of treatment creates more traumas than a person can bear! My point, last year there were over 40,000 suicides and over a million suicide attempts! Additionally, 356,000 individuals with serious brain diseases were in the United States’ de facto institutions: jails and prisons last year.
The cost of not caring: Nowhere to go:
by Liz Szabo, USA TODAY
5.) We reached out to state advocacy groups asking them to lobby for policy amendments and they said, “Now is not the time – maybe next year.” Or we heard, “We need to be careful what we advocate for – or we might lose our funding from SAMHSA!”
6.) We contacted CEOs of state agencies and they said, “We need to be careful about asking for system changes or the FEDs might close the psychiatric hospital!” (How is that for intimidation when you have joined forces with other exhausted family members to advocate to replace a 200-year-old antiquated hospital?)
7.) We reached out to state leaders such as the Governor, Commissioners and Secretaries of the Cabinet of Health and Family Services, (CHFS). We spent countless hours arranging meetings and their response was: “The system is broken and sorry we have failed your family members.”
8.) Then finally years later, when we are so exhausted we think we can do no more, we generated hundreds of letters and phone calls and attended dozens of strategic planning meetings with state legislators, and they said, “We will sponsor bills to amend the current mental health law, but the CHFS added expensive fiscal notes, stating it would cost too much.”
Finally, families like mine have a hero in Congress who is listening and his name is Rep. Tim Murphy.
For over 2 years, Rep. Murphy has worked tirelessly to bring changes to the federal government’s wasteful spending of your tax dollars, by sponsoring a bill that would over-haul a broken and dysfunctional mental health system.
As of today, Rep. Murphy’s bill H.R. 3717, The Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act has 89 Cosponsors – Republican [57] Democratic [32].
H.R. 3717 needs a few additional co-sponsors so it can pass out of committee.
"Our loved ones need treatment before tragedy!"
We need the Families in Mental Health Crises ACT, (H.R. 3717) now!
Please help us! Call your US Representative in Congress today and ask them to cosponsor this important bill.
Click here to contact your US REP: http://www.opencongress.org/people/zipcodelookup
