Last Tuesday’s presidential debates have been scrutinized in microscopic detail. The Washington Post even published a front page story about each candidate’s body language. Yet none of the political pundits chastised President Obama for insulting one-in-five Americans. Not even the long-line of president-haters at Fox News.

What did the President say that was offensive?

“We have to…make sure that we’re keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, those who are mentally ill…”

A moment later he added:

“If we can get automatic weapons that kill folks in amazing numbers out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill.”

Substitute any other group except “the mentally ill”  into the President’s two sentences.

“If we can get automatic weapons that kill folks in amazing numbers out of the hands of criminals and the Hispanics – blacks — gays.”  You can even substitute the word Republicans. 

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If you believe stories on the Internet, thousands of Virginia residents are being locked up in mental hospitals each year against their will because of a “corrupt” state involuntary commitment process. That’s right, as many as 20,000 are being forced into hospitals annually on a whim, because of unproven phone call accusations or as punishment because of their anti-government views.

This startling claim  has been made by John W. Whitehead, a Virginia civil rights attorney, who founded his own watchdog group– The Rutherford Institute — in Richmond. In a series of interviews with Business Insider, Whitehead said:

“I’m friends with the local police; I could call them right now and probably get you committed if you were in Virginia. They can arrive at your door based on somebody’s testimony or your Facebook page and take you away to a mental hospital… There’s a system here that is corrupt...”

Whitehead’s allegations were sparked by an incident in late August when local and federal law enforcement officers knocked on the door of  Brandon Raub, a 26 year-old former Marine, living in Richmond. The local FBI office had received a complaint about Raub because of several posts that he had put on his Facebook page.  The local FBI office notified the U.S. Secret Service and police department. On August 17th,  a team of officers went to evaluate Raub. During that interview, it was decided that Raub was showing signs of a mental disorder and needed to be temporarily detained until he could be evaluated and, if necessary, involuntarily committed to a hospital. 

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I always enjoy speaking in Pinehurst, North Carolina, because it is home to a fabulous National Alliance on Mental Illness chapter and one of my favorite advocates. Marianne Kernan invited me to speak at a fund raiser for Linden Lodge last weekend and also deliver a speech during a moving interfaith church service. Marianne spearheaded a NAMI Moore County campaign to build Linden Lodge when she was president of the chapter. NAMI bought a 1970’s rambler and turned it into a seven bedroom residential facility with a garden and a multi-use building for art, music therapy, physical fitness activities and peer support group meetings. Six residents live in the debt free house. The Linden Lodge Foundation accepts no state or federal money.

Because of draconian budget cuts in mental health and housing programs, persons with mental disorders are finding it almost impossible to find housing. Today’s edition of The Washington Post notes that there has been a 23 percent rise in homelessness in the newspaper’s circulation area since  recession began. The newspaper reported in an earlier story that persons with mental illness can wait up to 18 years to get into a housing program in affluent Fairfax County, Virginia, where I live.

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Photo by Michelle Bixby, The Citizen

Whenever I give a speech, I know there are parents in the audience who have been through much worse than what my family experienced. I was reminded of this last week when I spoke at Cayuga Community College in Auburn, New York, at the invitation of the local chapter of the National Alliance of Mental Illness.   

*One parent told me that when she took her adult son to a hospital emergency room, he was not separated from others waiting there even though  he was hearing voices and psychotic.  He became enraged when another person in the crowded waiting room mistakenly picked up his soda. He attacked and broke that person’s arm. He ended up in jail on felony charges.

*Another parent recalled how her son had been expelled and banned from receiving services at a local mental health clinic after he wrote a profane and threatening letter to his case manager. That case worker’s boss called the police and, again, the person with mental illness was taken to jail and charged.

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My local chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness held its annual NAMI WALKS on Saturday, raising more than $53,000! That’s a record for our chapter.

I participated along with my son, Kevin, who is identified in my book by his middle name, Michael.

As a journalist, I scrupulously avoided joining any organizations because I wanted to remain impartial. But I became a lifetime member of NAMI as soon as I finished writing my book. I joined NAMI because I realized that families, such as mine, needed a strong advocacy voice and programs tailored to help us better understand mental illnesses. NAMI is the largest grassroots mental health advocacy group in our nation. It was founded in 1979 by a group of mothers who were frustrated by our nation’s badly broken mental health system. You can find a NAMI Walks  near you by clicking here. 

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I learned this past weekend that the adult son of a friend had died. This young man had been diagnosed with schizo -affective disorder and had been ill since childhood.

It is always difficult to know what to say to parents who have lost a son or daughter. My own parents lost my sister in a car accident when I was fourteen. That accident happened more than fifty years ago. Still, not a day goes by when they don’t think of her.

It might be an old custom but I went to my friend’s house as soon as I heard about his son’s death. I’d met this friend at our local National Alliance on Mental Illness meetings and when I saw him, I asked if he would show me photographs of his son since I’d never met him.

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