Those of us who are working to reform our fractured mental health system need to begin talking to each other.
During my travels, I’ve visited many communities where there is little or no communication. The police don’t talk to local providers who take care of persons with mental disorders and substance abuse issues. These providers don’t talk to parents. And no one talks to the persons who are actually sick. 
Okay, I’m being a bit facetious — but my point is spot on.
Rather than cooperating, each faction does what it always has done and ignores how tax dollars could be saved and how people could be better treated through community collaboration.
On its website, Burger King shows a video about social responsibility with Pete Smith, one of its top managers, talking about the importance of diversity and treating people respectfully. 
Apparently Mr. Smith has not watched the newest television commercials that his company is broadcasting on prime time.
The Burger King — which is, I guess, what you call the company’s mascot — is shown being chased by two men in white coats. A woman watching the chase helps the fleeing King by tossing water in one of the men’s faces while the other man screams that the King is CRAZY. Meanwhile, the King runs away.
Get it? Little men in white coats chasing someone who is crazy. Ha, ha, ha.
The ad, of course, turns people with serious mental disorders, such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and major depression into a punch line. Oh, those CRAZY people need to be locked up. The ad is demeaning and it marginalizes people with serious disorders while increasing stigma and harmful stereotypes.
Continue reading ‘Let’s Make Burger King Accountable’
I toured Skid Row in Los Angeles last week and visited an innovative medical clinic that serves the homelessness population there. I also saw a newly built housing project for chronically homeless persons with mental illnesses, and then I ended the day at the Twin Towers – Los Angeles County’s main jail. Many of you know the jail is the largest public mental health facility in our country.
Six years ago, I spent two days on the jail’s seventh floor where the most psychotic prisoners are kept. It is where I planned to do research for my book, CRAZY. But lawyers in the sheriff’s office pulled my invitation citing privacy laws. I tried Cook County in Chicago next, then Rikers Island in New York City, then Baltimore and finally Washington D.C. but none of those facilities would let me in. Finally, my friend, Judge Steven Leifman, got me into the Miami Dade County Jail.
Continue reading ‘My trip to Skid Row’
I had planned to write today about my trip out of the snow-bound Washington D.C. area to Los Angeles where I toured Skid Row and the Twin Towers, which is the nickname for the city jail. As many of you know, the jail is the largest public mental institution in the U.S.
However, I decided to wait until Monday to post that account because of the police shooting here in Fairfax, Va. that put Ian Smith, a person with mental illness, into the hospital in critical condition.
Continue reading ‘What should we do when there is a shooting?’
