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“Clare was a very marvelous gifted athlete,” he said. ”In her best year in high school, she was district champion in tennis; she was a catcher on the baseball team; she was an absolutely outstanding guard on the basketball team.” During her freshman year at Wake Forest in North Carolina, however, Clare started to lose her zest, growing ”fuzzy” and inordinately indecisive. She would call home frequently for guidance on simple issues, ”like what kind of potato to have…She was all out of whack. Then my wife, Nancy, went down there to help her and ended up bringing Clare back home. That’s when things got really out of hand. Her temperament totally changed. She became angry, mean. Throwing things at mirrors. Cussing, swearing. Crying, shrinking into a shell, taking to her bed. And that started two novice parents down the strange path of having to believe something we didn’t want to believe. And to really believe it, to acknowledge that Clare was mentally ill, took a long time.”

Those words were spoken by former U.S. Senator Pete Domenici who died yesterday at age 85 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He disclosed his family’s struggles in a New York Times article (reprinted below) that was a shocker when it appeared in 2002 – a time when most politicians were afraid to publicly discuss mental illness and substance abuse in their own families. He later told me the story came with a personal cost because it had upset his daughter.  Yet, it was his frankness in describing his frustration and family’s plight that showed mental illnesses can impact any family and it was his brutal honesty that helped persuade his colleagues to pass the landmark Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA). It was written to close loopholes that enabled insurance companies and health care providers to discriminate against Americans with mental illnesses and substance abuse problems by treating those issues differently from other health problems.

The New York Times quoted Andrew Sperling, legislative director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, in 2002 stating that Domenici played a singular role precisely because he was perceived as an unlikely advocate until after he told his family’s story.

‘‘If the parity legislation had come along as a  Kennedy-Wellstone initiative, it would never have been taken seriously in the Senate. Democrats come up with mandates on health insurance every day. But when a senior Republican senator with a fairly conservative voting record comes forward and says that in this instance the federal government has a responsibility to set a standard on the marketplace — it has the flavor of a Nixon in China.”

Sen. Domenici, along with his wife, Nancy, were strong supporters of NAMI whose CEO, Mary Giliberti, issued a statement yesterday that I am posting along with Domenici’s family story as told in the New York Times.

His death is a tremendous loss to Americans who have a mental illness or substance abuse issues or love someone who does. ( Sen. Wellstone died at age 58 in an airplane crash.)

(In other political news, supporters of Assisted Outpatient Treatment are trying to understand this morning why the House voted down an amendment introduced last night by Rep. Tim Murphy (R. Pa.) that would have added $5 million extra to fund Assistant Outpatient Treatment pilot programs. The amendment lost by a vote of 198 vs 219 (see your representative’s vote here) even though Congress last year had authorized $15 million for the same programs. The federal government has ruled that court ordered treatment is an “evidence based” practice that benefits the seriously mentally ill, but it still continues to be opposed by many consumer groups and legislators who fear expanding judge ordered treatment will require communities to provide supportive services (housing, job support, etc.) that are expensive. Five other mental health amendments Murphy introduced were approved. They included:  Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Promotion, Intervention and Treatment- $5 million; Increasing Access to Pediatric Mental Health Care – $9 million; Strengthening the Mental and Substance Use Disorders Workforce- $10 million; National Mental Health and Substance Abuse Policy Lab – $5 million; Strengthening Community Crisis Response Systems – $10 million.)

NAMI Mourns The Loss Of Senator Pete Domenici

ARLINGTON, Va., September 13, 2017 – NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, is saddened to hear the news that former-Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico has passed away. Senator Domenici served in the U.S. Senate for 35 years. Along with his wife Nancy, the senator worked tirelessly to educate his colleagues about mental illness and the need to improve mental health services and supports.

NAMI Chief Executive Officer Mary Giliberti expressed her heartfelt sorrow to Mrs. Domenici and the entire Domenici family: “Today, we mourn the loss of one of our staunchest allies. Senator Domenici has been a longtime advocate fighting for equal treatment for mental illness. He leaves behind a legacy in Congress on behalf of people with mental illness and their families that will never be forgotten. NAMI offers our deepest condolences to Nancy and their family.”

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New Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Abuse is sworn in by Secretary Tom Price while her husband holds bible.

9-14-17) Dr. Elinore McCance-Katz, who was sworn in earlier this week as our nation’s first Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, is going to need a tremendous amount of support from families and mental health advocates if she is to change the course of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a federal agency with a budget of about $3.6 billion a year, most of it dispensed in grants to help states pay for mental health and addiction treatment.

Reforming SAMHSA is the mandate that both Congress and the White House have given her, but the road to accomplishing that is filled with minefields.

She is taking charge at a time when SAMHSA has been under intense fire voiced during congressional hearings held by Rep. Tim Murphy’s (R.-Pa.) leading up to passage of the law during the Obama administration that created Dr. McCance-Katz’s new job.

But Rep. Murphy’s harsh critique was hardly the only voice clamoring for change.

For years, Dr. E. Fuller Torrey has lashed out against SAMHSA. Among his criticism: that SAMHSA failed to employe a single psychiatrist, funded groups that were outspokenly anti-psychiatry and anti-medication, and issued a three year planning document that was 41,804 words in length but didn’t include a single mention of schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, autism or obsessive disorder. Instead, he said, SAMHSA frittered away millions on feel good programs for the worried well. As an example, Rep. Murphy and Dr. Torrey cited SAMHSA’s funding of an “Unleash the Beast” program that promised to help attendees learn about mental illness by studying animal movements.

Even SAMHSA’s own employees were unhappy. A 2015 study by a non-partisan watchdog group ranked SAMHSA at 317 out of 320 federal agencies when it came to employee job satisfaction.

Among the SAMHSA’s harshest critics was Dr. McCance-Katz herself.

In an earlier incarnation, Dr. McCance-Katz served as SAMHSA’s first chief medical officer but left after only two years. Once out the door, she blew the whistle on SAMSHA, writing in an April 2016 Psychiatric Times article that at SAMHSA:

 “There is a perceptible hostility toward psychiatric medicine: a resistance to addressing the treatment needs of those with serious mental illness and a questioning by some at SAMHSA as to whether mental disorders even exist—for example, is psychosis just a “different way of thinking for some experiencing stress?”

All of which, now begs a question that needs to be answered.

Changing the top leader at a federal agency doesn’t change the career employees who have been sailing the ship for the past decade.

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(9-12-17) My good friend, Steve Weiss, recently asked if I would help publicize A BIT TOO MUCH ABOUT ME, a performance by Zac Sandler. The show is being performed this coming Friday, September 15th, beginning at 7 p.m. at The Triad Theater,  158 W 72nd Street, New York City. (It also will be live streamed, details below.) If you live in the New York area or happen to find yourself in Manhattan, please check it out.
What’s the show about?

“Welcome to what’s inside Zak’s head.  From the piano, Zak narrates his experience with a serious mental condition as it progresses from out-of-control to chaotic, to in-control and harmonious, while he strives to navigate his relationships and his writing career.  Joining Zak is a group of actors who play younger Zak, his exes, and the parts of his brain that come out during his mental episodes.”

I am especially pleased to be plugging this performance.

My friend, Steve Weiss, whose recommending the show, has been someone who has unselfishly helped my family numerous times during crises.

HOW STEVE WEISS HELPED MY SON WHEN THE POLICE WERE CALLED

After my book was published, Kevin stopped taking his medication. I called a mobile crisis response team and explained that I was concerned because I could see Kevin was beginning to slip into psychosis.

Is he dangerous?” the dispatcher asked me.

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It’s disturbing to see individuals with mental illness handcuffed and led away. Thankfully, they were taken to a crisis stabilization unit and not jail. 

(9-9-17) My good friend Miami Dade Judge Steven Leifman and his family have evacuated from Miami but not before he spoke to community leaders about the city’s seriously mentally ill, homeless population. 

 In an email, the mental health advocate told me: “These individuals were transferred to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Crisis Stabilization Unit – they were not sent to an inappropriate shelter. We also coordinated with Jackson so they were prepared to handle the increased volume.”

Douglas Bevelacqua, a former IG for mental health in Virginia, noted in an email to me, “Hurricane Katrina raised everyone’s consciousness about the plight of companion animals during, and after, a major storm. There are many organizations and programs to help save and reunite dogs and cats with their owners. I wonder if Houston’s mentally ill street population is getting a fraction of the attention directed to its companion animals.” Bevelacqua wonders if  the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Mental Health America, or some other mental health group will sponsor or participate in a national disaster relief fundraiser. Good question.

During emergencies, everyone realizes many homeless individuals are so impaired by their brain disorders they cannot make rational decisions to protect themselves. But when the sky is clear, society is fine leaving them to fend for themselves on the streets.)

Miami shelters homeless against their will as Irma closes in

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