Photo of Brad Ambrose from NBC Channel 4’s Changing Minds series. 

(11-9-16) Gary Ambrose, a retired Air Force brigadier general, recently received the Gartlan Award for Leadership and Advocacy in Virginia. I was asked to say a few words about General Ambrose’s many accomplishments, but it was his speech about his son, Brad, that deeply touched listeners.

Like many others, our family became mental health advocates by necessity.

We were advocates for our son and brother, Brad, who, for 17 years, lived with paranoid schizophrenia and the voices that urged him to take his own life.

Brad was intelligent, articulate, well-read, and charismatic. We shared a sense of humor. Of course, we loved him. But more than that– we liked him. He was our son, but he was also a friend. During “good times,” when he was medication compliant, he was a pleasant companion.

He was a peer mentor in the NAMI Peer To Peer program and the first chairman of the Mental Health Subcommittee of the Fairfax County Re-entry Council. In the spring of 2014, he was the first person with mental illness to be highlighted on Channel 4’s “Changing Minds” segment. He was passionate about improving life for people with mental illness.

He had potential.

But, he had also spent many of the 17 years of his illness cycling through the healthcare and legal systems, and was, much of the time, a danger to himself.

Brad’s illness took him from us in 2014.

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(11-7-16) Ken Gladieux was diagnosed with a mental illness when he was 28. Even so, he finished medical school, became a psychiatrist, married and started a family. In 2009, he moved to Lynchburg, Virginia to a new practice. Thirteen days later, he ended his own life.

His daughter, Meg, was only eight years old when he died. Today, she is a high school sophomore and, along with her mother, Barbara, a vocal advocate for suicide prevention and mental health education. Recently Meg read a story during an interview on The Mike Show, broadcast on a Lynchburg radio station, to promote the Lynchburg Out the Darkness Walk that was held October 1st.  

“My kids are doing well today and they are very successful,” Barbara explained in an email. “Ken and I built a fine life and a foundation for our kids based on love and care.  We have had much support from Kids Haven, a local non profit place, for grieving kids.  I hope the continued nurturing will help them deal with life in the future.  Our family believes in helping others and reaching out for help!”

Please listen to her five minute statement. It is inspiring. Great job Meg! Thanks for speaking out.

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Photo by Christian Science Monitor

(11-4-16) Mental Health Activist and former Rhode Island congressman Patrick Kennedy says Congress should delay passing a mental health reform bill this month during its lame duck session.

His statement could be another setback for Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) and his Helping Families In Mental Health Crisis Act, which Murphy has been trying to get signed into law since the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings.

You might recall that Democrats blocked passage of Murphy’s original bill until Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) rewrote it earlier this year, eliminating its most controversial features. That version sailed through the House. Now, everyone is waiting for the Senate to pass its version —the Mental Health Reform Act of 2016. It was introduced by Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Bill Cassidy (R.-La.) as a companion bill to Murphy’s,  but it also has been extensively revised to appease critics. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) is now shepherding the Senate bill with help from Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tx.), the powerful Senate Majority Whip.

Their game plan was to bring the bill up for a vote during the lame duck session that begins November 15th and get it passed (without additional debate and no amendments) so it could be immediately merged with Murphy’s House bill and delivered to the White House for President Obama to sign into law before leaving office.

However, in a recent interview with POLITICO’s Brianna Ehley, Kennedy said he is urging lawmakers to wait until the next Congress to pass any mental health reform legislation. Although he is no longer in Congress, Kennedy has considerable clout when it comes to mental health topics, especially among Democrats.

Kennedy said having the Senate pass legislation during the lame duck session would “do more harm than good,” adding that Murphy’s bill is now “so watered down” that it does nothing more than “reallocate money around block grants.”

“Passing that bill will take the wind out of the sales for real reform,” Kennedy added. “Kick it to the next Congress and the new administration to do this the right way.”

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(11-1-2016) It’s always tricky reviewing a book written by someone who is a friend. Such is the case with Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care, which is authored by my pal, Dr. Dinah Miller along with Dr. Annette Hanson. Fortunately, their book is top-notch so I don’t have any qualms about enthusiastically recommending it, especially if you want an accurate picture of the mental health landscape today.

First, a disclosure, Drs. Miller and Hanson, both contributors to the popular blog, ShrinkRap, asked me to write the forward to COMMITTED, which I happily did. That certainly makes my objectivity questionable. But COMMITTED already has received several favorable reviews, including a prominent one in The Washington Post, so I am not the only one saying it is an important book. (The authors also will be appearing on NPR’s Dinah Rhem show Thursday, November 10th.).

What sets this book apart is Drs. Miller and Hanson admirable goal of presenting every possible viewpoint about involuntary commitment.  They begin with those who argue passionately in favor of involuntary treatment, beginning with Dr. E. Fuller Torrey and The Treatment Advocacy Center, who believe many individuals are not capable of making rational decisions about their care when they are psychotic because of anosognosia or a lack of insight, a medical condition. From there, the authors slide down the scale to Ronald Honberg at the National Alliance on Mental Illness, our nation’s largest grass roots mental health organization, that initially favored involuntary commitment but more recently has voiced that it should only be used as a last resort. Then on to Paul Summergrad at the American Psychiatric Association, which takes  a wishy-washy view, refusing to endorse or reject involuntary commitment.

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(10-25-16) In a Washington Post story posted today, Reporter Colby Itkowitz cites this week’s decisions by Walmart and Rubies Costumes to drop their suicide kit makeup as an example of how advocates are successfully calling attention to stigmatizing Halloween rides and costumes.

She also writes about other successful recent protests, including one on this blog against Knott’s Berry Farm’s  Fear VR: 5150, a virtual reality “haunted experience” that promised to scare patrons by transporting them inside a psychiatric hospital where a demonically possessed patient is on the loose. 

One of the questions that Reporter Itkowitz asked when she called is whether I think there’s been progress in recent years when it comes to combating stigma.

“Yes,” I replied.

I suspect that ten years ago, editors would have snickered if she had proposed a story about how mental health advocates object to Halloween costumes and rides that marginalize individuals with mental illnesses.

There will always be readers who belittle the importance of speaking out, but I believe our efforts encourage the public to think about how stigma keeps people from seeking help.

Halloween attractions use mental illness to scare us. Here’s why advocates say it must stop.

By Colby Itkowitz  The Washington Post October 25 at 8:41 AM

When Amelia Joubert visited the local haunted Halloween attraction in previous years, she always avoided the “7th Ward Asylum.” But last year, she decided to go in.

The attraction at Carowinds, an amusement park run by Cedar Fair Entertainment on the border of North and South Carolina, was described this way: “You would be crazy to tour this twisted asylum. Lost and tortured souls are all that remain, but you’ll see plenty that will make you question your sanity. … The 7th Ward was home to the Carolina’s most chronically insane. From murderers to crazed psychopaths, many of the poor souls trapped behind the Gothic walls would spend their entire lives there. As you walk these halls today, be sure to stay with your group. This is one place you don’t want to be committed.”

For Joubert, an 18-year-old college freshman, this depiction of mental hospital patients stung.

Because she has been a patient.

At 15, Joubert was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, previously known as multiple personality disorder. The only person she’s ever harmed, she said, is herself.

“One thing that stuck out to me is that one of the actors said, ‘The voices in my head are telling me you’re going to die.’ That stuck out to me. I hear voices and it made me feel like I was being misrepresented,” she said.

There are examples of asylum-based Halloween attractions all over the country. Every year at this time, right next to the chainsaw-wielding masked men and flesh-eating zombies, are the mental hospital patients. The message isn’t subtle: People with mental illness are to be feared.

But this year, under pressure from mental-health advocates, haunted attractions big and small have begun to change names and descriptions of — or have shut down completely — scenes that depicted mental illness as frightening. The activism is part of a broader, burgeoning movement to lift the stigma about mental illness, which has long led to social and employment discrimination.

[The stigma of mental illness is under attack by sufferers, who are coming out publicly and defiantly]

This year, Carowinds changed the asylum theme to a more generalized hospital scene called “Urgent Scare.”

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