FROM MY FILES FRIDAY – I originally posted this blog in August 2010 when a distraught friend asked me for advice. I hope you will take a moment to tell everyone what advice you would give to a friend who discovered that someone he/she loves has been diagnosed with mental illness.

WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE A FRIEND

A family friend stopped by unexpectedly and began to cry the moment she entered our house. She explained that her son had been diagnosed with a serious mental illness.

She asked me for advice.

It’s easy for those of us who have been dealing with mental disorders for many years to forget how we felt the first time we learned that someone we loved had a brain disorder. But seeing my friend in distress instantly reminded me of how confused, angry and hopeless I had felt when Mike first became ill.

If a schoolchild overturns a desk during an epileptic seizure and it hits a classmate and breaks that student’s foot, no one demands that the child with epilepsy be put into juvenile detention and punished. However, if that schoolchild has a mental illness and accidentally overturns a desk, injuring someone, that child is sent before a juvenile court judge for punishment because of  his/her actions.

This observation came from Summit County Juvenile Court Judge Linda Tucci Teodosio who spoke last Friday during a Mental Health and Criminal Justice Symposium held in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. I gave the symposium’s keynote address.

Judge Teodosio’s point was that our society views mental illnesses differently from other physical illnesses and frequently holds persons with severe mental illnesses responsible for getting sick.

On the same afternoon that Judge Teodosio was speaking, police officers in Montgomery County, Maryland, responded to a nuisance call in Gaithersburg, a suburb of Washington D.C.. A  51 year old man was standing in the bed of a truck yelling profanities and hitting the vehicle with rocks. When he did not obey the officer’s commands, the police sprayed him with pepper gas and then shot him with Tasers. The man stopped breathing and was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

Click to continue…

The bombings in Boston have prompted me to select this blog, initially posted on August 20, 2012, for my ‘From My Files Friday’ post.  Take a moment to watch the video and to read Matt’s story.

My sister-in-law, Dana Davis, was deaf but she never let her lack of hearing slow her down. When she was a teenager, the local swimming pool said she couldn’t be a lifeguard. My wife, Patti, who was two years older than her sister, and Dana demanded an audience with the pool’s board of directors and convinced its members to give Dana a shot.

She got the job and did great at it.

Click to continue…

Joanne Kelly was in church one Sunday when her minister announced during his sermon: “If you are diligent enough in your spiritual practice, you don’t need psychotropic medications.”

Kelly, who has an adult son with a mental illness, was happy that her son had skipped church that day. She confronted the minister after the service.

“What you said was extremely irresponsible,” she scolded.

Getting within an inch of her face and clearly angry, he replied, “When I give a sermon, I am channeling God.”

Joanne never returned to that church. She found a new one. She also got involved in the National Alliance on Mental Illness, serving as the president of both her local Boulder chapter and the state NAMI group. Then she went a step further. Joanne  joined the Rev. Alan Johnson in forming the Interfaith Network on Mental illness. One of its goals is to educate the clergy about mental illnesses.

Click to continue…

Painting by Max Maddox
(copyrighted)

One of the best ways to fight stigma is by telling our stories and earlier this week, I mentioned that Colorado Springs novelist and award winning NAMI advocate, Kathy Brandt, and her son, Max Maddox, had written an especially well-crafted and poignant memoir entitled Walks On The Margins. She gives the parental viewpoint and Max writes as an individual dealing with the symptoms of bipolar disorder.

On Monday, I published two excerpts from their book written by Kathy about her relationship with NAMI [National Alliance on Mental Illness.] Now I am posting two excerpts from the book written by Max.

The first describes his thoughts when he was first hospitalized.

Click to continue…