Bestselling Author and Mental Health Advocate
From My Files Friday: Three lessons we could learn from the LGBT Community.
Mental health advocates can learn how to fight stigma and influence legislation by studying the LGBT Community. Recently, The Washington Post published an editorial by immigration activist Frank Sharry that explained how LGBT activists had given underdogs a blueprint for successfully changing public opinion.
Photo courtesy of Roxane Adams.
If you think Virginia solved its hospital bed shortage problem after state Senator Creigh Deeds and his son were turned away from a local community mental health center with tragic results, you are wrong. Deeds’ son, Gus, attacked his father with a knife and then ended his own life in 2013 after being told there were no crisis care beds available locally.
The news story below is yet another black eye for my home state, which has failed to adequately deal with mental health problems despite promises made after the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007 that left 33 dead.
After you read it, you will understand why mental health reform must include discussions about crisis care beds, state hospital beds, and community housing, as well as CIT and jail diversion.
Death of a young black man in a Virginia prison sparks outrage
Jamycheal Mitchell allegedly stole $5 worth of junk food from a 7-11. Four months later, he was found dead in a jail cell.
Local activists are incensed over the death of Jamycheal Mitchell, 24, in a Portsmouth, Va., jail this week. Mr. Mitchell had a history of mental illness, said local paper The Virginian-Pilot, and he was being held awaiting transfer to a mental hospital.
One of the last times I returned to Fowler, Colorado, was when I was working for The Washington Post and my good friend and editor, Walt Harrington, urged me to revisit my teenage home and write about my sister’s death. Alice died in a car accident and is buried there.
Even though my parents moved away from Fowler in 1970, they wanted their ashes taken there for internment — so after my mom died in 2013 and my father passed away earlier this year, it fell upon my brother, George, and me to carry out their wishes.
Not a day goes by when I don’t think of my parents and I am glad they were wise enough to have us make the journey together. In the eyes of my parents, it was a “reunion” and a time to remember when the five of us had lived together as a family. For me, it was time to grieve, to bond with my brother, to honor our parents and to ponder many of the same questions about death that had haunted me nearly thirty years ago when I set out on a trip to understand my sister’s death.
MISSING ALICE: The Story of My Sister, Her Death, and My Search for Answers
(First published in the Washington Post in 1986)
Midway across Ohio, the man beside me on the DC-10 asked where I was going.
“Fowler, Colorado. A little town of about a thousand people near Pueblo.”
“Why would anyone go to Foouuller?” he asked, grinning as he exaggerated the name.
“A death. My sister.”
“Sorry,” he mumbled and turned away.
I was relieved. I didn’t have to explain that my sister had been dead 19 years. Alice was killed when I was 14. She was two years older and we had been inseparable as children.
I couldn’t talk about her death at first. My voice would deepen, my eyes would fill with tears. My parents would cry at the mention of her name, and we rarely spoke of her. Then it seemed too late.
I have been a member of a mental health subcommittee studying ways to improve services in Fairfax County, Virginia where I live. The introduction to our draft report might be useful reading for many of you. I have edited out several local references and added some key points in parenthesis.
You’ll find that much of our report contains information that I have cited in my speeches and previous blogs. You might want to compare what we are suggesting with services in your community.
Mental Health Reform: An Introduction
“Police officers have increasingly become the first responders when a citizen is in the midst of a psychiatric crisis. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), up to 40% of adults who experience serious mental illness in their lifetime will come into contact with the police and the criminal justice system at some point in their lives. (1) The vast majority of these individuals will be charged with minor misdemeanor and low-level felony offenses that are a direct result of their psychiatric illnesses – the most common being trespassing or disorderly conduct.
Despite the minor nature of these crimes, encounters between persons with mental illness and the police can escalate, sometimes with tragic consequences. Nearly half of all fatal shootings by law enforcement locally and nationally involve persons with mental illnesses.
by Rebecca
Age fourteen
Imagine living every day being reminded of what a failure you are. Imagine going to bed every day feeling defeated and hopeless. Imagine never being capable of reaching anyone’s expectations. Imagine losing every dream you ever dreamed and losing grasp of the life you once had. Imagine waking up every day with this despair, knowing you are incapable of living differently.
This is the life of many with severe mental illness.
Mental illness is a heavy burden on my heart because my father has suffered severely with mental illnesses his entire life. He has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, severe depression, personality disorders, and other mental health issues. Because of his severe mental condition, he has lost everything.
Discrimination against college students with mental health issues
Here are four bits that I’d like to share this Friday. One is about Judge Steven Leifman, another cites discrimination against college students with mental illnesses, the third reports fallout over the James Holmes sentence in the Aurora Movie Theater mass murder and the last offers a creative solution to ending chronic homelessness in Dallas.
1. CONGRATULATIONS!
My good friend, Judge Steven Leifman, who was courageous enough to get me into the Miami Dade Detention Center so that I could write my book, will receive the William H. Rehnquist Award for Judicial Excellence from the National Center for State Courts. The award will be presented by Chief Justice John Roberts and is one of the highest honors that a judge can receive. Two mental health reform bills making their way through Congress call for the appointment of a defacto federal mental health czar. One requires that position to be filled by a psychiatrist while the other is more relaxed but requires a mental health professional. Too bad because Judge Leifman would be the perfect official to run SAMHSA and our federal mental health programs.
Pete Earley is the bestselling author of such books as The Hot House and Crazy. When he is not spending time with his family, he tours the globe advocating for mental health reform.
As a former reporter for The Washington Post, Pete uses his journalistic background to take a fair-minded approach to the story all while weaving an interesting tale for the reader.