Feed Your Head: Reboot The System

Feed Your Head: Reboot The System: First, while legitimately making one, the Tea Partiers and the Wall Street protesters are missing the point!! It appears as if both sides ar...

Why are the chronically mentally ill winding up in jails/prisons?

Because they have no where else to go......

This epiphany came to me while I was driving home from work one day, thinking about S (who is a patient of mine).  S had a particularly rough day that day.  He had been refusing his medication for a few days, and on that particular day, had to be emergency medicated.   As I assessed and analyzed every decision I made that day, a thought screamed out through all clutter and chaos "You are the new mental hospital.  He has no place else to go."  With that thought came a wave of nausea that rolled over me, nearly knocking me unconscious.  It's true....he has no place else to go......the mentally ill have no place else to go now.  State hospital budgets have taken huge cuts over the past 5 years resulting in the loss of hundreds of hospital beds for people like S.  Their families are burned out, in many cases filing for protective orders resulting in the patient having to leave his home.  He is homeless and mentally ill, no family connection, no social connection, no way of obtaining food or shelter, and no access to healthcare, including mental health care.  There is no where else for them to go........
Update on S-he was transferred to a psychiatric hospital yesterday :)

Why are the chronically mentally ill winding up in jails/prisons?

The 21st century has brought about rapid advances in healthcare, technology, the discovery of various forms of alternative energy, and a million other things but one thing that has not advanced  is the mental health care provided for that 10% of our population, the severely and persistently mentally ill.

Don't get me wrong, the rest of us could also benefit from better mental health care.  However for the purposes of this blog, my focus is on that 10% that survive the atrocities that societies around the world inflict upon them everyday.  These survivors are the people I see 5 out of 7 days of the week, and I love each and every one of them.  This is why I must tell their story.....

   

NOTHING FROM NOTHING / BILLY PRESTON

Abnormali-T

I have wanted to start a blog for about the last six months and finally took the step. Sitting here thinking about what to call my blog forced me into a mini-soul searching session. I wanted the blog to reflect me, so I had to figure out me and put it into 10 characters or less. "What makes me, me?" was one of the questions I asked myself and the answer was "what I know." O.K. "What do I know?" At first I came back with the usual stuff-woman, wife, mother, sister, friend, etc then it hit me-I know abnormal. I have spent the last 20 years studying it. I have observed the most abnormal behaviors in my career as a forensic mental health professional, some I am able to explain, others I am unable to explain. Some abnormal I want to explain, others I don't want to explain. Nonetheless, it is what I know, thus it is a big part of what makes me, me. "Abnormal" is less than 10 characters. "Abnormality" is less than 10 characters. "T" is what my niece began calling me when she was 2 years old because she was unable to say "Teresa". "T" is what the people that love me the most call me. "Abnormali-T"-catchy.........