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Behind the Scenes at Minds on the Edge

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Many of you are already aware and have seen MINDS ON THE EDGE: Facing Mental Illness, an hour long program broadcast on your local PBS television channel. It was released in October and the National Alliance on Mental Illness is pushing each of its chapters to show the film at various times this year.  I want to give you some background about how this show came together.
Not long after CRAZY: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness, was published, I  got a telephone call from Arthur Singer who said that he wanted me to be his guest at a lunch in Manhattan. He had read my book and was concerned about how jails and prisons had become our new mental asylums.  While I appreciated his interest, I couldn’t afford to fly to New York just to have lunch with him, I said. But he was persistent — and he also told me that he would arrange for my flight.
When the taxi dropped me off at one of New York’s most exclusive private clubs, I began to wonder who this guy was.

Life is short

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National Public Radio broadcast a thoughtful obituary this week about Judi Chamberlin the author of On Our Own and founder of the Mad Pride movement. You can listen to it through this link:
Chamberlin was one of the first to use the “psychiatric survivors” tag and while we didn’t agree philosophically about how our mental health system needed to be reformed, I admired her tireless advocacy and believe that her’s was an important voice.
I think Chamberlin’s lasting contribution is her insistence that persons with mental illness have rights and need to be heard, especially when it comes to treatment practices. When Virginia governor Tim Kaine appointed a blue ribbon panel to investigate the shootings at Va. Tech that left 33 dead, I urged him to include a consumer on the panel.
You can read my editorial at:

Civil Rights Violated!

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As part of its “medical mysteries” series, the Today Show on Friday aired a segment about Susannah Cahalan, a young New York woman who woke up one day with her left side feeling numb. By nightfall, she had become — as her father, Thomas, later put it — “totally psychotic.”

Susannah would begin “crying hysterically” and then “become giddy.” She was taken to the NYU medical center but doctors there didn’t have a clue why she was acting so oddly. Several times, Susannah tried to escape, and her father said she was “hallucinating.”

Susannah stayed in the hospital a month and a specialist finally diagnosed her as suffering from a rare auto-immune problem called ANTI-NMDAR Encephalitis. Here’s a link to the story

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How do we define “Mental Illness?”

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I spent much of yesterday afternoon writing an editorial to submit to USA TODAY about an insulting statement that U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan made Tuesday when she testified before the Supreme Court.

Kagan was testifying in favor of a law that would allow the government to keep inmates locked up even after they had served their time if officials felt they were “sexually dangerous.”

USA TODAY Reporter Joan Biskupic quoted Kagan as saying: ”The federal government has mentally ill, seriously dangerous persons in its custody. It knows that those persons, if released, will commit serious sexual offenses.”

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Already Undercutting Parity?

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An article in the Wall Street Journal published on 12-15 under the headline: Workplace Mental-Health Services Expand, Short-Term Counseling Often Cheaper than Therapy Through Medical Plans, should be of interest for those of us who have been advocating for insurance coverage for persons with mental illnesses.
For decades, mental health advocates fought for what is called PARITY inside the insurance industry. What that means is that we wanted insurance companies to treat mental illnesses the same as they did other medical problems.  Most insurance carriers didn’t. They limited how many times a person could see a psychiatrist and they routinely denied medical claims for treatment of such psychological problems as eating disorders.
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Thinking of Others

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Patti and I were fortunate during the holidays because six of our seven children  — that’s right seven —  were able to be with us.  Patti was a widow with four young children when we met. I was recently divorced with three of my own.  Blending two families hasn’t always been easy, but as I watched everyone having a wonderful time, I felt proud — especially of Mike. Two years ago, we were dealing with his fourth serious  breakdown. Now, he is doing great and recently became a peer to peer specialist. I am so proud of him.
Of course, remembering what we were going through, made me think of other families who were in crisis during the holidays. A few days later, I received an email from a NAMI friend.  I asked her if I could post her note on my blog and she agreed after I promised to change the names. What this family is experiencing is all too common. It’s a reminder to all of us that even when our loved ones are well, there are others who still need help and support.
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