Pete Earley

SENDING THE MENTALLY ILL FROM GROUP HOMES TO AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE

By Pete Earley

Published Friday, October 31, 2014

Washington Post Editorial Page

The federal government is pushing two initiatives that will radically change how mental health services are delivered. Both are long overdue. So why, as the father of an adult son with a mental illness, am I skeptical?

The Justice Department is making states comply with a 1999 Supreme Court decision, Olmstead v. L.C. Two women brought the suit after they admitted themselves into a Georgia psychiatric hospital and then discovered that they couldn’t be discharged because no suitable housing in their community was willing to take them.

The justices held that unjustified segregation of people with disabilities constituted discrimination in violation of Title II of the Americans With Disabilities Act. Public entities must provide appropriate community-based services, including housing, for people confined in nursing homes, group homes and mental hospitals.

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An Open Letter to Anne Sweeney, Co-Chair Disney Media Networks President, Disney/ABC Television Group

Dear Ms. Sweeney,

I am writing to ask why Disney/ABC Television ridiculed and marginalized our nation’s veterans and millions of other Americans during the October 29th broadcast of its prime time television show, Modern Family.

Twenty-two veterans commit suicide each day in our nation. Nearly all have a diagnosable mental illness. Many have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that they suffered fighting for your safety and freedom. Yet, the writers of Modern Family: Halloween 3: AwesomeLand decided to make these proud warriors the butt of belittling jokes.

In the episode, Claire Dunphy decides to create the most frightening house in her neighborhood by transforming her front yard into a “scary insane asylum” complete with “deranged mental patients,” a “sadistic nurse” and “demented doctor.” The episode features daughter Alex chained to a hospital bed and Luke wearing a straight jacket – images that are intended to make viewers chuckle. Words such as “nut job, Looney Bin, cuckoo” are sprinkled throughout the dialogue — less viewers forget that nothing is more frightening than someone with a mental disorder.

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10-27-14 The last hurdle you faced before you were hired at The Washington Post was a face-to-face interview with Executive Editor Benjamin C. Bradlee.

In late 1980, I arrived at his office ready for a confrontation.

My good friend, Ward Sinclair,  a Post investigative reporter who was shepherding  me through the hiring process, had warned me that Bradlee often glared at a wannabe hire before asking, “Why should I hire you?” Depending on his mood, he might phrase it as “Why in the hell should I…”

Ward said it was Bradlee’s way of seeing if a news reporter had a spine. Bradlee didn’t like reporters who were easily intimidated.

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10-20-14  The first review of RESILIENCE, the memoir that I helped Jessie Close write, has appeared and it’s complimentary.

The reviewer calls the book, “an honest tale” and notes that Jessie “holds nothing back.”

“The author candidly discusses her multiple marriages and her continued inability to understand her alternating manic and depressive states, which appear to have escalated in intensity with age. It was only when her son, Calen, was hospitalized and eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia that Close began to look more seriously at her own extreme mood cycles and seek permanent help to stop her abusive drinking and to silence the voice in her head that insisted she kill herself. With the help of her sister and family, Close was able to afford good treatment for herself and her son, and Close’s sister went on to establish the nonprofit organization Bring Change 2 Mind, which targets the stigma and misunderstanding surrounding mental disorders.

The critic concludes, “the book is packed with emotion and courageous personal reflections.”

That’s heady praise from a critic whose job is, well, to criticize.  But the review did contain one tiny barb.

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10-17-14  FROM MY FILES FRIDAY: Four years ago, I explained in a blog why I am a lifetime member of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).  I occasionally receive emails from readers grumbling about what NAMI either has or hasn’t done.  But nothing that has happened since I first joined NAMI has caused me to lose faith in it. Perhaps this is because the heart of NAMI to me has always been its people and the common goal that all of us share: helping persons with mental illnesses. Patti and I support NAMI monthly with a donation because I believe in NAMI and its programs.

NAMI Helped Me, first published June 28, 2010. **

When I was a Washington Post reporter, I did not believe in joining groups or organizations. I needed to be independent in order to be objective. Then my son, Mike (Kevin), became sick and the first thing I did after I finished writing my book, CRAZY: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness, was join the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI.)

Why?

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