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(6-1-20) My son, Kevin, is a certified peer specialist – a person with a serious mental illness in recovery who helps others with their mental illnesses. I’m proud of him and his work.

Unfortunately and unnecessarily, peers are sometimes viewed as being adversaries to parents and families. This is counter productive. The same thinking that applies to peers can be said about parents and families. Only a parent or family member can fully understand what that experience involves. Parents handle issues differently. Some better than others. But teamwork is more productive than head butting, especially when each side should have the same goal, which should be helping an individual prosper.

The voices of family members are important. I remember vividly what a brother told me about his sister when I interviewed him in Miami for my book. He told me that his sister had schizophrenia and during the past 30 years she had been seen by two dozen psychiatrists, assigned three times that number of social workers, and had been arrested, and appeared before judges. When all of those doctors, social workers and judges were gone, he was still with her picking up the pieces.

It is important for parents to talk about their experiences. I am delighted that Randye Kaye, an author, public speaker, and mental health activist, invited two other mothers of adult children with serious mental illnesses to participate in a video discussion. Baltimore advocate Laura Pogliano and Miriam Feldman, both have written for this blog.

In addition, Kaye invited Robert Kolker, the New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family to join their discussion. Kolker’s book chronicles the experiences of the Galvin family, a midcentury American family in Colorado Springs with twelve children, six of whom have been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Kolker’s book is a selection of the revived Oprah’s Book Club.

Thank you Randye Kaye, Laura Pogliano with SARDAA, and Miriam Feldman for sharing your experiences. Kaye is the author of  Ben Behind His Voices.  Feldman’s book, He Came In With It: A Portrait of Motherhood and Madness, will be available July 21st. Here is an NPR interview with Kolker about Hidden Valley Road.

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(5-29-20) With a third of Americans showing signs of clinical anxiety or depression tied to the psychological toll exacted by the coronavirus pandemic, suicide rates are expected to rise. The Gannett chain published an editorial this week in several of its Florida newspapers citing what it called common myths and misunderstandings about suicide. I’m grateful the editorial cited my book, noting that our mental health care system is broken. If you or someone you know needs help, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at (800) 273-8255 or email www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org. Every life is worth saving. Americans are resilient. We will get through this together. You are not alone.)

Editorial Gainesville Sun: Pandemic raises concerns about suicide

Isolation is one of the prime risk factors for suicide.

So in the era of the pandemic when isolation is being enforced, our community must confront the increased risks of mental illness.

In a typical year, almost 50,000 Americans die by suicide. From 1999 to 2018, the suicide rate increased by 35%, reported the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

During the Great Recession, the suicide rate increased four times faster.

Demographically, males are 3.7 times more likely to die by suicide.

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This blog appeared on my author’s website this morning, but a problem with Facebook delayed its reposting there.

(5-25-20) Memorial Day honors those who have died while serving in the U.S. Military.  That should include all those who have perished.

Does Ending Your Own Life Nullify Your Hero Status? Squabble At CIA Reveals Lingering Prejudice

Ranya Abdelsayed spent a year in Afghanistan targeting senior al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters at one of the Central Intelligence Agency’s most important bases. Less than 48 hours before she was to return home, the 34 year-old fatally shot herself in the head.

The CIA maintains a Memorial Wall in the lobby of its Langley headquarters to recognize those who “gave their lives in the service of their country,” but a recent spat reveals a lingering prejudice and stigma about mental illnesses.

The Washington Post, which broke this story,  quoted a longtime CIA historian, who retired in 2016, objecting to her name being approved and a star representing her being added to the wall:

Abdelsayed’s inclusion violates the agency’s own criteria — and her star “must absolutely come off the wall.”

The famed memorial, he said, is reserved for deaths that are “of an inspirational or heroic character” or are the result of enemy actions or hazardous conditions…“There’s been an erosion of understanding in CIA leadership for at least two decades about what the wall is for and who is it that we’re commemorating…Now we have a suicide star on the wall. That’s not what the wall is for. Suicide is a great tragedy, of course. But the purpose of the wall is not to show compassion to the family. It’s to show who in our community is worthy of this ­honor.”

Yes, you read that right: “Show who in our community is worthy of this honor.”

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(5-22-20) The COVID-19 pandemic is causing a rise in mental health problems. Long-time advocate, D. J. Jaffe worries this growing public awaking will divert us from serious mental illnesses.

A Pop-Psychology Pandemic

Mental-health advocates are more focused on the normal stress and anxiety caused by the coronavirus than with improving care for those who need it most.

“Three months into the coronavirus pandemic,” the Washington Post’s William Van writes, “America is on the verge of another health crisis, with daily doses of death, isolation and fear generating widespread psychological trauma.” The virus and resulting lockdown have doubtless unnerved most people, but stress, anxiety, and even feeling episodically depressed don’t constitute mental illness. They’re normal reactions to a crisis of this enormity.

But pop psychology catastrophizes normality, positions it as a “crisis,” rebrands it as “psychological trauma,” and lends it gravitas that it doesn’t deserve. This response diverts our attention—and mental-health dollars—from the real crisis: the abandonment of people with serious mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, who are forced to sleep on streets, in jails, and in the few remaining psychiatric institutions. Leaving these people untreated only worsens the spread of Covid-19.

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Illustration from The Sosial.

(5-19-20) One of the most common comments I hear when I travel is “You have told my story!” It’s a reference to my book,  CRAZY: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness, which describes my son’s arrest in the midst of a psychotic break after we were turned away from an emergency room where we’d gone to seek help. After I spoke in Western Pennsylvania, Heather Fox talked to me about her struggle and I’ve asked her to share it. 

Dear Pete,

Three years ago, I was a mom who was rapid cycling and having a mixed episode of agitation, anxiety, and depression while taking the wrong medication for my diagnosis. I called my doctor but was dismissed. I still have a recording of our phone conversation where he told me to continue on my medication and simply blew off my concerns.

I was angry, got upset and felt no one could help me. My downhill spiral continued and I ended up fleeing one night. It was too much. I live in rural western Pennsylvania and I found a remote cabin in the woods. I helped myself to a bunch of random items, rearranged furniture, drank from their liquor bar and then attempted suicide by crashing my car.

I was taken to an emergency room where they cleaned me up, got me calmed down and called my husband. The doctors sent me two hours away to a mental health facility.

I am a pre-school teacher with a Master’s Degree who works with troubled kids. I never imagined I would end up in a small cell of a room with a ripped mattress and a ripped sheet. The building was dirty and very scary. I mostly slept in my bed and kept to myself. It was a frightening experience.

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(5-15-20) FROM MY FILES FRIDAY: Unfortunately, Hollywood marketers always believe that sex sells so when the movie  Lars and the Real Girl was released in 2007, they packaged it as a comedy about a man who orders a life-size sex doll which he believes is real. This titillation harms what is a charming story written by Nancy Oliver and directed by Craig Gillespie about mental illness and community acceptance. Now that you have watched Tiger King during stay at home orders, watch this movie. Those seeking a cheap sexual buzz will be disappointed but viewers who want to see what happens when someone with a mental illness is embraced by those around them will find it well worth their time.

Lars and the Real Girl (blog first posted in March 2010)

Actor Ryan Gosling plays Lars Lindstrom, a likable but withdrawn young man who has trouble making friends. One night he buys a life-size sex doll on the Internet and falls in love with it. He names her Bianca and explains that she is a Brazilian missionary so she doesn’t believe in pre-marital sex. He treats her as if she were a real person.

Now here’s where this movie turns from — as a reviewer in The Wall Street Journal put it – “a five minute sketch on tv” into an “achievement that borders on the miraculous.”

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