- Category: Refusal Treated as Capacity
- Tag(s): Anosognosia / Lack of Insight, Co-Occurring Substance Use, Severe Deterioration
For 20 years, but more so the last 10 years, my son, who is almost 36 grows weaker by the day. His physical health is severely impacted by his mental health. Self-medicating as a way of escape after refusing to engage with doctors. Anosognosia is real.
*Each story is shared by someone impacted by untreated SMI, lightly edited for clarity, never for meaning.
THE ASK
The author’s message for legislators:
I would ask that these humans are treated with the care they deserve instead of being left to their own devices. Community treatment orders need to be implemented for the chance for these people to live a normal life.
share this story:
Read More Stories

Clozapine Should Have Been Tried Earlier
After 16 years of medications that worked for a few months and then failed, clozapine changed everything. A firsthand case for trying it sooner.

“I worry daily if he’s alive and eating.”
Discharged homeless one week after a long-acting injection, with no safety plan. Now he refuses medication, and his mother travels monthly to keep him safe.

The ‘Miracle of Ordinary’ Cost Us Seven Years of Systemic Failure.
After 7 years, 20+ hospitalizations, and repeated discharges as ‘not sick enough,’ a mother finds the treatment no doctor offered: Clozaril.

What does it take to change the law to get help BEFORE danger?
It’s been a little over a year since they buried their son. The system asks to wait until a person is dangerous enough. He got dangerous enough. The law hasn’t

One Pill Between Us and the Cliff
A mother gives her son his pill by hand every night, and sold her home to keep going. Then he turns violent, she calls the police on the person she

They Called It Her New Baseline
A legal guardian warned that her mother wasn’t stable enough to go home. The facility discharged her anyway — actively psychotic, alone in a taxi with no keys, no phone,
