Photo is from Treatment Advocacy Center’s announcement of Rep. Tim Murphy’s award. Pictured with Dr. E. Fuller Torrey

(6-1-15) The question being asked on Capitol Hill is whether Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) will drop a requirement in his mental health legislation that would require states to begin using Assisted Outpatient Treatment as a condition of receiving federal mental health dollars.  Under AOT, as it is known, states can require persons with a diagnosed mental illness to take anti-psychotic medication if that medication has proven to help him/her in the past and he/she has a documented history of violence or repeated hospitalizations.

It is a hot button issue for those who oppose forced treatment but is supported by many parents.  It also is one of the main pillars in Murphy’s Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act, which had been steamrolling through the House during its last session until Democrats introduced a poison pill bill that kept Murphy’s bill stuck in a committee.

Murphy certainly gave no hints that he was willing to abandon AOT when he appeared May 20th at a Capitol Hill rally that was sponsored by the Treatment Advocacy Center and attended by more than a hundred family advocates.

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(5-1-15) My friend, Dr. Dinah Miller, a Baltimore psychiatrist and one of the authors of the popular blog, Shrink Rap, took issue with a blog post that I published April 20th about an emergency room nurse who’d been bitten by a psychotic patient and decided to press criminal charges. That blog hit a nerve with many of you. As a follow up, I checked on the court hearing in this case and learned it had been postponed until June.)

Some thoughts on Authority and Victimization

From My Files Friday: 3-27-15) Rep. Tim Murphy’s controversial Helping Families In Mental Health Crisis Act never made it out of a House committee last year, but the Pennsylvania Republican says some form of it will become law this year now that he has found a Democrat in the Senate willing to support his controversial reform efforts. In a press release last month, Murphy reported that Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy had discussed “areas of agreement” with him that made both of them believe “Congress could act and pass a bill during the current session.” That statement came as a surprise to the Democrats in the House who I polled. They insist the bill will remain buried in committee unless Murphy agrees to drop several changes, including his attempts to reduce the size and importance of SAMHSA and drop his push for Assisted Outpatient Treatment. Stay tuned. Here’s a blog that I wrote in December 2013 when his initial bill was introduced. 

Rep. Murphy’s Bill Would Shift Focus: Make Major Changes In Mental Health Care

Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) introduced legislation today that would make significant changes in our nation’s mental health care system.

Spurred by the mass killings in Newtown, Murphy’s proposed bill,  The Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act , would slow the current push in the mental health community toward self-determination at any and all costs toward a more paternalistic view.

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Mental Health Recovery Now

By Leah Harris

“Recovery is a process, a way of life, an attitude, and a way of approaching the day’s challenges. It is not a perfectly linear process. At times our course is erratic and we falter, slide back, regroup and start again… The need is to meet the challenge of the disability and to re-establish a new and valued sense of integrity and purpose within and beyond the limits of the disability; the aspiration is to live, work and love in a community in which one makes a significant contribution.” — Pat Deegan, Ph.D.

I am the daughter of two people diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. They did not recover. They died tragically and young, as far too many people with these diagnoses do. I mourn their loss every single day of my life. And yet I am an unwavering advocate for mental health recovery.

As an adolescent, I attempted suicide a number of times. I also experienced periods of believing I was the secret Messiah, seeing divine messages on the sides of buses and in TV commercials. I once barricaded myself in my room with knives, necessitating a call to the police, who took me away in handcuffs in the back of a squad car. At age 16, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and was told in numerous direct and indirect ways: You have a genetically inherited biological brain disease that you will have for life. You will not be able to manage this disease without lifelong dependence on our systems of care. You will have to put your dreams on hold and avoid all forms of stress in order to be able to manage your illness successfully.

The outcome of these hopeless and disempowering messages was that at eighteen years old, I found myself sitting in a squalid group home, where I was told I would remain for life. I had no high school diploma and no job. I was on the direct track to poverty, chronic disability, and premature mortality.

With the support of my family, I managed to escape the group home. A particularly empathetic and supportive teacher helped me to get educational accommodations. Not only did I graduate from high school, but I went on to college, then obtained a graduate degree from Georgetown University. Yet even with these successes, I felt like a fraud. I hid my psychiatric history from everyone I knew, ashamed, and continued to struggle deeply, even as I “performed” and “achieved.”

In my mid twenties, I heard a different message for the very first time: People can and do recover, from even the most serious mental illness. The idea that I could recover was a revelation to me. It gave me a sense of possibility going forward that I had never felt before. My life was forever changed, for the better.

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I am honored to be named a Mental Wellness Warrior by CNN, especially after reading the names of my fellow warriors. It’s nice to be noticed, but everyone who has a mental illness and is quietly going about their lives — are warriors. And everyone who loves someone with a mental illness and is fighting to reform our system is a true warrior too!

Thanks to Wayne Drash for reminding  the public that there are many faces to mental illness.

From CNN    Mental wellness warriors: Fighting for those who need it most

Pennsylvania Congressman Tim Murphy gets my nod as the Impact Person of 2014 in Mental Health.

Whether you agree or disagree with the Republican from Pittsburgh, his relentless attempt to radically change how the federal government oversees the delivery of mental health services has focused a national spotlight on our current broken system.

Murphy launched his crusade two years ago after he met with the parents of children murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary school by Adam Lanza, who had a mental disorder. He recently told a reporter from CNN that he keeps photographs of those children in his Capitol Hill office as a reminder of his pledge to their parents that he would introduce wide sweeping changes.

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