Fear. When our son called in the middle of the night, declaring that he had died and been re-born as God, and that he needed to save the world, I was instantly thrown into the world of living in fear. Fear of not knowing what was wrong. Fear that our son wouldn’t respond to treatment. Fear that he would try to convince the wrong people that he needed to “save the world.”
Over the course of time, that fear grew & grew. We began fearing he would kill himself or hurt someone else in the midst of yet another psychosis. And then came the day I was asked to take him from a psych unit on an “on-campus therapeutic leave of absence” as he was finally coming out of a psychosis and hadn’t been outside in a few weeks. The pass started out fine. He was so happy to get outside and feel the sun on his face. We ran into friends and he was so excited to see them and say hello.
We continued walking and a bird flew by. His face immediately clouded and he turned and told me the voices and God were telling him he needed to kill me. I asked him why and he said he needed to kill me in order to “save the world from my evil.” Just then more people passed and his face cleared and returned to being calm and happy.
This was the day I realized that it was entirely possible that he might kill me, his dad, his sister and someone else someday, if he were to be in untreated psychosis. This was how this became possible. Previously, I had always thought, “that might happen with other people, but not with my kind, tender-hearted son.” Most people don’t have to live with this fear of their own sick family member. But, across our country there are millions of families living with this fear, because the mental health system and the laws limiting treatment access are so very broken.
We know that there are about 4.2 million people in our country untreated for there severe mental illnesses.
Each story is shared by someone impacted by untreated SMI,
lightly edited for clarity, never for meaning.
Do you have an ask? If you were sitting down with your legislator, how would you ask them to help you?
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I would ask them to revise commitment laws to allow for involuntary treatment when there is a known, documented history of severe mental illnesses and repeated hospitalizations due to non-adherence and clear signs of psychiatric deterioration.
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I would also ask them to support mandatory AOT programs in every county of every state to help people with SMI to be able to stay treatment adherent. This would save millions of lives and millions of dollars.
