(9-10-19)

“If taking a sick person and just medicating them to the point where they are not a problem to society is the marker for success, then we should all be ashamed of ourselves.”

By Miriam Feldman, a fellow parent, advocate and blogger.

I am the mother of an adult son with schizophrenia.

The dozen years since his diagnosis have been filled with more pain, and also beauty, then I once thought could coexist in a single life. I am his primary caregiver, I am his advocate, and I am the self-appointed conservator of his legacy.

My son Nick was once a prodigious artist with a bright and certain future. These days he sits alone in his apartment most of the time. He watches television; sometimes he colors in coloring books. I have a website where I display his old artwork. I write about our lives. I keep a record of his progress. I refuse to let the truth of who he is disappear without a trace. This disease may have him in its grip, but I will not let it eclipse him altogether.

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(9-6-19)  From My Files Friday – a letter from 2010.

Hi Mr. Earley.

I’m a family therapist in [deleted for privacy] having recently graduated from [a prestigious school]  I interned at a federal correctional facility in its mental health unit and I currently work in a psychiatric residential treatment facility for children ages 6-12 who’ve been through complex trauma.

I’m beyond disgusted with our system.

I’ll be honest — the mental health treatment was better in the federal prison where I have worked than what I’ve witnessed in our community mental health system.

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Please watch this seven minute video about Fountain House, a Clubhouse Model

(9-3-19) Kenneth J. Dudek, a tireless advocate for persons with serious mental illnesses, is retiring as president of Fountain House. He has worked there nearly 28 years.

Fountain House is perhaps the best recovery program in our nation and much of its success can be credited to Dudek.

I have telephoned him several times during the past decade seeking help for someone in New York who was in the midst of a psychotic break. He always responded. He never said that he couldn’t help in some meaningful way.

As a fellow New York City mental health advocate D.J. Jaffe wrote recently in a blog tribute to Dudek, Fountain House is “the single program all the parents of seriously mentally ill wanted to get their kids into. It’s even more so today.”

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(8-30-19) A minister who is the director of a rescue mission in Winchester, Virginia is leading a Rescue Ride across America on motorcycles to call attention to homelessness, mental illnesses, addictions and shelter life.

Pastor Brandon Thomas recently explained his plans to Dr. David Drew Pinsky and Leann Tweeden during the first fifteen minutes of their nationally syndicated radio show:  Dr. Drew Midday Live. 

During that interview, Dr. Drew lamented how America has allowed sick people to die on its streets and offered strong opinions about anosognosia and how the definition of gravely disabled needs to be expanded, explaining that homeless, psychotic individuals often are infuriated after they get help and become stable because no one intervened earlier to help them.

Thomas, whose father had a serious mental illness, said he hopes the 12 day ride will shine a spotlight on the plight of homeless Americans, especially those in shelters. He and a half dozen other riders will spend their nights sleeping in homeless shelters and will live stream and upload videos of their conversations with shelter residents who they meet during the trip. Scheduled to depart from Winchester on September 27th, the Rescue Riders will travel to Knoxville, Nashville, Little Rock, Wichita, Denver, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

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(8-21-19) Dear Pete, 

Would you be kind enough to share this edited version of an Op Ed that I published in USA Today?

It calls on policy makers to reject false connections between mass murder and mental health conditions and to take on meaningful gun control legislation, a commitment that the White House is now walking back (see  Jonathan Capehart’s passionate piece in the Washington Post.)

My original submission used different language in several places, called for the rejection of discriminatory mental health data bases that advance surveillance based on the unfounded threat we pose and emphasized that:

“it’s a lot easier to focus on us than on the complex social factors that contribute to mass murder in America, the political divide, racism, economic inequality and hopelessness and the lack of political will to pass common sense gun control laws. At the same time, our political leaders in the White House, Congress and State Houses must make it explicitly clear that promising Red Flag’ laws and Extreme Risk Protection Orders are not intended to target any one group like ours, but extend to all and everyone who has access to guns and who is deemed to pose a danger to themselves or others.”

Thank you,  Harvey Rosenthal

Don’t Scapegoat, Institutionalize People Like Me After Shootings

By Harvey Rosenthal   USA Today Opinion Contributor

I was first diagnosed with bipolar illness more than 40 years ago, after a six-week stay in the psychiatric unit of a Long Island, New York, community hospital. I entered into a personal process of recovery and, five years later, began my life’s work as a ward aide at a New York State Psychiatric Center in Albany and ultimately as an advocate for people like me.

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