Whenever I give a speech, I know there are parents in the audience who have been through much worse than what my family experienced. I was reminded of this last week when I spoke at Cayuga Community College in Auburn, New York, at the invitation of the local chapter of the National Alliance of Mental Illness.
*One parent told me that when she took her adult son to a hospital emergency room, he was not separated from others waiting there even though he was hearing voices and psychotic. He became enraged when another person in the crowded waiting room mistakenly picked up his soda. He attacked and broke that person’s arm. He ended up in jail on felony charges.
*Another parent recalled how her son had been expelled and banned from receiving services at a local mental health clinic after he wrote a profane and threatening letter to his case manager. That case worker’s boss called the police and, again, the person with mental illness was taken to jail and charged.