Where do I start? My son is 23 and is currently in jail for missing a court hearing for a simple trespassing violation. He didn't believe this court hearing existed, and I was manifesting it by talking about it. As much as I hate the fact that he's behind bars, I am relieved that he's not at home, and my daughter, grandson, and I don't have to live in fear of him.
It absolutely breaks my heart that I had no other option but to call 911 when we were woken up at 3 am to my son screaming profanities, calling my daughter and me horrible names, and accusing us of unimaginable things. I knew he had a bench warrant, so I knew they would take him to jail, even though he needed to be hospitalized! I also knew that the police would not understand the state of mind he was in, and I also knew my son would not be cooperative... Which I knew also meant he would resist and they would use excessive force, and I was right!
They threw him down my stairs, broke my gate, held him down with their boots on his back and legs, and never once tried to explain anything to him.
This was a month ago. His first hospitalization was when he was 14, he had put himself into a drug-induced psychosis using K2, Benadryl, triple C's, and alcohol. Since then, he has never been the same and was officially diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 17. He was on medication with little results, and when he turned 18 his psychiatrist wouldn't allow me to join in their sessions to advocate for him. She refused to fill his prescriptions after seeing him for an appointment. After trying to pick his meds up at the pharmacy and being told they were never called in, I called his therapist, who told me she wasn't going to refill his meds because she said he was under the influence and refused to answer simple questions, like his birthdate.
I knew he was not on drugs and had just woken up before the appointment. He was also without his meds for about a week already, which I knew he was starting to go into a psychosis, and one of his signs is that he thinks people can read his mind, or he's questioning everything someone is saying in his mind, and can't understand why. Therefore, he will not answer or even speak, and if he does, it's very slow.
So, he had no meds, no doctor to get meds, and was quickly slipping into the worst psychosis I had ever seen, and it just got worse and worse every day. For two weeks, I watched my son talk to himself, destroy furniture, break windows, scream at closed doors we were hiding behind, he'd leave and come home with no shoes or shirt, bruises and cuts on his face and head, accusing us of things we would never do, and threatening to hurt me.
I called the police for help, but they told me I had to call crisis for them to do anything. So I called crisis, while my son is already paranoid and following me everywhere I went. Then I had to sneak away from my house to meet someone and fill out a packet of questions for them. Then go back home and just wait for someone to come and help me. After 4 hours, I called crisis back and asked them "How long is this going to take?" They said the psychiatric warrant was faxed to the police station already but, they have up to 30 days to act on it and come get him! 30 DAYS!
I needed help within the first hour! This was bullshit!
We waited and waited, but no help came. I ended up calling a friend to come over to stay with me. My son ended up coming out of the psychosis after smoking medical marijuana the next day, well, enough to get him to sleep finally, and got him to a level of somewhat stable until I found another doctor.
The easiest way to get him help is to get him to the ER. But it's also the hardest thing to do since he has to go voluntarily. He's gone to the ER so many times for superficial injuries and ends up getting a 302 from the hospital staff, so he refuses to go anymore.
He's been arrested for being in someone's car after thinking someone was chasing him. He jumped in the back seat of a parked car out of fearing for his life ( there was no one following him or chasing him ). There is certain criteria that my son has to be experiencing for crisis to be able to intervene and get him help. He either has to be a danger to himself or others, being violent and causing injury to himself or to others, or wanting to commit suicide. One time I got the 302 order because he wasn't taking care of himself (not eating, bathing, sleeping), but that was only due to the severity of his condition at that time. And it still took the police a week to come look for him after needing help the day I called crisis! How is this allowed!
It's like calling for an ambulance for having a seizure and a week later they show upto offer help!
And why do we need to wait until they are bad enough to be a danger? And why are we made to wait if there's no guarantee that the police are going to come right away or even at all? If I have gotten to the point where I call crisis, this means I'm desperate, I'm afraid, I'm helpless, and I need help today! The warrant that spits out the fax machine at the local police department an hour after I filled out paperwork in a KFC parking lot with a crisis worker after going through a roller coaster of chaos and little sleep for the past week should be treated as an emergency! It should NOT be optional to respond or pass it to the next shift or ignore it! The second that warrant is received means we needed help an hour ago already!
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?
We need to reinforce the emergency and response time for 302 warrants. Having up to 30 days to come get someone just to take them to the hospital is unacceptable. Going through all the steps to get help is a time-consuming process. We are also mentally drained from what we are going through at home, and we barely have the energy to write or think at this point, but we are desperate and need to get help for our loved ones, so we do whatever is needed for them. But then help doesn't come right away like you thought or assumed it would. So after all that you're still dealing with chaos at home while the warrant is just sitting on a desk!?
