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Another Example of The Power of One

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 If you are a regular reader of this blog or you know me personally, you realize that I believe one person can make a significant difference in our society and that all of us are obligated, in our own ways, to do something for the betterment of us all. This is one reason why I became a journalist and author. 
There is no better example of how much an individual can change our nation than Bryan Stevenson, the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, and the Harvard-educated lawyer who is the real-life hero of my fourth nonfiction book, Circumstantial Evidence: Death, Life, and Justice In a Southern Town.
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a historic ruling in (Graham v. Florida) that Bryan was instrumental in arguing. More on that later, but first, some background.

Common Sense, Huge Impact

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One of the lessons  that I’ve learned visiting mental health programs in 46 states during the past four years is how often a small, common sense change in policy can have a huge impact on helping persons who are ill. 

I saw an example of this when I toured the Los Angeles City Jail, which many of you know has become the largest de facto public mental heath facility in our nation with an average population of 1,400 prisoners with mental disorders.

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A Mother Who Lost Her Daughter But Is Saving Others One House At A Time

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Today is Mother’s Day and I would like to tell you about an extraordinary mother who also is an amazing mental health advocate. Her name is Trudy Harsh and she lives in Fairfax, Virginia.

Trudy’s daughter, Laura, developed a brain tumor when she was eight years old. Doctors at Georgetown Hospital in Washington D.C. were able to remove it, but they warned Trudy that Laura would only live for six more years at best. 

As often happens to persons who undergo traumatic brain injuries or have parts of their brain removed, Laura awoke from her surgery a completely different person. She was not the bright, sensitive and loving child that Trudy had given birth to. The parts of her brain that controlled her emotions, especially anger, had been destroyed.

Tasers and another fatality

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Sadly, here we go again.
Another person with a mental illness from Fairfax County, Virginia, where I live, died in an incident with the police on Friday. This time it was after he was shot with a Taser stun gun.
The police responded at 12:41 a.m. to a report that a man was in “psychiatric distress.” When they arrived, he was naked and “uncooperative.” He ignored officers’ commands and became combative, the police said. At that point, an officer shot him with a Taser to bring him under control. The man stopped breathing and died.

Sex and the Saddle

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 “Why don’t you reporters simply tell the truth?” a frustrated public official once asked me.

Whenever I hear a question like that, I think about an incident that happened when I was a young reporter at The Tulsa Tribune in Oklahoma and a woman called and told me that she needed my help.  

 She said  her husband was in prison and that she was being sexually harassed by a high -ranking prison official. She claimed this man had threatened to have her husband beaten unless she did what the official wanted sexually.

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Crisis Care Centers vs ERs

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The first time Mike became psychotic, I drove him to a hospital emergency room. We didn’t know any psychiatrists and Mike needed immediate help. Taking him there turned out to be a mistake.

Emergency rooms are where everyone goes nowadays whenever they have any kind of health-related crisis, but many are poorly equipped to deal with psychiatric patients in the midst of  a mental break.  

Some patients are turned away, as Mike and I were, without getting help. Or a patient might be held down and given a shot of Haldol or another strong anti-psychotic  that will help stabilize him but also can turn him into a walking zombie for days.

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