Green Door, a Washington D.C. mental health organization, honored Kevin and me last week at its fund-raising gala. During his four-minute acceptance speech, Kevin became emotional as he described his remarkable journey to recovery. I remember a time when my son, who was called Mike in my book, was shot by the police with a taser, hogtied, and taken to a mental health center. I wondered if this would be our future. Fortunately, Kevin finally got the help that he needed to succeed and now is doing well working as a peer-to-peer specialist.

When Kevin was at his sickest, I was grateful to individuals with mental illnesses who were brave enough to tell their stories. Many gave me hope. I am now thrilled and proud that Kevin is one of those story tellers.

A few days after the gala, Kevin participated in the National Alliance on Mental Illness’s  31 Days, 31 Stories — Stepping Up Initiative.

Thank you Kevin for fighting stigma by speaking so passionately in public. It is, indeed, an incredible journey that we are on together.

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5-13-15   The Washington Post has published several editorials criticizing Fairfax County Sheriff Stacey A. Kincaid because of the death of Natasha McKenna, a 37 year-old woman with schizophrenia who died shorty after being shot with a taser four times while being held in the county detention center. Her death is still being investigated by the Fairfax Police Department.

I met with Sheriff Kincaid recently and she gave me a copy of a written response that she had submitted to the Post after it published two editorials. The paper declined to publish her letter. Here is her response to the Post.

THE SHERIFF RESPONDS

By Sheriff Stacey A. Kincaid

It’s not every day the Editorial Page actually makes news instead of simply commenting on it, but the Post has managed to do that with its call (April 22) for civil disobedience to replace the justice system and attempt to prejudice the process of an active, independent legal investigation. In your editorial, “The Outrageous Death of a Fairfax County Inmate” (April 14), you demand immediate accountability, transparency and action in response to the incident in advance of the completion of an investigation by the Police Department, and any ultimate decision by the Commonwealth Attorney. You also accuse me, in particular, of withholding information. I must respond because I know justice ultimately will be done in this case, and also in the interest of journalistic fairness. There also is a teachable moment here, not only for those of us who have dedicated our lives to law enforcement but also for members of the community who believe in dignity and fairness for those who come into contact with the criminal justice system.

 

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The current debate about bringing back mental asylums made me wonder what Virgil Stucker, the founding executive director and president of the CooperRiis Healing Community in North Carolina might think. He was kind enough to offer his thoughts. 

Think of the Modern Asylum as a ‘Recovery College’

By Virgil Stucker

The notion of ‘bringing back the asylum’ for individuals with overwhelming mental health challenges has been stirring debate. There are multiple points of contention, some of which lead us down unproductive and confused paths. We rightly bristle when we think of the abuse that the asylums of old caused. Let’s hit the pause button and acknowledge that none of us seeks to bring back those abusive systems.

We also bristle at the notion of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel who seems to think that as many as 500,000 in the US are mentally broken and simply need humane, permanent containment. What I hear him saying is that no matter what we do, some of society’s most vulnerable appear unable to conduct their lives successfully on their own. This may be true for ‘some’ but not for 500,000. Nor should we assume that permanent containment and separation from society should be the starting point for anyone.

All of us also agree that we should do better than simply containing our most vulnerable in prison and jails (about 600,000 with mental health diagnoses). Also none of us thinks that it is OK simply to allow them to roam the streets or simply to chemically contain them via the overuse of medications. We continue to hope that we can develop and improve systems that will help our most vulnerable to recover their capacities for independent and successful living.

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It’s hard to describe mania to someone who has never experienced it. One minute I’m so high that my mind and body enter a nirvana-like state with feelings of ultimate power and supreme authority. And then in the next minute I feel so paranoid and scared that I think my heart will thump out of my chest.  

In 2005, my mania escalated to the level that I believed a police officer was trying to pull me over to murder me. I took the police on a high-speed chase and was arrested for the first time in my life. A couple of days later, I believed I was waging nuclear war with China and President Bush was obeying my signals from my jail cell. I thought a microchip was implanted in my lung and the evil forces of the government were trying to control my actions. I was eventually placed in a mental health hospital and remained there for nearly a month.

This is how Paton Blough begins his personal story about his encounter with law enforcement. Paton’s narrative is the first in an ambitious series called 31 Stories in 31 Days being launched this month by the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

Each day during May a different story will be told, including one later this month by my son, Kevin Earley.

NAMI’s 31 Stories in 31 Days will put human faces on a shameful, national scandal — the inappropriate incarceration of persons with mental illnesses in our jails and prisons. (An estimated 500,000 persons!) The program was created to augment a new national effort called Stepping Up that is being launched on Tuesday (May 5th) by NAMI,  the Council of State Governments, the National Association of Counties, the American Psychiatric Foundation and numerous law enforcement associations, mental health organizations, and substance abuse organizations.

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(5-1-15) My friend, Dr. Dinah Miller, a Baltimore psychiatrist and one of the authors of the popular blog, Shrink Rap, took issue with a blog post that I published April 20th about an emergency room nurse who’d been bitten by a psychotic patient and decided to press criminal charges. That blog hit a nerve with many of you. As a follow up, I checked on the court hearing in this case and learned it had been postponed until June.)

Some thoughts on Authority and Victimization

This is our blog, and it’s my place to vent some, and on this beautiful morning in Baltimore with all the trees in bloom in pink and white, I could really use some space to vent.  While none of us were in the middle of the unrest, it is awful to watch our beloved city on CNN — this isn’t how it should be.
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