In the book, "Crazy: A Father's Search through America's Mental Health Madness," Pete Earley tells a story that is all too familiar to NAMI members. As an award-winning journalist for over thirty years, Mr. Earley has effectively captured the absurdities of the mental health system in our country through his investigative journalism and his personal understanding of mental illness.
Mr. Earley's son, Mike, has a psychotic episode while in college and breaks into a stranger's home, takes a bubble bath and causes significant damage. Thus begins their long journey into the broken mental health system that so many of us confront everyday in this country. Mr. Earley learns all too quickly just how difficult it is to receive necessary treatment for his son's mental illness. He uses his frustration to launch a personal and professional inquiry into a confusing mental health system coupled with an irrational criminal justice system.
Mr. Earley is granted full access to the Miami-Dade County Jail's "forgotten floor"--the jail's primary psychiatric unit where prisoners are housed without treatment. He can see firsthand that, indeed, our jails and prisons have become the repository for persons with serious mental illness. The prisoners have committed both felonies and petty misdemeanors, all because of their untreated brain disorder. Yet there is no chance at rehabilitation in jails. The prisoners linger in their psychoses for months at a time, only to await a bus ride to a psychiatric facility where they receive minimal treatment in order to have a competency hearing and then are brought back to the jail to await a hearing that will probably never happen.
"Crazy" is a book that NAMI members can use as an advocacy tool to improve mental health care in their communities. When jails become a part of the continuum of care for persons with a serious mental illness, we must speak up and demand change.
Mr. Earley provides the history of deinstitutionalization and the changes in America's civil rights laws to give us a full perspective on why our mental health system is broken. As mental health advocates, it is important for us to know why our mental health system is so shattered. Knowing the history of mental health laws can teach us, not only why consumers cannot receive appropriate treatment for their mental illness, but also provide us with the information necessary to become effective advocates.
In the eight years that I have been involved with NAMI, I continually see how difficult it is for us to educate the uneducated about mental illness. As a person who has lived with schizoaffective disorder for over 20 years, I have a personal understanding of stigma. It is natural for me to talk about mental illness with my NAMI family. I am comfortable because I know that they understand and that I am not judged. It is quite another story to discuss my mental illness and subsequent suffering with those who are not aware of the unique issues that we confront on a daily basis. Yet, if we want positive changes in our mental health delivery system, we must be the ones to speak up and tell our stories. Yes, it can be difficult and often scary to disclose our personal experiences with mental illness. There is always that threat of stigma. This is why it is important to band together as NAMI advocates and show our force in numbers.
Mike Earley gave his father permission to use his name and his experiences in "Crazy" with the hope that his story would help someone else. This was a very brave step and I hope that it aids in Mike's recovery. I know that telling my story, my trials with my illness, the treatment that I did or did not receive, my endless search for the right medications, my experiences with mental health deputies (now known as CIT's) and all my entrances and exits into and out of mental hospitals, has been an integral part of the success of my recovery. I am a mental health advocate because I want others with a serious mental illness to have what I have now. I want consumers to know that they matter in this big world and with treatment they can live a fulfilling and meaningful life. I want consumers and their families to know that there is hope.
Mr. Earley concludes the book with a chapter titled, "Solutions". He stresses the necessity of CIT training in every community. CIT saves lives and changes attitudes. He asks us to rethink the closings of the state mental hospitals through his explanation of unintended consequences in the civil rights laws of persons with mental illness. He also asks us to reexamine commitment laws. "Eighty percent of persons with mental illness can be helped with antipsychotic medication, yet civil rights laws are used daily to prevent patients from getting help."
As a person with a serious psychotic disorder, I am glad that medication was forced on me and saved my life and continues to fix my broken brain.
Diana Kern
NAMI Texas
