Marion Pellicano Ambrose
Let me start by saying, I
write this article , not from reading other articles and writing my
interpretation, but from painful, personal experience. Those of you who have
not lived with a family member suffering from mental illness, may be able to
empathize to a certain extent, but you can’t really grasp the hellish existence
we must endure.
The senseless killing of 20
innocent children and 6 adults has caused people to cry out for gun control,
better security in schools and bans on automatic weapons. The real need, my
friends, is for BETTER MENTAL HEALTH POLICIES in this country. Families with
mothers, fathers, sons and daughters suffering with mental illness, like
Bi-Polar Disorder, Schizophrenia, Depression and countless other illnesses,
struggle on a daily basis trying to get help and effective treatment for their
loved ones, but it just isn’t there for many of us.
“Simply put, treatment works, if you can get it. But in America today,
it is clear that many people living with mental illness are not provided with
the essential treatment they need.”
—Michael J.
Fitzpatrick, executive director of NAMI National, National Alliance on Mental
Illness, Grading the States 2006, Arlington,
Va.
Parents with children who are
violent, abusive, or destructive have few options. If we act to keep our
children and others safe, we are accused of child abuse or endangerment. For
example, my son was violent and would kick out his windows, run outside and try
to climb onto the roof to jump off. We put plexiglass on the windows and he
kicked those out. We finally had to put grating on the windows, to keep him
from getting out and to protect him from shattered glass if he did shatter the
window. A social worker said we were breaking the fire code and endangering his
life and that we could be reported to DCF. I stated that if we took the grating
off, he was in much greater danger. I also asked her what she would do in this
case. Her answer was “Well, I certainly wouldn’t put grating up! Take it down.”
And that was it. No help or advice. She went home to her normal, safe family
and left us to deal with our situation alone.
I was forced to Baker Act my
son several times. This means, he was a visible danger to himself or others and
police can be called to take him to a mental health facility to be evaluated.
In every single case, he was drugged into a catatonic state, and of course, his
incidents of violence stopped. The longest he was held was 72 hours and then
released back home where, of course, we wouldn’t keep him drugged until he was
like a zombie. A day or 2 later we were right back where we started. Back to
living in hell.
Who knows what the mother of
this young man who killed so many has lived with. No one can judge her until
they know the circumstances of her life. It could be that she was an abusive
mother, or that she neglected her son. But it’s also very possible that she
struggled for this young man’s entire life, trying to get treatment,
medication, counseling, and support for him and her family. I’m not surprised
that her son murdered her. My son attempted the same thing on several occasions
when he was younger, especially when he was going through puberty.
Please don’t misunderstand. I
love my son. I did everything on God’s good earth to get him help and
treatment. I traveled all over the state and farther to find the best
psychiatrists and psychologists. I had a behavioral analyst, social workers,
nutritionists, an more working with me. I went for training on how to safely
restrain him, how to try and defuse his fits, how to use conditioning,
reinforcement, how to protect myself , my daughter and my husband. All this
because I INSISTED that I be trained!! Only one of the many, many mental health
professionals encouraged me in this. For this reason, I will always be grateful
and hold in the highest regard, Doctor Humberto Nagera of the University of South Florida. He met with me won a weekly basis and gave me
advice and strategies to deal with my son. The others were annoyed and labeled
me a “difficult parent” because I fought for help. Dr. Nagera was also the ONLY
one who was concerned about the effect of my son’s illness on my daughter who
is 4 years younger. His care and concern had such an affect on her that she is
now in graduate school studying to be an Applied Behavioral Analyst. I wish
President Obama would put Dr. Nagera in charge of forging new mental health
policies and programs that actually help not only the patient, but their
suffering families.
I believe it is because of
him , his support and the advice he gave our family, that my son has never been
arrested, never on drugs, and not permanently committed to a mental
institution. My son is now attending college after getting a GED, has a
girlfriend, and lives on his own (with some help from me). He is still bipolar
and still has great difficulty with life. He still gets angry but has learned
to control it enough to keep from becoming violent. Some days he’ll talk to me
and we have a good relationship, and others he hates me and says I was never a mother to him. I’ve learned
not to take it personally and just wait it out. Eventually, he comes around
again. I believe that, without the hard work and partnership of me, my husband,
my mother, my mother in law, my daughter and my friends, and especially the
help of Dr. Nagera , my son would be dead or in prison and I would have been
murdered by him.
So when you’re hearing all
the calls for gun control or complaints about school safety (even though Sandy
Hook was proven to have a good policy in effect and all teachers and staff
acted heroically in this situation), PLEASE remember that if parents had access
to EFFECTIVE mental health treatment, help with violent and abusive children,
and the empathy and understanding of the public, there might not be incidences
like Sandy Hook and Columbine.
ALL parents need to look at
what they’re teaching their children by allowing them to see violent movies,
play violent video games and act and speak disrespectfully. It’s not funny when
a child uses foul language. It’s a crime when a young child is permitted to
play games where they kill and maim with guns, swords or whatever weapon the
game provides. It’s irresponsible when parents allow children to see movies or
TV shows where sex and violence are commonplace, causing them to think this is
the way it is in real life. THAT’S EXACTLY why it is becoming real life. It’s
not adorable to see young girls dressed like sluts or boys dressing like gang
members. All these things send a message to our children, and it’s not a good
message.
Let me leave you with these
facts:
One in four adults—approximately 57.7
million Americans—
experience a mental health disorder in a
given year. One in 17 lives
With a serious mental illness such as
schizophrenia, major
depression or bipolar disorder1 and about
one in 10 children live
with a serious mental or emotional
disorder.
• About 2.4 million Americans, or 1.1
percent of the adult population,
lives with schizophrenia.
• Bipolar disorder affects 5.7 million
American adults, approximately
2.6 percent of the adult population per
year.
• Major depressive disorder affects 6.7
percent of adults, or about
14.8 million American adults.1 According
to the 2004 World Health
Report, this is the leading cause of disability in the United States
and Canada in ages between 15-44.
• Anxiety disorders, including panic
disorder, obsessive-compulsive
disorder (OCD), posttraumatic stress
disorder (PTSD), generalized
anxiety disorder and phobias, affect about
18.7 percent of adults,
an estimated 40 million individuals.
Anxiety disorders frequently
co-occur with depression or addiction
disorders.
• An estimated 5.2 million adults have
co-occurring mental health
and addiction disorders.4 Of adults using
homeless services, 31
percent reported having combination of
these conditions.
• One-half of all lifetime cases of mental
illness begin by age 14,
three-quarters by age 24. Despite
effective treatments, there
are long delays—sometimes decades—between
the first onset of
symptoms and when people seek and receive
treatment.
• Fewer than one-third of adults and
one-half of children with a
diagnosable mental disorder receive mental
health services in a
given year.
• Racial and ethnic minorities are less
likely to have access to mental
health services and often receive a poorer
quality of care.
• In the United States, the annual economic,
indirect cost of mental
illness is estimated to be $79 billion.
Most of that amount—
approximately $63 billion—reflects the
loss of productivity as a
result of illnesses.
• Individuals living with serious mental
illness face an increased risk
of having chronic medical conditions.
Adults living with serious
mental illness die 25 years earlier than
other Americans, largely
due to treatable medical conditions.
• Suicide is the eleventh-leading cause of
death in the Unites States
and the third-leading cause of death for
people ages 10-24 years.
More than 90 percent of those who die by
suicide have a
diagnosable mental disorder.
• In July 2007, a nationwide report
indicated that male veterans are
twice as likely to die by suicide as
compared with their civilian peers
in the general United States population.
• Twenty-four percent of state prisoners
and 21 percent of local jail
prisoners have a recent history of a
mental health disorder.
Seventy percent of youth in juvenile
justice systems have at least
one mental disorder with at least 20
percent experiencing significant functional impairment from a serious mental
illness.
• Over 50 percent of students with a
mental disorder age 14 and
older drop out of high school—the highest
dropout rate of any
disability group.
My heart goes out to all the families of the Sandy Hook tragedy, but it also goes out to the
family of this young man who killed his
own mother and then himself . His mental illness doesn’t excuse the horrible
thing that he did, but it should motivate us to vote for better mental health
care in this country and support teachers and others who deal with this issue
on a daily basis.
