Lets Start a Conversation About Serious Mental Illness & Increase Access to Treatment.

It’s been almost ten years now since life has changed quite dramatically. I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I first heard the word “schizophrenic.” I thought, no way. But yes way, this was in fact the beginning of a dark, long journey that would be full of disappointment, heartbreak and helplessness.

Mental illness is not like a broken bone, it can take years for the exact diagnosis to become clear. In this case, a member of my immediate family had been diagnosed, not quite with schizophrenia but something similar. Jump ahead ten years and we’ve now been through six hospitalizations and a couple of stays in prison, and are no closer to getting them the help they need.

Unfortunately, there are major systemic failures in our country that make treating those who are severely mentally ill beyond challenging. It’s a broken system which sets patients up for failure.

Just getting crisis intervention to come out and bring your loved one to the hospital proves challenging, because most of the time they won’t respond if that person isn't hurting themselves or someone else. You need to wait for an incident to happen instead of prevent one, and pray nobody get hurts. Imagine the stress that can lead to, especially in this day and age when mass shootings happen left and right.

Short hospital stays lead to the discharge of patients well before they are ready to be released back into society and outpatient programs aren’t mandatory so patients are off the hook once they are out of the hospital.

As a result, those who are seriously mentally ill often end up off medication, homeless, getting caught up with the law and in many cases incarcerated.

This has certainly been the case with my family. My sick family member in recent years is almost always delusional, paranoid, obsessing over the government and war, fixated on things that their mind takes and twists into something major. They are there physically, but in no way mentally. You learn to cope and almost grieve as if you’ve lost that loved one. In fact, you wonder if one day you’ll get a call that they are gone, that they took their own life, or that there was an altercation with police and they were shot, or even worse ..there was an incident and multiple people were hurt and your loved one is now dead.

I heard about NAMI through my therapist about seven years ago, an organization dedicated to mental illness. NAMI’s mission is to raise awareness, educate and offer support for those suffering and those around the mentally ill. I’ve gone to support groups for years now, meeting those in similar circumstances who know all about these challenges. NAMI offers resources for patients to get into recovery, get employment, housing, etc. They also offer an educational 12 week class for family members to learn how to care and cope with someone who is seriously mentally ill. My parents have taken this class.

I am raising money for NAMI to share my story, start a conversation and help educate in an effort to fight for change. Our loved ones deserve *accessible* treatment that sets them up for success and not failure. Major changes need to happen in our mental health system to start addressing the crisis in our country that has become an epidemic. This is just the beginning and with enough support we can make a difference little by little.