(4-17-17) A seriously mentally ill woman denies that she is sick and after a year of refusing treatment is released from a state hospital. She gives discharge officials a fake address, walks a few miles from the hospital and breaks into an unoccupied farm that is for sale. Afraid to venture out, she survives by eating crab apples from the backyard while writing her thoughts in a compelling diary, chronicling her own starvation up to the day that she becomes so weak she can no longer write. Her body and diary were found months later.
I first heard this incredibly sad story in 2009 from the woman’s sister, Joan Bishop, who was outraged because the hospital had discharged her sister, Linda, knowing she was seriously ill and had refused to notify anyone because of HIPAA.
Joan was determined to tell the world what happened to Linda. I wrote two blogs about it and two years later, Rachel Aviv, wrote a stunning account published by The New Yorker about Linda’s death under the title: GOD KNOWS WHERE I AM.
Last year, documentary film makers Todd and Jedd Wider, and Brian Ariotti turned Aviv’s account into a powerful film that will make its premiere on April 21st in New Hampshire where Linda died. The film will be shown at the Red River Theater in Concord, but wait, there’s more.
I was excited to learn that clips from the film are tentatively being scheduled for showing at the National Alliance on Mental Illness national convention in Washington D.C. this summer ( June 21st thru July 1st) followed by a panel discussion.
I am so grateful that Joan (who appears in the documentary as herself) made certain that Linda’s life and her death have been memorialized. The film raises serious questions, not only about our mental health system and HIPAA but also about the civil rights of individuals who are seriously ill. Visit the film’s website to learn when it may be showing in your area.
Here is the story that Joan first told me eight years ago.
