Bestselling Author and Mental Health Advocate
In the midst of news coverage about Elliot Rodgers and the Santa Barbara mass murders that he committed, The Washington Post published a news story that alarmed and saddened me.
According to the article, the parents of Blaec Lammers became concerned after the 20 year-old purchased an AR-15 rifle and admitted that he was having homicidal thoughts about going to a local movie theater or Wal Mart to shoot people. He had been diagnosed with a serious mental illness.
I published a blog Monday written by Kathleen Maloney about her husband, Joe, who was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder but refused to believe he was ill and refused treatment. Had he been required to take medication, Kathleen believes his life could have been saved and her family would have been spared tremendous grief and loss. Her story received more hits on my Facebook page than anything previously posted there. It also received a high number of views on this page.
In today’s blog, we hear another touching, first-person account but from a completely different point of view. Leah Harris writes about her mother who had a severe mental illness and was forcibly medicated against her will.
A Daughter’s Call for Safety and Sanity in Mental Health
Written by Leah Harris for her mother, Gail Harris, 1950-1996
Winter 1980 – Milwaukee, WI
Mama leads me by the hand out into the cold Milwaukee night. I am four years old. We wander aimlessly through the streets. I am wearing a pink felt coat that goes down to the tops of my knees, and underneath that only a thin summer sundress. My white nylon knee socks stretch up to just below my knees, and I can feel the stinging wind against my reddening my kneecaps. Mama is mumbling to herself about Dr. Mengele again. My head feels raw and exposed. My mitten-less hand in hers soon turns into a chunk of ice.
I am publishing two personal stories this week by readers who describe their encounters with our failing mental health system from much different perspectives.
My Husband Joe
By Kathleen Maloney
My husband Joe and I enjoyed 18 wonderful years together. We had a beautiful daughter and our lives were filled with love, laughter, joy, hard work and exciting plans for the future.
That was before he got sick, before he was diagnosed with a mental illness.
The first sign came in December 2003 two weeks after Joe got laid off from a company where he had worked for 20 years. On Christmas Day, he became so distraught he collapsed on the floor. At the emergency room, a doctor suggested that it was stress that caused him to become depressed. Joe calmed down and we made a follow up appointment with our doctor. Click to continue…
By my count, the Santa Barbara killings are the sixth mass murders committed by someone with a mental disorder in recent memory. I found myself making the media rounds this week saying much the same thing that I have said after all of these shootings.
I did notice two articles that I felt provided fresh views.
In Why Can’t Doctors Identify Killers? published in the New York Times, Richard A. Friedman argues that the notion we can stop mass murders by improving our mental health system is a misconception.
“It is a comforting notion, but nothing could be further from the truth,” writes Friedman, who is a professor of clinical psychiatry and the director of psychopharmacology clinic at the Weill Cornell Medical College.
Friedman also cautions against lowering the dangerous criteria for involuntary commitment and argues that drug and alcohol abuse are far better indicators of potential violence than mental illnesses. I disagree with some of his points, but found his article thought-provoking.
I will be thinking today of my uncle, George Patterson, who died in France at the close of World War Two.
I will be thinking of Randy Joe Lundy, a classmate from Fowler High School in Colorado, who had been in Vietnam for ten months when he was killed on August 21st, 1969 in the Quang Nam Province.
I will be thinking of the brother of my former neighbor, Dan, who also died too young in Vietnam.
Memorial Day is when we remember those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our country. And this year, I will also be thinking about Kryn Miner and his family. He died last month, but he was not killed by an enemy combatant. He was fatally shot by one of his own son’s.Click to continue…
I don’t know how the editors of the Brainy Quote website choose the statements they put on line or how they select who they will quote, but a reader noticed my name attached to seven statements and sent me the link. Yes, I said them, although one is a misprint. It has me saying as “long as you play your cards” rather than “put your cards on the table.”
It is great to be quoted. Now is anyone listening?
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/pete_earley.html#PpbyTdYBed5cijqu.99
Pete Earley is the bestselling author of such books as The Hot House and Crazy. When he is not spending time with his family, he tours the globe advocating for mental health reform.
As a former reporter for The Washington Post, Pete uses his journalistic background to take a fair-minded approach to the story all while weaving an interesting tale for the reader.