Forty four years ago, he was born a preemie – just 4 pounds, 5oz. No major medical problems, just underweight, jaundice, and low iron and sickle cell trait. Though his father and I didn’t stay together, he kept his son in sports, the latest sneakers, unusual haircuts. But he was obsessed with me. Years of back and forth to court, but I thought he was thriving.

Smoking and drinking started when he moved in with his father at age 11- taunting by his dad, threats, feeling abandoned by me led to arrests starting at 15 and maybe the beginning of issues. After a breakdown with his girlfriend at age 19, and disappointment of not being accepted into the colleges of choice that was the spiral. He fell down the stairs and when EMS responded he was full blown hallucinating, saying the CIA was after him, he even began talking with a Jamaican accent which I had never heard before. I pleaded with the ambulance attendant but he said an admittance to a pysch ward would limit his “future”, he probably got some “bad weed”.

Well, the bad weed never wore off, what followed was more and louder hallucinations and strange behaviors. I could never get him to a hospital for a formal diagnosis, but he continued spinning in place, walking with the left or right foot out first, and walking with his head tilted back (something about keeping his head to the sky, probably from some rap or r&b song).

He frightened everyone who came across him, scared me also but I tried to exhibit a hard exterior but I was pudding on the inside. Finally, a string of robberies, assaults and other crimes (shoplifting) landed him in jail. The other inmates noticed the odd behaviors right away, staring at walls, standing against walls for long periods with head/face looking up. The inmates reported him and that’s where he started seeing the jail doctors, and got the 1st diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia with cannabis disorder.

He was placed on a mental observation floor or building. Talking to him was a series of quotes from rap artists. Back and forth to court while the public defender recommending a M.I.C.A program to address both illnesses. The lawyer said/warned me that the process to be placed by the courts is a loooong process, and it was, asked if I could bail him out and get him in a facility, so I did.

The process was so loong that it actually never happened- even to this day, its been a dance and hoola hoop show of “club houses” , meds, more meds, adjusting meds, adding meds and other arrests, other shoplifting cases, more delusions and hallucinations, AOT, social workers, case managers, etc. for 23 years!!!! 23 years and he’s right back on XXXX (PRISON) waiting for Mental health court to “find” a suitable program that will more than likely focus on the addiction.

Each arrest, each court proceeding, I pleaded with the courts to put him in a facility, he’s not safe and the public isn’t safe and I found myself afraid also. I chose to stay with friends, or family and come home ev couple of days, reported to peer counselors, IMT supervisors, CASES and the court about his behaviors, his drug use, his total disillusionment and no one listened to me throughout the years. They always sited what his RIGHTS were though.

I felt like he was the only one with the rights!! I had none, as his mother, as a homeowner, as a citizen, I was stripped of it all and in the process I’ve watched my son deteriorate to the point of a finger being gangrene, of his stealing from family, of cops running in behind him, of his childlike mannerisms towards his daughter, of his change in appearance, of his evident non-compliance of whatever piece of paper they gave me with the list of things to comply with.

Watching, living 23 years of this torture, mental and physical, of cries for help of our politicians, of police, of hospital personnel to only be ignored, referred to some agency, emails offering apologies but no change, he cant be helped until he wants and asks for help. I’m devastated, I’m broken and my health is preventing the persistence and hope I had so many years ago. Thank you for letting me write.