When the System Fails
I'm sure by now that most of you have heard the story about the mother in S.F. who threw her kids into The Bay...
The more I hear about this the more I am saddened and angry. The woman was schizophrenic. She was homeless. And the Powers That Be let her keep her children.
If anything, the children should have been in some sort of alternative care, with other relatives or with a foster family.
She was on medication, but, apparently stopped taking it. I've known many schizophrenics over the years, and have found that many will stop their medication once they start to feel a bit better or when some other demon starts to plague them.
I cannot believe that the wonderful people of the shelters and The System could see a homeless schizophrenic woman with three children and just allow her to go on--to pay no heed or mind to what was going on with her, and not even try to help. There also seems to be some indication that she wanted to put them in alternative care, but was told it wasn't possible. Why wasn't it possible? No money in the programs? or just some bizaare mode of thought that believes a mother should never be separated from her children?
I think this hits me hard because my own mother suffered from psychotic breaks and paranoia. Growing up with a parent with an unacknowledged, untreated mental illness is devastating. Now, I see the effects of this on my niece and nephew. My nephew has grown up to be a right little drug addict and theif--stealing from his own sister and having his mother pump my father for money so he can get his drugs (they tell Dad it's for "methadone," yeah, right...) I see my niece, who, if it was acknowledged that she is mentally retarded rather than "dyslexic," would have had access to more appropriate care and would not be in the barely-functioning condition she is in today. Their suffering is the result of my sister's on-going battles with food and with other mental illnesses that, just like our Mother's, have gone untreated. She's now on prozac, but the damage--horrid damage--has already been done.
As I sit here, I think about the stigma of mental illness. If you say that you have this or that condition, if you acknowledge it, you risk stigmatization. I remember when I started my first round of therapy over 20 years ago, my mother screaming at me how I was going to ruin my life and my opportunities to get a job. Literally screaming.
In some way, my sense is that, today, there is no huge stigma around mental illness--not like there may have been in earlier days of the 20th century. Yet there is still benign neglect and an over-simplified understanding of the devastating effects of conditions like schizophrenia. I know there is the philosophy that if we just throw the right pill at it, everything will be fine. But it won't. For alot of folks, mental illness makes them want to talk--or sometimes makes them far too quiet, as is being said of the S.F. mom--and their needs require tending. Sometimes it's a matter of needing to tell someone the pills don't work and that another one needs to be tried. The pills really aren't magic, and medicine is an inexact science that offers no guarantees.
So, I remain angry--at a system that showed some kind of ariy-fairy neglect of a young woman in crisis. I want to be angry at her, and lot of the time I am, but the more I hear, the more I know that the deaths of those children were part of a larger problem--one that never thought an untreated, homeless schizophrenic mother might need a little help with the burden of three children. That, in itself, is criminal.
The more I hear about this the more I am saddened and angry. The woman was schizophrenic. She was homeless. And the Powers That Be let her keep her children.
If anything, the children should have been in some sort of alternative care, with other relatives or with a foster family.
She was on medication, but, apparently stopped taking it. I've known many schizophrenics over the years, and have found that many will stop their medication once they start to feel a bit better or when some other demon starts to plague them.
I cannot believe that the wonderful people of the shelters and The System could see a homeless schizophrenic woman with three children and just allow her to go on--to pay no heed or mind to what was going on with her, and not even try to help. There also seems to be some indication that she wanted to put them in alternative care, but was told it wasn't possible. Why wasn't it possible? No money in the programs? or just some bizaare mode of thought that believes a mother should never be separated from her children?
I think this hits me hard because my own mother suffered from psychotic breaks and paranoia. Growing up with a parent with an unacknowledged, untreated mental illness is devastating. Now, I see the effects of this on my niece and nephew. My nephew has grown up to be a right little drug addict and theif--stealing from his own sister and having his mother pump my father for money so he can get his drugs (they tell Dad it's for "methadone," yeah, right...) I see my niece, who, if it was acknowledged that she is mentally retarded rather than "dyslexic," would have had access to more appropriate care and would not be in the barely-functioning condition she is in today. Their suffering is the result of my sister's on-going battles with food and with other mental illnesses that, just like our Mother's, have gone untreated. She's now on prozac, but the damage--horrid damage--has already been done.
As I sit here, I think about the stigma of mental illness. If you say that you have this or that condition, if you acknowledge it, you risk stigmatization. I remember when I started my first round of therapy over 20 years ago, my mother screaming at me how I was going to ruin my life and my opportunities to get a job. Literally screaming.
In some way, my sense is that, today, there is no huge stigma around mental illness--not like there may have been in earlier days of the 20th century. Yet there is still benign neglect and an over-simplified understanding of the devastating effects of conditions like schizophrenia. I know there is the philosophy that if we just throw the right pill at it, everything will be fine. But it won't. For alot of folks, mental illness makes them want to talk--or sometimes makes them far too quiet, as is being said of the S.F. mom--and their needs require tending. Sometimes it's a matter of needing to tell someone the pills don't work and that another one needs to be tried. The pills really aren't magic, and medicine is an inexact science that offers no guarantees.
So, I remain angry--at a system that showed some kind of ariy-fairy neglect of a young woman in crisis. I want to be angry at her, and lot of the time I am, but the more I hear, the more I know that the deaths of those children were part of a larger problem--one that never thought an untreated, homeless schizophrenic mother might need a little help with the burden of three children. That, in itself, is criminal.
posted by Tish Grier at 6:15 PM
10 Comments:
Mi inglés da justito para entender el título de tu Blog: "Amor y esperanza y sexo y sueños" ¡Buenos ingredientes para la vida!
Felicidades y un saludo desde Madrid, España.
Hannah
Shalom Tish,
At times I think we're like Lucy and Ethel on that candy production line. We keep trying to take care of what is in front of us, but the conveyor is speeding up.
The problem is not boxing the candy, the problem is slowing the conveyor.
B'shalom,
Jeff
Hey Tish - I wrote something on that yesterday. But I didn't get into my views on it because I think that was a rant best saved for another day on my blog.
I do believe that there is a mental illness situation in this country, and that post partum dymentia is included in this illness - and that it is a valid disease; but with the increase of this type of violence as of late, I often ponder how many of these women are truly ill in these cases - and how many are using it as an excuse?
There is mental illness rampant in my husbands family; ranging from manic depression to schizophrenia to OCD. No one killed their children. Poor parenting - yes. Drug abuse - yes. Emotional/psychological abuse - yes. Murder - No. Doesn't mean it couldn't have happened....but it didn't.
I don't know. I haven't paid much attention to this story because it made me too ill to listen. But I can tell you that I have definite views and opinions on women that do this to their children, and it's not a blanket one; but I'm not up for the challenge of writing it at the moment.
If she was homeless, I wonder if she could even afford to buy her meds ....
The first time I worked up the courage to ask my doctor for help with my depression, the only question he asked me was if I was a danger to hurt my children. (He never asked if I might hurt myself.) I said no. He told me to just get over it, then. That's the kind of "help" a lot of people receive.
Nothing excuses murder, granted. But this country is filled with people crying for help and being denied.
Hi Everybody..
Terry makes a great point--I wonder if, since she was homeless, she was even able to get meds if she wanted them.
That's part of the crime of our healthcare system. In a country where we've got so much of everything, it's only available to those who can afford it. It's meagerly parsed to to everyone else (I know about this from my own Mass Health experiences).
and as Jeff wonderfully metaphorically puts it, things go too fast anymore. We are often buried under a mountain of information, a mountain of experiences. It can get to be too much for anyone.
after the blog conferences I've been going to, I'm beginning to wonder if all these Wonderful Machines aren't dehumanizing us in some way. And that the ones who will suffer the most are always the ones that are the most defenseless.
If there was ever the case for an insanity defense in a trial, this case is it.
T.
Even if she could have gotten the meds, as you and Terry mentioned might have been an issue, part of the disease is believing everyone else is the one with the problem, so she may have refused to take them, believing herself to be fine.
Add the stress of homelessness to a mental disorder of that severity, and it's no wonder what happened did happen.
I'm always amazed when the people who should know better let situations like this slip through the cracks. It's one thing if it's just one adult responsible for themselves, but someone responsible for children...
Sometimes this is a sad, sad world.
Having a personal connection to Schizophrenia, there is alot about this news coverage that bothers me, mostly the brushing off of her problems as "Oh... she was hearing voices". It is so much more complicated than that!
There are just way too many factors for people to be generalizing this! My husband, C, has multiple personalities and schizophrenia (most people don't realize there is a difference), and I've seen how hard it can be to decide between staying on meds and functioning as a working member of society, but being a walking vegetable without natural highs or lows, and choosing to stay off meds, while risking not being able to hold down a job and having to constantly fight the invasive voices. Plus for C, there's the added problem of distinguishing between the other personalities' voices and the schizophrenic voices.
C is currently off his meds, and doing very well. Sometimes he needs grounding, and that's my job, but he has never acted on his violent impulses towards others, and he is not a threat to me. But we've decided not to have children as a responsible thing to do. How do you explain to a child that their dad can't play with them, because their dad is no longer their dad, but another personality that doesn't have children.
This is kind of rambling, but it really has been bothering me that society is perfectly willing to "diagnose" someone as "A Schizophrenic" and that they automatically assume they know what goes along with that. And I'm sad to say that stigmatization of the mentally ill is still very VERY rampant.
K & M....
I haven't read any of the follow-up stories, but I remain baffled how The System glossed over all the stressors in this woman's life and did nothing. Homelessness is bad enough. Mental Illness is bad enough. For some people, more than one child (correction: any children) is a beyond-coping stressful situation. How could they just say "oh, she's just homeless with three kids and schizophrenic...she'll be fine..." and not just not do anything, but refuse her services!
and M, you're very right about the difference between MPD and Schizophrenia. The roots (when the roots can be found) are very different for each disorder. I think it's pop culture that still wants to lump them together and give a simplified answer for the conditions.
But nothing with mental illness is simple. Even what appears to be "simply depression" isn't all that simple.
I'm glad C is doing well. I'm also glad that the two of you made the conscious choice not to have children. That's a tough thing, but you've weighed the consequences. One of the reasons I chose not to have children was the mental and learning disabilities in my family--along with my thyroid condition which, if undertreated, could result in severe mental retardation for any children I could have. In a culture that, for some reason, at this point is history is choosing to overly-idolize motherhood (Britney Spears, women who have given birth to 16 children and to 7 at one time), bucking the trend and making the correct decision for oneself can be very tough.
The child welfare system is broken. Not a priority in terms of federal funding.
At least that's my impression from 23 years as an elementary school counselor. Protective services social workers tend to be low paid and inexperienced because of the high turnover. Older children are hard to adopt. They get shuttled around from one foster care situation to another - I don't know why foster care's so unstable, but somehow suspect money's involved because I've learned to suspect this in pretty much all cases of gross negligence and injustice in this country.
Our national leadership and the corporations that own them have their priorities...
Paul...very true. We live in a capitalist society that is *supposed* to be balanced by caring for its citizens--which is an oxymoronic concept. Capitalism and the needs of the Citizenry are always at odds.
What I think ends up bothering politicians is that *so many* are often in need. Many of Them do not come from Hard Circumstances and can't comprehend what might happen to get people there. But more than that is the politicians inability to acknowledge when as system is completely broken. The healthcare situation here in Massachusetts is part of that. Employers cannot afford to give benefits in many instances, and when they can, employees sometimes cannot pay their share to get adequate coverage for themselves and their families...so MassHealth is overburdened. Mitt Romney's answer is to implement cuts because of assumed fraud. He doesn't understand that many of the people of his State, who do not live in the Metro Boston area, do not have the ability to get *any* coverage, let alone the cadillac coverage a guy like he can get. Why don't they have the ability? The only way I can put it is, as a friend of mine so aptly said about Western Massachusetts, "there are alot of jobs here, but few career opportunities." You can work and live on $10 an hour, but you won't get health benefits and a job paying that little certainly ain't a career.
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