The recent mass killings in Isla Vista, CA by a man who suffered from mental illness has once again raised the issue of the insanity of deinstitutionalization of the severely mentally ill. Deinstitutionalization (releasing severely mentally ill from psychiatric hospitals) began in 1955 with the widespread introduction of Thorazine, the first effective antipsychotic medication. The widespread use of Thorazine moved the … Read More
The Most Punitive Nation in the World
Robert A. Ferguson’s new book about our addiction to incarceration, Inferno: An Anatomy of American Punishment, asks a poignant question about our culture. Do we, as a people, have a drive to punish that is especially virulent? The statistics seem to indicate that we do. According to Ferguson, the United States is the world leader in locking up human beings behind … Read More
When We Embrace Recovery There is Hope
For the past 8 years, Academy Award-winning actress Halle Berry has been working on Frankie & Alice, a film about a 1970s-era black go-go dancer named Frankie who has dissociative identity disorder (DID). Frankie has two alternative identities: a scared 7-year old little girl named Genius and a white, bigoted Southern belle named Alice. With the care and support of … Read More
Caretaking: Is Taking Action Helpful or Harmful?
I have been to many NAMI and Al-Anon meetings over the years that were attended primarily by mothers and grandmothers dealing with their son’s or daughter’s mental illness and/or addiction. I’ve always wondered why there were so few fathers in attendance. Were they afraid to acknowledge their child had a problem? In general, it seems that mothers take on the … Read More
Shameful Profiling of the Mentally Ill
In the recent Sunday New York Times, Andrew Solomon reported that a Canadian woman was recently denied entry to the United States because she had been hospitalized for depression in 2012. She was told she could not visit unless she obtained medical clearance from one of three Toronto doctors approved by the Department of Homeland Security. A report from her … Read More
Emergence of Bipolar Disorder: A Mother’s Perspective
For 10 years, I have been writing a memoir about my relationship with my son who has bipolar disorder. The book has gone through many permutations over the years as the circumstances of our lives have changed. The ending keeps evolving. As a memoir writer and teacher I know there is no such thing as a static self and both … Read More
Creativity and Mental Illness
After I posted my last blog about Bring Change 2 Mind’s mission to fight stigma and discrimination associated with mental illlness, I received an email from a friend about a unique art gallery in Portland, Oregon that shows the work of artists who are challenged with a mental illness. J. Pepin Art Gallery features contemporary artists who are reframing the … Read More
Overcoming the Stigma of Mental Illness
A friend of my son’s recently sent me an interview on NPR with the actress Glenn Close who is the co-founder of Bring Change 2 Mind. The nonprofit organization aims to confront the stigma and discrimination associated with mental illness. You may have seen a documentary about Bring Change 2 Mind taped in Grand Central Station. What impressed me about … Read More
Our Addiction to Incarceration is Not Sustainable
The United States has 5% of the world population but 25% of its prison population in spite of the fact that the violent crime rate is the lowest it has been in 40 years. Since the mid-1970s the California prison population has grown by 750% driven by sentencing laws based largely on fear, ignorance and vengeance. But in other states, … Read More
Solitary Confinement and Mental Illness
29,000 inmates at California State prisons are on food strike. They are rejecting their meals in protest over solitary confinement conditions, poor food quality, a lack of warm clothing and cut-backs in education and rehabilitation programs. There has been a consistent reduction of programs and classes offered in prison because of funding cuts despite the fact that the facilitators for … Read More
Why is this Mother Telling Us this Story?
Several of you have asked when my book is coming out. At first, I did not find a publisher interested enough in mental illness and addiction in the family to publish it. It just isn’t sexy. One New York editor, in rejecting the book wrote, “I wondered why [this mother] was telling us this story. The scope of this book … Read More
Treatment is Not the End, It’s the Beginning
William Cope Moyers, son of Bill and Judith Moyers, struggled with addiction to alcohol and drugs for 15 years and has written an excellent book on recovery entitled “Now What? An Insider’s Guide to Addiction and Recovery” reviewed by Jane E. Brody in The New York Times. When he gave up trying to get clean “his own way” he finally … Read More
Getting Serious about Mental Health Care
“We are going to need to work on making access to mental health care as easy as access to a gun.” President Obama According to a survey by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, more than 45 million adults nationwide suffered from some mental illness in 2011. About 11 million had a serious illness and of those … Read More
Our Nation’s Shame: Incarcerating the Mentally Ill
The “deinstitutionalization” of the mentally ill in the 1960s and early 1970s—a movement prompted by the same liberal impulses that gave us civil rights and women’s rights—has become a national disgrace. “Mentally ill street people shame the society that lets them live as they do,” writes Joe Nicera. What prompted Joe Nicera’s article, “Guns and Mental Illness” was a report … Read More
Mental Illness in Young Adults
The following news story about mental illness in young adults in the NAMI California November Newsletter caught my attention because my son’s initial mental breakdown was when he was a sophomore in college. Everything seemed to be going fine for him and then, out of the blue he went into a deep depression. He tried to deal with it on … Read More