Pete Earley

(10-7-19) The neighbor asked the judge for a restraining order against the man who lived next door.

He was video taping everyone. Each time he stepped outside, he had a camera and recorded whoever crossed his path, including children. He became fixated on her. If she left her house, he appeared with his camera. She couldn’t go on a walk without being followed. Couldn’t visit the grocery store.

It got to be too much.  She suspected he was mentally ill. The judge did too. He issued a restraining order for one year.

The judge asked: How could this matter have been handled better?

Mark Gale, Criminal Justice Chair for the NAMI Los Angeles County Council, and I struggled to answer.

We were speaking at a judge’s conference in Palm Springs, California, arranged by San Bernardino Presiding Judge John P. Vander Feer. We were taking questions after telling the judges about jail diversion, Crisis Intervention Team training, and problem solving courts. Mark has a son with a serious mental illness who has been entangled in the criminal justice system but now is doing well. Mark is also one of the smartest and most knowledgeable criminal justice advocates I’ve met.

Other civil court judges in the audience quickly joined their fellow jurist in recounting their experiences in civil courts with individuals who were showing symptoms of a mental illness. (Usually, someone was seeking a restraining order against the ill person.)

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(10-4-19) From My Files Friday: Back in 2012, questions were being raised about the usefulness of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which defines what is and isn’t a mental disorder.  A Washington Post opinion piece by a prominent psychologist got considerable attention and this 2012 blog response from me. Would love to read your reactions on my Facebook page.

“Psychiatry’s Bible: The DSM is doing more harm than good.”

This was the headline of a guest opinion piece printed in yesterday’s Washington Post. The editorial was written by psychologist Paula J. Caplan who argued that “hundreds of people  [are being] arbitrarily slapped with a psychiatric label and are struggling because of it.”

As an example, Caplan recounted the story of a “young mother” who had been told after a quick assessment by an emergency room doctor that she had bipolar disorder. The woman was committed to a psychiatric ward and started on dangerous psychiatric medication.

  Over the next 10 months, the woman lost her friends, who attributed her normal mood changes to her alleged disorder. Her self-confidence plummeted; her marriage fell apart. She moved halfway across the country to find a place where, on her dwindling savings, she and her son could afford to live. But she was isolated and unhappy. Because of the drug she took for only six weeks, she now, more than three years later, has an eye condition that could destroy her vision.

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(10-1-19) As soon as I entered the psych ward, the memories came. Painful memories of my adult son, Kevin, hospitalized five times because of his unchecked bipolar disorder.

Only this time, the dread of him being inside a hospital quickly dissipated. Replaced by pride and admiration.

Kevin had been invited onto this closed ward last week by the University of Alabama Center for Psychiatric Medicine in Birmingham, Alabama, to share his recovery story with fifty patients receiving treatment there.

Standing before them, he spoke unscripted from his heart, recalling how he had been arrested and shot twice by the police with a taser. How for five years, he’d been caught in a self-destructive psychotic revolving door. How he’d eventually accepted that he had a serious mental illness and with the help of a compassionate case manager named Cyndi Anderson, how he’d started on his journey to recovery.  Today, he works full-time as a peer specialist, lives independently, and is earning a Master’s Degree in social work.

He finished his speech by singing a rap song called In My Feelings that he’d composed and will be released Friday. A part of its second verse:

 

Patients reacted by rising spontaneously from their chairs to sing along and dance to the beat as he performed. It was electrifying. A tear formed in my eyes.

Less than 24 hours later, more tears – but for an opposite reason.

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(9-27-19) From my files Friday. I am speaking in Nashville this morning at the Tennessee National Alliance on Mental Illness state convention and as I was getting ready, I thought about what Sander Pick said in 2012 when he appeared with his mother, Jessie Close, at a similar conference. You might recall that I helped Jessie write her memoir, RESILIENCE. 

“I’ve always thought that the more sensitive a person is, the more susceptible they are to mental illnesses. A sick joke in our universe is that the more it allows a person to see its beauty and deep connectivity, the more difficult it becomes for that person to maintain good mental health.

     “In our culture, we tend to treat this tradeoff with a fierce double standard. As long as they are sharing with us beautiful insights into humanity, we will love and cherish them as heroes, but if they fall into substance abuse, depression or any other form of mental illness, we tend to say, ‘It’s not our problem.’

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(9-23-19) We’ve all heard the cliche, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

Yet that often seems what we continue to do when dealing with the chronically homeless and mentally ill.

Which is why I’m always on the lookout for out-of-box ideas. I’d like to cite two examples of such thinking in helping individuals step away from the streets-jail-emergency room treadmill.

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 (9-20-19) FROM MY FILES FRIDAY. Eight years ago, I posted this blog about the death of well-known advocate Glenn Koons. I am reprinting it to honor his memory and also remind all of us that serious mental illnesses do not simply disappear after an individual “recovers.” Although controlled, they remain. I also believe we unknowingly put pressure on those who we elevate and cheer as peers making it difficult for them to seek help if they need it. Lessons we can learn from Glenn’s legacy.

Glenn Koons Passes: Inspiring Spokesman For Those With Serious Mental Illnesses

First posted Sept. 9, 2011

I first met Glenn Koons when I was invited to speak at a luncheon in Montgomery County, Pa., being hosted by the National Alliance on Mental Illness. It was one of the first speeches that I delivered after publication of my book and before my talk, NAMI Board Member Carol Caruso introduced me to Glenn. I was immediately struck by his easy-going manner. Carol bragged that Glenn was one of the first NAMI trained  Peer-to-Peer mentors in the entire nation. Glenn and I spoke for several minutes and I was impressed by his thoughtfulness and enthusiasm.

Our paths continued to cross during the coming years at various NAMI meetings and conventions. I was always happy to see Glenn and was thrilled when I learned that he had been one of only four NAMI peers who had been invited to the White House by President Obama to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.   A few weeks ago, I was asked by NAMI’s Darcy Taylor to write an article for NAMI’s VOICES publication. In my article, I mentioned three “consumers” who have inspired me. They are  Dr. Fred Frese, Diana Kern, and Glenn Koons.

The day after I submitted my article, an email arrived telling me that Glenn was dead.

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