Speaker Was Suicidal But Found Healing, Hope, and Love At A Clubhouse

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A two minute testimonial from a recent Hope Clubhouse member (not the woman mentioned in this blog.)

(1-14-20) From My Files Friday: I’m a big fan of clubhouses and when I gave a keynote nine years ago at a fundraiser for Hope House in Fort Myers, Florida,  I heard an inspiring message worth re- retelling. (I will be speaking March 8th at the Key Clubhouse in Miami.)

 How A Clubhouse Changed My Life

First posted 10-24-11

The young woman giving her testimony had excelled in high school and gone to college with high expectations – only to have a mental break.  Diagnosed as having bipolar disorder, she became so ill that she was forced to drop out. At one point, she felt suicidal.

When she called the local police during a manic episode, rather than getting help, she got into an argument and ended up being arrested. She was jailed overnight, as an officer told her, “to be taught a lesson.”

That experience — at the hands of unsympathetic and poorly trained sheriff’s deputies — resulted in her developing PTSD. She was in such anguish that she simply wanted to give up —  until her parents got her to visit the HOPE CLUBHOUSE in Fort Myers, Florida.

“The HOPE CLUBHOUSE,” she said. “Saved my life.”

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Trump’s Budget And Vision For Mental Health Clearly Influenced By Treatment Advocacy Center

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(2-11-20) President Donald J. Trump has proposed a record $4.8 trillion budget for the 2021 fiscal year and the Washington Post has published an Op Ed by Joe Grogan, assistant to the president and director of the Domestic Policy Council, outlining the administration’s mental health agenda.

I don’t like writing about politics on this blog because my interest is solely in mental health, not partisanship. But I found this editorial interesting, in part, because it reflects the thinking of D. J. Jaffe, Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, John Snook, executive director of the Treatment Advocacy Center,  and HHS Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Abuse Dr. Elinore McCance-Katz, as enumerated at a recent White House summit.  You can watch presentations at the summit by Jaffe, Snook, and McCance-Katz by clicking on their name. Once the Democrats choose a final candidate, I will post that individual’s mental health platform.

Americans have failed people with mental illness. Trump’s new budget will change that.

A community garden grows outside a homeless encampment in Oakland, Calif., last month. (Philip Pacheco/AFP via Getty Images)
A community garden grows outside a homeless encampment in Oakland, Calif., last month. (Philip Pacheco/AFP via Getty Images)
By Joe Grogan 
President Trump is exceptionally focused on fighting for Americans who can’t fight for themselves and confronting problems other administrations, Democratic and Republican, have ignored. This is particularly true for Americans who suffer from addiction and serious mental disorders. In this year’s budget, President Trump is proposing the boldest reform in decades for the millions of Americans who live with serious mental illness.

This administration has already led the way on combating the drug addiction crisis. President Trump directed the declaration of an opioid public health emergency in 2017 and took action to confront the driving forces behind the crisis. Last week, the National Center for Health Statistics reported a decline in drug overdose deaths for the first time in 28 years. Life expectancy rose for the first time in four years.

Now, we must end the disgraceful way Americans with serious mental illness are treated. They are not receiving the care they desperately need. In 2018, 47 million people experienced some form of mental illness. More than 11 million of these Americans lived with mental illness of such severity that it impaired their ability to carry out normal life functions. And nearly 4 million Americans received no treatment at all. This is unacceptable.

In the 1950s, there were more than 550,000 state psychiatric hospital beds in the United States. By 2016, this number had dropped to 37,679. Instead of receiving care, the sick are locked behind bars, often after encounters with police officers ill equipped to manage these encounters effectively. There are more than 392,000 incarcerated individuals with serious mental illness. That means there are 10 times more individuals with serious mental illnesses in prison beds than in state psychiatric hospital beds.

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HHS Secretary Azar Tells Me He Wants To Make Mental Health Reforms A Priority

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(2-7-20) Health and Human Services Secretary Alex M. Azar II told me during a 45-minute meeting that he intends to focus on improving mental health services.

I was invited to share my family’s story with Secretary Azar and Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Abuse Dr. Elinore McCance Katz and Shannon Royce, Director of the Center for Faith and Opportunity Initiatives at HHS, at the invitation  of Laura C. Trueman, director of HHS Intergovernmental and External Affairs.

I cited my family’s frustrating struggle to get help for my adult son, Kevin,  to illustrate barriers that Americans face.

I recounted how I had rushed Kevin to an emergency room during a psychotic break, only to be told that he was not considered dangerous enough to be hospitalized and treated. After we were turned away, my clearly delusional son broke into an unoccupied stranger’s house to take a bubble bath and was arrested and charged with two felonies.

Azar said he had heard similar stories from other family members and asked how HHS could help break roadblocks to care.

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Two Important Questions For Parents Of Seriously Mentally Ill Adults: What Happens When Meds Harm? What Happens When Parents Age?

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Photo credit: The Atlantic Magazine

(2-3-20) An email from a mother raises two important issues. What happens when you need medications to remain stable but those same medications are hurting your overall health? How do aging parents protect the future of an adult child with a serious mental illness and intellectual disabilities?

Dear Pete,

Our son lives with us, and always has. In his early teens, he was finally diagnosed as having Bipolar-1 disorder although we are fairly certain he had been struggling with its onset as early as 2nd grade.

His condition became progressively worse with age. By his late 20’s, after several very traumatic and severe manic episodes, he spent a week in a local hospital’s behavioral health unit in Virginia.  I spent weeks looking for a community support system and searching for a psychiatrist after he was discharged. My search was difficult because of HIPAA. I was told our son was over 18 years old and, therefore, it was up to him, not us.

Desperate, I finally convinced a sweet, compassionate, Office Manager named Chris to plead my case with Dr. James Dee, who was not accepting new patients. I’m sure Pete that you recognize that name because he is the same psychiatrist who treated your son, Kevin. He was the best psych-pharmacologist we’ve encountered and we were devastated when he died recently. Dr. Dee got our son into our local Virginia Psych Rehab Services Day Treatment Program, which he attended for seven years. Dr. Dee helped our son come to terms with his mental illness and learn essential coping skills – especially anger management and the importance of getting therapy and taking meds.

Early on, we met with a lawyer to inquire about legal guardianship to protect our son when he experienced a manic state and was unable to make appropriate treatment decisions.

What happened?

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Mother Asks Famous TV Reporter’s Mother For Advice; Questions Raised About Our Conflicting Treatment Of Individuals With Mental Illness

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(1-31-20) Among the several dozen emails I received this week, there are two I wish to share. One is from Dennie Brooks, who shared a personal story about CBS reporter Mike Wallace after I posted a blog describing how Wallace had helped my son. The second email comes from long-time advocate Dr. Gary Mihelish, president of the National Alliance on Mental Illness chapter in Helena, Montana, and a former NAMI board member, who wrote about our nation’s conflicting handling of individuals with serious mental illnesses who are accused of crimes.

Dear Pete,

A fellow I met recently told me that when he was a teenager,  his mother found him just about to put a noose around his neck.  The mother was terribly upset and had no idea what to do.  Mike Wallace had just gone public with his struggles with depression so this mother sent a letter to Mike Wallace’s mother seeking advice.  Mike Wallace’s mother send a note of encouragement back and also told her son. Mike Wallace then wrote a wonderful letter to the mother’s son.

Now an adult, the man told me that he still has that letter. He said Mike’s kindness helped save him.  Mike Wallace was one very special guy.

Best, Dennie.

(Dennie Brooks is the daughter of the late Dr. Dean Brooks, a nationally recognized psychiatrist/advocate featured in the movie, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.)

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Given Two Life Terms Because Judge Didn’t Believe Child Could Be “Cured”

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(1-27-20) My Op Ed published yesterday in The Washington Post.

A mentally ill man is wrongfully incarcerated in Virginia

Sana Campbell and Jim Campbell are pictured at their home. The Campbells have been trying unsuccessfully for years to get Sana's son, Christopher Sharikas, transferred to a psychiatric hospital from prison. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)
Sana Campbell and Jim Campbell are pictured at their home. The Campbells have been trying unsuccessfully for years to get Sana’s son, Christopher Sharikas, transferred to a psychiatric hospital from prison. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)
By Pete Earley 

If Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) and the General Assembly are serious about criminal-justice reform, they need to do something this session about the continued imprisonment of Christopher Sharikas.

Sharikas was 15 years old and living in Northern Virginia when he began exhibiting signs of having a serious mental illness. He began hearing voices, became disruptive at school and armed himself with a baseball bat. He was ultimately diagnosed with untreated paranoid schizophrenia.

In April 1997, about a year after he was diagnosed, he flashed a knife at a woman who had refused to give him money, before he ran away. The police interviewed him the following day but declined to arrest him. Later that afternoon, Sharikas approached a woman and demanded her car keys. Voices were telling him that he needed to drive to New York. She surrendered her keys and purse, but Sharikas stabbed her from behind, puncturing her liver.

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