We Need To Speak Out NOW!

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The national debate about the horrific events at Sandy Hook Elementary School must include a strong call for improving our mental health care system. Now is not the time for us to hide or keep silent.

A blog by a desperate soccer mom about her struggles to help her son has gone viral.  That proves people are listening. They are trying to understand. We must not lose this opening to demand better services and to put a more representative face on those who have been diagnosed with mental disorders. Early reports suggest the shooter had a form of Asperger syndrome. Some consider it a mental illness. Others argue that it is not. Regardless, we need to speak about our failed system and not allow this debate to focus only on gun control.

There is another important part of this discussion that is not being voiced — but must be heard.

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Gun Control and Mental Illness, Another Tragedy

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Editor’s note: USA TODAY asked me to comment specifically about mental illness and gun control.  Here is my Op Ed that the newspaper is running on its website. (http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2012/12/15/pete-earley-on-shooter-and-mental-illness/1771203/)

My adult son’s voice was rattled.

“You watching the news about Sandy Hook?” he asked.

“Yes, 20 children and six adults murdered,” I replied.

He let out a sad sigh. “I’m trying to wrap my head around this.”

Like most Americans, my adult son was distraught about Friday’s murders. How could anyone not be? But for him the news was especially unsettling. That’s because he’s one of “them.” He’s one of the ones being demonized on television. He’s been diagnosed with a mental illness. He’s been arrested. He’s been hospitalized in mental wards.

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From My Files: Books That Influence Our Lives

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Books by Pete Earley

Books make popular Christmas gifts, although I’m not sure how you wrap an e-book and put it under your tree.  In April 2010, I asked readers if they had a favorite book in their library that had influenced their thinking. Here’s what I posted. Please share with us the titles of books that you have found significant in your life or books that you have written and want to publicize. Happy reading!

First published April 19, 2010

When I was about fifteen, I read Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham and I was mesmerized. At the time, I was living in a town of a 1,000 residents in western Colorado where my father was a minister. My older sister, Alice, had died in an automobile accident and I was struggling to make sense of that age old question: “Why do bad things happen to good people?”

I don’t remember now how I got my hands on Of Human Bondage or why I started reading it, but once I did, I couldn’t put it down.
For those of you who have never read it, it is perhaps Maugham’s best work. It is the life story of Philip Carey and his search for meaning in life. After Carey’s parents die, he is sent to live with his uncle, a vicar in a small village. The family is extremely religious.
I remember reading the book late into the night, thinking about Philip as if he were a close friend, and then hurrying home after school to discover what was happening to him.

Is the Recovery Movement Hurting The Sickest Among Us?

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Is our current emphasis on RECOVERY actually hurting the sickest among us?

A Canadian advocate argues that it is.

In her report, The Emergence of the Recovery Movement: Are Medications Taking a Back Seat in the Road to Recovery?    Lembi Buchanan writes:

“Recovery proponents support a consumer-driven, psychosocial holistic model that promotes hope, self-determination, empowerment, respect, responsibility and spiritual healing to enable people living with mental health problems and illnesses to lead meaningful and productive lives whether or not they are symptom-free. They dismiss the essential role of medications for individuals who are severely disabled by their illness and incapable of managing their own recovery.”

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From My Files: Why Don’t You Take Your Medication?

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In a blog that I originally published on March 12, 2010, I tried to explain why my son resisted taking medication for several years after his first break.  The question that I posed nearly three years ago is still the one that I am asked the most today. Here’s what I wrote back then. I’d love to hear your thoughts today.  

March 12, 2010

“Why won’t you just take your medication? I take pills for my cholesterol every night and its no big deal?”

“Every psychiatrist we’ve seen has said you have a mental illness. Why won’t you accept it? Why would the doctors tell you that you’re sick, if it weren’t true?”

“Let’s look at when you were doing well and when you got into trouble. What was the difference? Medication. It was the difference. When you were on your meds, you were fine. And when you weren’t, you got into trouble. Can’t you see that?”

These quotes may sound familiar to you if you are a parent and have a a son or daughter with a severe mental illness. I’ve said everyone of them to my son, Mike.

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Another Parent’s Sad Story, a Good Movie, Tweets, and Kudos to a Housing Activist

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Silver Lining Playbook: Well Worth Seeing

A big thank you from me to Dinah Miller, Xavier Amador, Chrisa Hickey, Tracey Skale, and Erika for offering advice last week to A Concerned Parent during my week-long WE’VE LOST HOPE series. Each of them did an excellent job. I devoted a week to answering a single letter because it was representative of the heart-breaking emails that are sent to me. On the same Monday when the series began, I received this email:

“Son had a psychotic break in 2010 stabbed step-father. found not guilty by reason of insanity due to phentermine and chantix given to him by a general practitioner who knew he was bipolar and on meds. after jail stay of 2 years, son  put in transition home where he sat and did nothing. psychiatrist saw him for 15 minutes while talking on the phone the entire time. changed meds that worked to cheaper drugs that didn’t work. sent to hospital, discharged to street with no money or id. case manager from transitional home “forgot” to take son to medicare appointments or inform them of his hospitilization. all benefits cancelled. case manager fired. son no benefits at all. in shelter, mandated court order states he must have supervision for meds, he doesn’t,
cannot live with parents, attorney doesn’t want judge or da to know. son had never been violent. had benefits for 10 years, now gone. living in a violent area told not to leave the property because of drug dealers, murderers, prostitutes. Click to continue…