The life of a 31-year-old living with schizophrenia illustrates the toll of illness and the challenge of getting severely mentally ill people off the streets.
Deborah Smith has been struggling for more than a decade to get appropriate mental health care for her son, Nicholas. She can let him live with her or kick him out, and has done both many times. She can call the police when he’s threatening or breaks things in the apartment. She can cajole patrol officers to call in their mental evaluation teams. She can plead with mental health workers to take him on 5150s, the 72-hour involuntary detentions. She has done it all.
She’s learned from repeated attempts to get the care she believes Nicholas needs, both with and without his consent, that there is nowhere near enough of it. After 16 days at Northridge, Nicholas was released to a sober living home Deborah found for him. Only a few days later, he walked out and returned to live with his mother and brother, beginning a cycle of tension, blowups, homelessness, stints with his father, then friends and, finally, reunification with his mother, starting the cycle again.
Source: Healthcare Press (healthcarepress.net)
“Once again my son is going to go into a jail cell for having a psychotic episode,” she said. “The only way now for anyone to get help is to have them criminally charged, and they they can put them in the mental health system. It’s a system of insanity.” 💔 😥
Another kid that grew up getting participation awards instead of learning that you earn awards
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