Thinking the unthinkable: Life with a child who’s mentally ill
I live with a son who is mentally ill. I love my son. But he terrifies me.
A few weeks ago, Michael pulled a knife and threatened to kill me and then himself after I asked him to return his overdue library books. His 7 and 9 year old siblings knew the safety plan—they ran to the car and locked the doors before I even asked them to. I managed to get the knife from Michael, then methodically collected all the sharp objects in the house into a single Tupperware container that now travels with me. Through it all, he continued to scream insults at me and threaten to kill or hurt me.
That conflict ended with three burly police officers and a paramedic wrestling my son onto a gurney for an expensive ambulance ride to the local emergency room. The mental hospital didn’t have any beds that day, and Michael calmed down nicely in the ER, so they sent us home with a prescription for Zyprexa and a follow-up visit with a local pediatric psychiatrist…
I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza’s mother. I am Dylan Klebold’s and Eric Harris’s mother. I am Jason Holmes’s mother. I am Jared Loughner’s mother. I am Seung-Hui Cho’s mother. And these boys—and their mothers—need help. In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Comment pages: 1 2 Next »
WOW, that was needed to be said and repeated from the roof tops! My heart aches so much for parents dealing with their mentally ill kids.
L
letget on December 16, 2012 at 12:15 PM
hmmm last I looked this was a crime. Why was the boy left go from the ER why wasn’t he charged for attempted murder?
unseen on December 16, 2012 at 12:16 PM
I have an enormous amount of sympathy for this woman. A distant friend of mine has a child who is 8 and similarly violent.
We live in a world where we like easy answers. There are none when it comes to dealing with these kids – only the obvious ones like secure all the common lethal weapons (guns, knives, hammers, bottles, etc.) But after that?
CorporatePiggy on December 16, 2012 at 12:19 PM
The day my son pulls a knife on me and threatens to kill me is the day the police get called and he goes to jail. Esp if other children and involved like this story says. At some point the sane has to act sane around the insane. the actions of this mother are insane she knowingly endangers her other children by allowing this unstable person in her home. I don’t care how much you “love” someone at some point you have to make sane logical decisions about your safety, your children’s safety and those in society. And that means threats like her child must be removed from society and placed in places where they have less chance of hurting people
unseen on December 16, 2012 at 12:19 PM
Might or might not be possible for a child that age in that jurisdiction.
And anyway, most parents would not do that IME.
CorporatePiggy on December 16, 2012 at 12:22 PM
not easy answers but simpele ones. the 8 year old if he can not control his violence must be shhunned from society. either his parents must gain control of the child or he must be placed in an environment where his violence will not hurt the general population.
unseen on December 16, 2012 at 12:22 PM
so there are laws already on the books for this type of behavior and they aren’t followed because the love of a parent for a child. So what makes anyone thing more laws are going to solve the problem.
unseen on December 16, 2012 at 12:24 PM
I was about to make a simular comment as yours. I don’t have kids, but if I did, I have enough sense to realize if one of my kids put me or the others in harms way, that child needs to be put in a care facility that could handle him/her! NO one should have to live that way in fear all the time from a mentally ill child.
L
letget on December 16, 2012 at 12:25 PM
Your reaction is actually perfectly in line with what we do here in America. The population of mentally ill prison inmates has skyrocketed in the last decade. People who in another time would be committed to a psych ward are simply thrown in jail, where they receive no treatment, but they don’t stay in jail for life. They come out, having their mental illness made exponentially worse by their violent, erratic environment. We’re doing exactly what you want, but we really shouldn’t.
ernesto on December 16, 2012 at 12:25 PM
The problem, of course, is that prison is not a care facility.
ernesto on December 16, 2012 at 12:26 PM
ugly stuff, there is a move called “We Need to Talk about Kevin” along a similar vein, it ain’t pretty.
rob verdi on December 16, 2012 at 12:29 PM
Kids make threats to their parents constantly. It’s a difficult job as a parent to deal with the anger kids express when you enforce the rules. When the child has a psychological problem the difficulty increases greatly. No parent wants to use the prison system to deal with an emotionally disturbed child.
dedalus on December 16, 2012 at 12:30 PM
Because the child needs rehabilitative treatment, not incarceration/punishment. Unfortunately, our mental health system is a variation of “catch and release”. Someone withe severe mental health issues can be involuntarily treated for short periods after he/she has already proven to be a danger to self or others. Once the treatment period is over (typically 3-5 days, depending on the state), state laws require that the individuals be released. There are no provisions for ongoing care or observation.
We do not take 13 year olds with severe mental illness and house them with the animals in prisons and juvies.
Family members live in fear, fully cognizant of the danger that their loved ones pose to self, family and community. But our society decided a while back that mental institutions are bad things and that rights to self-determination mean that psychotic individuals belong in the community, even when they have recurrent patterns of violence. A “normal” prison environment is not the appropriate place for a psychotic individual, even if proven to be violent– hospitalization is what’s required, even if it occurs in a psychiatric prison environment or enforced long-term hospitalization.
obladioblada on December 16, 2012 at 12:30 PM
so put them in a psych ward. That is why you call the polcie and have him arrested for a c rime. He goes infront of a judge or jury and they decide if his actions require him to be committed to protect and serve society.
that is why we have judges that is why we have police that is why we have a system. If the sytem is broken fix the system. If we don’t have enough pysch wards build more instead of spending billions are group hugs.
unseen on December 16, 2012 at 12:32 PM
Mind a point in this article: without employer based coverage, this mother would not have been able to get whatever help she did receive. Imagine mom worked at WalMart instead of collecting over 200k a year in alimony.
ernesto on December 16, 2012 at 12:33 PM
Don’t mean to be glib, but after pulling a knife on me, Michael would no longer be in my house. No way I would expose myself and other children to this terror. I couldn’t live on egg shells, just waiting for this kid to snap.
Tasha on December 16, 2012 at 12:34 PM
It is broken. We don’t have enough psych wards, nor enough social workers. I agree, I’d much rather build more psych wards and hire more psychologists and social workers, but that’s just the sort of social spending conservatives fight tooth and nail.
ernesto on December 16, 2012 at 12:35 PM
A logical statement, except that those care facilities do not exist. The laws do not permit long-term involuntary hospitalization. Families are given the choice between home care (with out-patient psych treatment if the family has insurance) and jail. The mentally ill child in this discussion is dangerous, but jail would be catastrophic.
Our society decided decades ago to close institutions and move people to community-based care. This was done in the name of civil rights and self-determination. Society did not, however, bother to create effective community-based care.
Legislators and taxpayers don’t care about those with mental illness until a violent crime is committed. The everyone jumps up and down, demonizes the helpless parents, calls for stronger laws and goes to sleep when the news cycle ends. We are on course to repeat this scenario ad infinitum.
obladioblada on December 16, 2012 at 12:38 PM
Yes.
Ladysmith CulchaVulcha on December 16, 2012 at 12:40 PM
Well the psychiatric care system is most certainly broken and it would probably be worth fixing it. Using jail as a band-aid most certainly doesn’t work for society.
You also seem very keen on quick fix solution. Kids do lash out. Obviously a young child who escalates to using weapons and has serious rage issues is a problem. Basic conflict resolution involves deescalation and so does psychiatric care. If a patient has an episode and they are very young and have little history, you shouldn’t immediately call for them to be kept in restraints 23 hours a day and fed a diet of sedatives for 20 years (after which you release them on their own recognizance, natch).
At the moment our default mode is pretty much all or nothing. And a lot of parents will choose nothing. And even if they choose all, LE will quite rightly say that they can’t pre-emptively arrest someone and force them into psychiatric care without a commital, which is a whole other nightmare of bureaucratic failure.
CorporatePiggy on December 16, 2012 at 12:40 PM
It does seem like this is a clear case of a child who needs to be institutionalized. However, there are less clear cut cases. A child might just be odd or like dressing differently and I’d hate for him/ her to get caught up in something like this.
Illinidiva on December 16, 2012 at 12:40 PM
Respectfully, it’s easier to make a statement like that when you do not have a child that you’ve lovingly birthed and raised. The parents’ objective is loving, caring and protecting a sick child. You wouldn’t throw away a child with cancer or leukemia, you don’t stop loving or caring for a child with a mental illness.
Children aren’t throw-aways.
obladioblada on December 16, 2012 at 12:42 PM
Agreed. There should be almost as many social workers as there are doctors in this county. Oh, wait:
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/Community-and-Social-Service/Social-workers.htm
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/physicians-and-surgeons.htm
Say, I wonder what’s taking up all of the social workers’ time?
rogerb on December 16, 2012 at 12:42 PM
Read the story the problem isn’t the son its the mother’s reaction to the son. He calls her a ”
bi*ch” and her reaction is to ground him from video games for a day? really. The boy might not even be mentally ill just super smart to see his actions do not get punished so they are worth doing.
If my child every said such a thing to me and meant it he wouldn’t be grounded from video games for a day his xbox would be in the trash.
the story is full of little tidbits of bad bahvior from the son followed by little or no punishment from the parent then the parent wonders why the son will not stop his behavior.
he isn’t mentally ill. he is acting rational.
unseen on December 16, 2012 at 12:44 PM
Oops. Forgot my quote. FIFM:
Agreed. There should be almost as many social workers as there are doctors in this county. Oh, wait:
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/Community-and-Social-Service/Social-workers.htm
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/physicians-and-surgeons.htm
Say, I wonder what’s taking up all of the social workers’ time?
rogerb on December 16, 2012 at 12:44 PM
While agree with everything she said about mental health situations and the need to rethink institutions rather than jail, I think she needs to get a police record going. They won’t put in him in prison and she may even have to wait until he isn’t a juvenile, but there needs to be a paper trail to keep him from legally owning a gun. I don’t think you can limit that through private medial interactions, since they are confidential.
Cindy Munford on December 16, 2012 at 12:47 PM
I read the book. Chilling twist at the end.
You are full of it. Go read the Open Thread this morning. The ACLU just stopped CT from doing something about this. Leftists are the first ones screaming that people shouldn’t be incarcerated for being insane. It doesn’t matter whether conservatives are willing to pay to build the institutions if you people won’t allow anyone to be institutionalized. Is there anything you are willing to take responsibility for? I didn’t think so.
Night Owl on December 16, 2012 at 12:49 PM
Don’t get me wrong. Community-based care is the best choice for the vast majority of people who have mental illness. I also believe that individuals have a right to determine their own medical care and treatment plans, including refusing treatment and medication.
However, there are individuals who have patterns of ongoing violence or other behaviors that pose a threat to themselves or others. Right now, short of the long, arduous and usually futile process of having an individual declared incompetent, there are no alternatives outside of the revolving door of short-term involuntary hospitalization. I have been through the process with friends’ children and with a sibling– we all recognize the problems, but are helpless to find solutions unless the unthinkable happens.
obladioblada on December 16, 2012 at 12:51 PM
My child has never threatened me. It isn’t diffucult to enforce rules. You put the rules in place and the punishment of disobeying the rules is known to the child. don’t move them. You don’t let the child control which rule is enforced and you don’t let their behavior dictate the type of punishment. If you find a rule to hard to follow or outdated or the punishment too harsh you decide with your partner
unseen on December 16, 2012 at 12:52 PM
Why are they no longer committed to psych wards do you think?
NoLeftTurn on December 16, 2012 at 12:52 PM
This is the real discussion that needs to be had. An assault weapons ban won’t stop intelligent, deranged individuals from killing.
WisCon on December 16, 2012 at 12:54 PM
It’s not a lack of social workers, it’s a lack of treatment facilities. Apparently our society decided a few years back that it was a violation of the mentally ill’s rights to confine them to facilities. Often there simply is no where to put kids like this. The few facilities we have are full. That’s why this mother was advised to wait until he commits a crime. Yes, then her mentally ill 13 y/o can be locked in juvie, or in a few more years, prison, where he will receive little or no treatment. It’s a tragic situation.
mbs on December 16, 2012 at 12:55 PM
If you look attitudes and treatement for mental illness over the last half century, you can see why. When trendy counter-culture psychiatrist like R D Laing and Thomas Szasz wrote about the “myth of mental illness,” and movies like “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” gave the romantic impression that the mentally ill were just harmless eccentrics and the hospitals were evil hellholes (admittedly, some mental institutions were dreadful), and add in the lawsuits in the late 1960s and early 1970s by the ACLU and others for the “rights” of the mentally ill, you can see why the prisons became the default facilities.
Of course, once the lawsuits succeeded, the attitudes towards all kinds of “alternate lifestyles” took hold, and the mental hospitals were closed down, the remedy was to have group homes, and less restrictive surroundings for the mentally ill. Trouble is, there was little money for it, and NIMBY took hold. (Would you want a group home for a bunch of Adam Lanzas or Jared Loughners in your neighborhood? Not In My Back Yard.)
That’s why so mentally ill people are in jail. It’s the only place with bars and locks to keep the public safe.
A few weeks before this, a mentally ill man started harassing another man on a subway platform in NY. The mentally ill man shoved the other man onto the tracks with a train pulling in. What do we do to protect ourselves? Right now, we can do little until the mentally ill commit a crime, and then it’s too late, at least for the victims.
Wethal on December 16, 2012 at 12:55 PM
Yes, mind a point in this article:
“Giving up my…”
“You’ll do anything for benefits.”
Personal decisions. Personal responsibilities. Why throw the Obamacare talking points in there?
(Not really, btw. We know why. You’re still having to sell it to America for some reason, aren’t you?)
rogerb on December 16, 2012 at 12:56 PM
People like Ernie would rather let IPAB decide who gets inpatient treatment and who doesn’t. No civil liberties will be trampled when that is the case I’m sure.
NoLeftTurn on December 16, 2012 at 1:01 PM
LIES!! Healthcare is cheap and affordable across America. She’s just an irresponsible moocher or something.
No. We don’t talk about healthcare. It’s PERFECT as it is. No need to talk about it.
On the other hand, if only she had a collection of guns we wouldn’t have to read this waste of an article.
/Angry conservative rant
lester on December 16, 2012 at 1:01 PM
Agreed. This is a clear cut case where the child in question needs to be institutionalized for his own safety and those of his parents and siblings. However, I was playing Devil’s Advocate there. Yes, mental illness is a huge problem in this country and it doesn’t get enough attention because it doesn’t involve cute four year olds with brain tumors or have a huge and active community behind it (like the gay community in the 1990s with HIV). But if we’re going to focus on mental health, then we should be wary of its excesses. I wasn’t popular in high school and didn’t enjoy it at all. I’d hate to have been labeled as mentally ill because a social worker deemed I wasn’t “properly socialized.”
Illinidiva on December 16, 2012 at 1:01 PM
Goes back to the JFK and Carter administrations when they decided a different approach was needed for mental illness. Like closing down mental hospitals and turning the inmates loose on the streets to fend for themselves. I believe the rate of mental illness in prisons is 5X what it is in the outside population and I’ve forgotten what the percentage is in street people but it is very high.
a capella on December 16, 2012 at 1:03 PM
Your child is not psychotic, neither does your child not have complex neuro-developmental problems that cause behaviors that are not responsive to normal disciplinary procedures. Count yourself blessed.
obladioblada on December 16, 2012 at 1:05 PM
I really wish I knew. I’m not old enough to have fought whatever political battles led us to this place, I just know it needs to change.
ernesto on December 16, 2012 at 1:11 PM
You realize your comments if they were ever worth reading, have descended to troll rants.
Nothing you say makes sense anymore and you simply attack people and their ideology.
I wish they’d employ ignore buttons here so I wouldn’t be compelled to remind you of this.
hawkdriver on December 16, 2012 at 1:11 PM
No one here said anything like that. You are a moron. Liberals and the ACLU have taken away the options that used to exist to care for these people. Your comrade lostmotherland says your side “owns” the culture, and it’s true. You are a bunch of idiots and this is the end result of your idiocy for many families. Putting this child in a psych ward for a few days does nothing but maybe give this mother a few good nights’ sleep, so she can keep up her strength for the next onslaught. Own it.
Night Owl on December 16, 2012 at 1:12 PM
I missed any other comment you’ve made on the event. Are you saying you do support confining the mental ill if dangerous or dangerous to themselves?
hawkdriver on December 16, 2012 at 1:13 PM
rogerb on December 16, 2012 at 1:13 PM
The answers are complex. Much blame to go around for the curse of good intentions. As I wrote in this a.m.’s open thread:
The idea of not forcing seriously mentally ill people into treatment started with Gov. Edmund Brown Sr. (current Gov. Jerry Brown’s dad, who in 1985 regretted the chaos he unleashed), but that was just the first domino to fall.
In 1967, Gov. Ronald Reagan signed the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act (LPS), which went into effect in 1969 and quickly became a national model. Among other things, it prohibited forced medication or extended hospital stays without a judicial hearing.
A mental patient could be held for 72 hours only if he or she engaged in an act of serious violence or demonstrated a likelihood of suicide or an inability to provide their own food, shelter or clothing due to mental illness. But 72 hours was rarely enough time to stabilize someone with medication. Only in extreme cases could someone be held another two weeks for evaluation and treatment.
Ladysmith CulchaVulcha on December 16, 2012 at 1:15 PM
The world also had a problem with families institutionalizing mentally healthy others for unsavory reasons– inconvenient wives or heirs could find themselves institutionalized for life, without cause. We have to be concerned about everyone’s civil rights and those who are not a threat to themselves or others should have the right to decide their own treatment, even if their decisions are what others consider dysfunctional. Our society used to unflinchingly dump people with mental retardation and other developmental disorders into hell-hole institutions, too, and that was equally very, very wrong.
You may not have been deemed “properly socialized”. I recall hearing a counselor tell my father that she was concerned about my stability. (In my case, I believe it was otherwise known as being an immature and egotistical hormonal teenager.) Neither of us were a threat to ourselves or others, though.
obladioblada on December 16, 2012 at 1:17 PM
I’m not really old enough either, but I have Google, and other informed commenters on this blog. See below.
NoLeftTurn on December 16, 2012 at 1:18 PM
It’s also a matter of due process. We don’t live in the fifties, where a person could be locked up forever simply with a doctors order..
Even the mentally unstable have rights.
People have to commit a crime, manifest violent behavior, etc. And even then no one is locked up forever because they brandished a knife. Then the unthinkable occurs.
RINOs are people too on December 16, 2012 at 1:20 PM
No, money is not the problem.
Read this from commenter JellyToast.
Quote:
“When I was a caseworker committing someone was considered a failure. Especially if it was done repeatedly. We have emptied the mental health hospitals and put people who need the safety of a hospital (for their safety and our safety) we have emptied these hospitals and placed them in the communities. It is called normalization. It is liberal feel good therapy.”
Don’t blame conservatives for your own mistakes.
Gelsomina on December 16, 2012 at 1:22 PM
I accept your apology and admission that I was right yet again.
lester on December 16, 2012 at 1:26 PM
Comment pages: 1 2 Next »