Sunday, June 24, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/24/magazine/when-my-crazy-father-actually-lost-his-mind.html?ref=magazine
When My Crazy Father Actually Lost His Mind
By JENEEN INTERLANDI
And what it took to get him the help he needed.
Elinor Carucci/Redux, for The New York Times
The author with her mother, Patricia, and her father, Joseph.
A REVIEW
As you read this heart-rendering story, you should be able to identify your position by the end of it. And it's that position that you will want to make clear when you tell your stories about coping with a mentally ill loved one. When you do you will thus be advocating for either AOT or ACT. Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) allows involuntary treatment with a law that moves beyond the narrow "danger to self or others" standard. Assisted Community Treatment (ACT) sidesteps the involuntary committment issue by using the courts to order a mental health team to provide treatment BUT only if mentally ill persons volunteer or agree to the court-ordered solution.
Please take time to thank The New York Times for publishing this well-written and deeply personal article about mental illness. The paper's heroic effort helps to lift the stigma veil and helps to bring attention to mental health illness issues; the article is important because it helps to increase awareness about the second-class treatment of our mentally ill relatives. Thank you NYT and Jeneen Interlandi. You've both done what Hollywood and the White House haven't been able to do: make real the very real experiences of so many American mental health caregivers and their relatives. Anyone who involuntary treatment is unnecessary because violent incidents by the mentally ill are the exception, rather than the rule, miss the point - each act of psychotic violence probably represents tens of thousands of families already struggling to keep the same from happening with their mentally challenged loved-one.
Mental Illness is a huge and often well-hidden problem. Instead of being treated like modern-day lepers, the mentally ill need better treatment and respect . No one wants to be mentally ill; recovery when it does occur is often a lengthy process. It's thus in the public's interest to increase beds and services for those who can't mentally handle their situations. Would you let a person in shock after an auto accident refuse treatment when you see him bleeding on the side of the road? Would a physician refuse to treat a child with a broken arm? Wouldn't a parent be held negligent for not taking an injured child to the doctor. Yet because few people recognized the physical symptoms of mental illness of any kind (bipolar, schizophrenia, depression, personality disorder, etc.) it often goes untreated in the initial stages. What makes a mental illness so insidious is that you can't see a broken brain. That coupled with the disease itself, often causing its victims to declare that they are not sick and don't need treatment, as Jeneen Interlandi's story so painfully depicts.
As a certified teacher for the Family2Family education course for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), I continually teach our mantra - you can't know what no one has told you. Re-education then is the first key; re-dedication to funding mental health programs and positions, is the second. Treatment works. But getting long-term and consistent care to help stabilize a problem in the head, is a major frustration for caregiving families and individuals. Not surprisingly families of the mentally ill become exhausted and stressed as they take on the roles of case managers and protectors.
One of the most revealing and painful facts in When My Father Actually Lost His Mind occurs when it becomes clear that getting their loved-one stabilized is more difficult without long-term coordinated services. While it is fortunate that Mr. Interlandi's bipolar symptoms began to subside, which is sometimes the case after many years, it should be noted that his improvement might have come sooner with a better kind of health care system. Indeed, it should not be forgotten that much of Mr. Interlandi's improvement may also have been the result of the strong support system provided by his loving family. I know of hundreds of families providing the same kind of up close and personal, intensive-kind of loving care for a mentally challenged loved one.
Jeneen Interlandi thus makes a significant contribution by so eloquently bringing some very much needed attention to an almost hidden epidemic. By increasing the awareness of millions about mental illness with her story, I am confident that many more are now aware that mental illness is a family issue and a biological problem. Perhaps now more people in and out of the mental health care system will understand to what extent mental illness is a precusor for the increasing number of individuals who are homeless or in our jails.
Because stigma prevails... we need to keep telling and hearing about stories involving mental illness. Stepping Forward2Day is one way to do that. This Blog is therefore being used to sound an URGENT clarion call for action. The comments and stories you share will be presented to Congress, state legislators, the President, Governors, and other policymakers in September 2012. It's time to wake-up America with more stories about real people coping with a mental health care system that often does as much harm, as good in the 21st Century.
Again, thanks to the NYT, magazine editor Vera Titunik, and Jeneen Interlandi for sharing an extraordinary and moving story about the ongoing effect of mental illness in our communities. Well done!
