At 19 years old, my son had a successful job at which he had just received a promotion. One day, he came home from work and said laser beams were shooting at him from his work computer. He then developed what I know now is "God Complex". He thought gold diggers were after him, and his competitors at other companies had hired hit men to kill him because he was so successful.
He would close all the blinds in our house so the Russians couldn't find us and kill us. He then became convinced that I was possessed by a demon and had to beat the demon out of me, almost killing me by strangulation. We now know this was his first psychotic break from reality.
Prior, we had taken him to numerous psychiatrists for depression and anxiety. He had gone from a straight A student to all D's his senior year of high school. He was prescribed antidepressants and Adderall, which I now know triggers psychosis. He was jailed and was given a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation and diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Despite his diagnosis, he was released back into my care upon his release. Being an adult, he could no longer be on our insurance. The state’s behavioral health system assigned him to a clinic for serious mental illness, who despite having three DUI's and his arrest for attempted murder they refused to support our efforts to gain guardianship.
His caseworker would call HIM, warning him what his mother and father were trying to do to him, especially his right drive despite almost killing an innocent person in one of his accidents while impaired. The clinic threatened to have his father arrested, accusing him of abusing our son, which our son had claimed because he was mad at him for asking him to take his headphones off while being talked to.
The clinic refused to help us petition him for court-ordered treatment, but we successfully petitioned him and had to watch again, our beloved son be taken away in handcuffs by the police. His 18-year-old sister had to testify against her brother while sitting right in front of him.
We finally gained guardianship because I went to the very top of his clinic to the director, threatening with a lawsuit if they did not support guardianship. A psychiatrist relented and agreed to speak with our lawyer, but had to be subpoenaed to testify. ALL of this put us close to financial ruin. Before gaining guardianship, he attempted to take my life and his brother's because he thought I was satan and his brother was the son of satan. He spent six days at a psychiatric evaluation center, stating every day to the doctor's he wanted to kill us both when he got out.
I was assured by the director of the psych center that he would only go to the only mental hospital in our county that can complete a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation and gain court-ordered treatment for the mentally ill. On day seven of his stay, he called me from outside the psych facility to come get him. He had been bribed with a shot of Abilify, one of the failed medications he had been on previously, to go home.
It got worse.
He attempted to take his life and paced to the point that his foot was at risk of amputation due to a bone infection. Arizona Mad Moms SAVED my son's life. I found them. They arranged for him to be taken by ambulance to a hospital and have court-ordered surgery on his foot, saving it. They told me about clozapine, not one doctor in 10 years mentioned this medication, I heard it from moms who wear t-shirts and are brave enough to stand up and say our children MATTER and do NOT belong in jail.
After his hospitalization, he lived at a behavioral health residential facility. My son was coming back to me because of Clozapine. Due to this medication being so difficult to obtain, the housing staff began stealing it to sell. My son had enough insight at this point to call me when they tried to switch his medication from clozapine to trazadone.
We removed him from the facility, filed a grievance, which we lost, but gained the attention of Channel 12 news and was interviewed by Erica Stapleton about "Mom Dumping", and fraud that continues today in the Arizona housing system. I saw other residents on Clozapine go from vast improvement to complete decline and back into psychosis.
Today, my son lives peacefully at home with his father and me. He is now beginning a position as a peer support after completing the STAR training program and passing his final test with a 92. The system failed in every way.
How many people that MATTER do not have the support my son had and are incarcerated or dead?
This has to stop, NOW.
*Location details were retained to honor the advocacy work described and to show where change began.
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?
- Repeal the IMD Exclusion Act
- Have real oversight for AHCCCS to stop the consistent fraud and use the funds for secured behavioral health facilities.
