Today is Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day~ How Aware Are You?

Mental illness in children can and does occur. No I am not a scientist. I am not a degree qualified professional. I am not a social worker or a juvenile justice worker.I am simply a single parent of three children, two with Serious Mental Illness, **(SMI). It has been a long journey in raising my children while trying to find a qualified professional who cared enough to diagnose my child. In Northwestern Minnesota, that has not been an easy task. In any part of Minnesota – it has not been easy for that matter. Nor in Fargo or Grand Forks, North Dakota which are close enough to serve my children.

I do not blame mental illness for a child’s behaviors but it sure has a part in it. I do not take this mental illness as a crutch to say that I have no role in this. I do not use mental illness in my children to make my life easier. I don’t medicate my children so they are in line with my every demand and parental whim. I am not ignorant. I am not a push over. I am not sitting by idly doing nothing to help my children.

I know mental illness exists in children because I have lived that life for 15 years now. I have seen history repeat itself in a child being identical to another family member with the same illness but no contact with them. How does that happen? I have watched my children suffer through being teased and bullied in the public education system. It was not just the other children but teachers, staff, and administrators. I have seen a child try to kill herself to get over the pain of living with a mental illness that no one wants to diagnose or consider or treat. I have seen children self medicate with drugs and alcohol. I have seen the pain in the eyes of my children. I have endured stigma, stereotypes, and being treated like a parent on crack who doesn’t care about her children. I have had police officers lecture me on “how to be a real parent” and I have had social workers telling me it’s ok to give my child medications that can cause her to spin out of control because, who am I to say she cannot have them? I am just a silly parent.

I know that mental illness in children exists because I have lived that life. I have been the target of abuse when medications don’t work, or when there are no medications to control the behaviors. I have been accused of neglect when hypersexuality is a symptom that is part of an illness but the professionals – the police, the social workers, the judges, and the guardian ad litums don’t know this and simply don’t care. They were only educated on abuse and that is what this is. How can I be so stupid to not listen to them? Because I have seen this before. I have read about it. I have studied it. But how do you fight ignorance? How do you as a parent, a poor parent at that, get these “professionals” to know, to see, and to understand your lived experience? Unless you can afford an attorney of your own, you can’t fight it.

I know very well that medications are used but that doesn’t mean life is easier or that my job as a parent stops. I have to watch for reactions. Is the medication working? Is it causing more symptoms? Is she stabilizing? Is he able to leave his room? Did the anxiety quiet down for them? Did the doctor give the right dose? What blood tests shall we need to do? What is this med? What does it do?

Medications are required to help in the recovery from serious mental illness like bipolar. My children and their paternal family line is full of genes that indicate bipolar disorder, or manic-depressive illness. I cannot cure a mental illness with behavior modification alone. I cannot cause a mental illness like bipolar either. It is a biological brain illness, like heart disease is an illness of the heart. We don’t ridicule and accuse parents of children taking insulin of being horrible parents because their child cannot break down sugars? But with mental illness, STILL TODAY, we blame countless parents and push them out of the child’s life with this MIS-INFORMATION.

I don’t medicate my children to make my life easier. I medicate them because 1) their professional doctor or psychiatrist said to try this medication, and 2) because I really feel that my child has the right to be treated for an illness that is biological in nature and destroying their lives. Any parent would want to fix what is harming their child. If that means we try medications than we do. For far too long I bought into that argument that only bad parents resorted to drugs. Only lazy parents allowed medication therapy on their children. Even for my depression, I had stopped using medications as I had found a behavior therapy that worked far better for me. I come from a family that has a hard time going to the doctor or taking medications. We don’t like the pill happy society we are.

I struggled with that and I continue to struggle today with the medications. Why can’t science find the right combination? Why can’t science figure it out? Like with AIDS and Cancer research, it takes time to find the right combination and research has to take place and so on. Many parents and people in general are unaware that research has happened for 20 years into children and serious mental illness. There is much that we know already. The problem lies in getting accurate information to the professionals and the public in general.

Unless mental illness happens to you or a close family member, chances are that one has little knowledge in this area. We don’t see large PSA campaigns on the signs of mental illness. We don’t see huge commercials advertising the latest campaign to fight stigma. The big 3 national television stations don’t regularly air information about the serious mental illnesses. We see a lot on breast cancer, AIDS, 3rd world countries and so forth. But no one is talking about mental illness on television. Some t.v. shows are doing bits on it. Some actors and actresses are getting involved in it. But still – in the year 2011 – the public is sadly undereducated about mental illness.

Today I wonder if I made the right choice in being so public about the situations that my family has endured over mental illness. Stereotypes and stigma are the norm in the community that I have called home for nearly four years. Education in the community is non-existent but there is a ray of hope. The professionals, from the local police to the county social workers are starting to see more educational opportunities on this. The professionals are learning more of the up-to-date information. Sadly, I’m caught up in the ignorance of those very professionals. It hurts to be a parent who cares so deeply for your child, only to be kept away with lies and bullying tactics by the professionals.

I live this reality every day, that two of my three children live with a mental illness. Our family has had events and situations that have been hard on all of us, traumatic at times. We have been bullied, silenced, ignored, and even not protected by the local police because we have mental illness in our home. I could understand if this was 1811, but it is 2011. When will society catch up with the research and the silence?

Only when more families and people are public about not only their illnesses and trials and tribulations, but also about their recoveries and their living a fairly normal and stable life, WITH A MENTAL ILLNESS. All too often the negative is portrayed in the media, in local news stories, and in television. We only see the Arizona shootings of mental illness, or the person in our community who has sexually assaulted someone, or the local listings of who got a DWI. (Chemical dependency is also a mental illness, addictions).

We don’t see that the budget cuts at the state level to human services is harming those who do desperately need these services. We don’t see the parents and family members crying when their loved one was shot by a police officer, because he was suicidal and decided to die by cop. We don’t see the families who have fought long and hard for services only to be bullied by social services who take away children needlessly when they claim to want to work with families.

We don’t see the programs that have helped hundreds in our communities. We don’t see the clinics and doctors who help this population. We don’t see the workshops held to educate parents and families. We don’t see the advocate community who has made it possible with local community services to keep our loved ones in our communities. (My daughter is in a care facility four hours away.) We don’t see the hundreds of people with the right medications living under our noses; because to tell you about their illness means that you will look at them differently. You will judge them. You will be scared of them. You will ostracize them.  All you know about mental illness, unless it touches your life in some way, is what the media portrays. That all people with a mental illness are crazy and violent and only want to harm you.

That is the furthest thing from the truth.

So today, in light of it being National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day, please find some time to learn about mental illness in children. Some great websites are :

www.nami.org

www.nami-mn.org

www.dbsa.org

www.bpkids.org

You will also be able to find many of these great sites on Facebook if you search for them along with countless other personal sites dedicated to putting awareness out there of mental illness.

Mental health is something we are all striving for. Please educate yourself today before you continue judging a family facing mental illness. You will be amazed that the many parents you blew off as lazy or ignorant or they don’t care what their child does, are really facing a mental illness. There is one thing that all of these parents and families have in common….. they are not lazy and they go above and beyond everyday.

My favorite saying is, “they can cut me down and make fun of my parenting, but God trusted me with a high-needs child so He must think I can handle this. Surely those “normal” parents could not handle an afternoon in my parenting shoes”!

When you put your heart and soul into your child, there has to be something positively miraculous happening. Educate yourself before you assume a person is evil or doesn’t care. Trust me – they do.

Treatment Advocacy Center, Advocacy that Matters

(Opinion Piece) By Amy Hellman

I have studied mental illness, the system of care for mental illness, and its effects on all of us for a good 15 years or more. I have learned a lot. Today I was reading up on the Treatment Advocacy Center. I like what they have to say and I like their unique view and the stand they are taking. I applaud this organization and I really hope that one day, my parent & family resource centers are like they are. Informative. Educated. On the mark using science and research.  An excellent advocacy group.

So what do they do? I will quote from their “About the Treatment Advocacy Center” information sheet that was mailed to me when I inquired about more information. I was looking to see what the “other advocacy” groups out there were doing. I wanted to know, if I am trying to reinvent the wheel or if I could partner with someone already up and running.  Anyhow, here is what I learned about this group.

The Mission of the Treatment Advocacy Center: (All in italics) Copied in full.

“The Treatment Advocacy Center is a national non-profit organization dedicated to eliminating barriers to the timely and effective treatment of severe mental illness. TAC promotes laws, policies, and practices for the delivery of psychiatric care and supports the development of innovative treatments for and research into the causes of severe and persistent psychiatric illnesses, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder”.

“Current federal and state policies hinder treatment for psychiatrically ill individuals who are most at risk for homelessness, arrest, or suicide. As a result, 40 percent of the 4.5 million individuals with schizophrenia and manic-depressive illness (bipolar disorder), an estimated 1.8 million people, are not being treated for their illness at any given time”.

“The primary reasons for lack of treatment are threefold:

• Schizophrenia and manic-depressive illness can severely impair an individuals self-awareness, causing many to believe they are healthy and not in need of medical care. Their brain disease has impaired their brain function, and since they do not think thy are sick, many of them do not actively seek treatment and often refuse it.
• Civil rights advocates have changed state laws and practices to such an extent that it is now virtually impossible to treat individuals unless they first commit a violent act.
• Public psychiatric services have deteriorated significantly in recent years with the closure of state psychiatric hospitals. Whiles these much needed hospital beds have been eliminated there has been no increase in outpatient services. In addition, the failure of for-profit managed care companies to provide services to these individuals who need them most has only further exacerbated the situation”.

Treatment Advocacy Center Activities

“The Treatment Advocacy Center is working on the national, state, and local levels to educate civic, legal, criminal justice, and legislative communities on the benefits of assisted treatment in an effort to decrease homelessess, jailings, suicide, violence, and other devastating consequences cause by lack of treatment”.

The main activities of TAC include:

• educating policymakers and judges about the true nature of severe brain disorders, advanced treatments available for those illnesses, and the necessity of community ordered treatment in some cases;
• assisting individuals in states working to promote laws that enable individuals with the most severe brain disorders to receive assisted treatment”.

In my opinion this is an excellent organization with a great cause. I fully support it. I do have experience in the system and I have seen more than one person resisting help, treatment, and assistance in getting their illness under control. It is heart-breaking – as a parent – to watch your child spiral out of control and knowing that help is not there. Knowing that you have made many attempts, phone calls, and begged or pleaded to get your child help. Too often I have seen parents blown off, accused of being lazy, and so forth in their attempts to get help for their children, as children and as adults.

I know of too many personal stories of the same nature. Or the suicides that could have been prevented if only that person had the help they needed when they needed it.

Yes there is the flip side of this coin, where we worry about “committing” people against their will and nothing is wrong with them. However, this is one cause where I know that a person, with little knowledge of psychiatric illness but the good common sense of a human being, can see and acknowledge that someone is in psychiatric trouble and needs help. This can be a parent, family member, spouse, friend, school advisor or teacher, and anyone who has general contact with a person, usually on a daily basis. We can see the differences, the changes, and we worry. But we have to stop worrying privately and stop that nonsense that “it’s not our problem”, because it is the “problem” of all of us.

As a parent living with children who have a mental illness, it is a much-needed advocacy issue and I am happy that this group is taking a stand. This is not to put people away needlessly. This is not to punish anyone. This is to give the people we know and love a chance at a life filled with a quality that is good, that offers them a real chance in this life, and that allows that person to thrive.

Really, is it better to watch the mentally ill suffer in jails? Is it better to watch someone slowly fall apart before your eyes? Is it better to watch them die by way of a police officer? (Which in turn, has to hurt the officer, who didn’t know what was going to happen, and had to put their safety first). Do we wait for them to harm themselves or another innocent person?

Today there are many resources to get help and treatment. We know that treatment works. We know that medications do work. We know that our loved ones can have a wonderful quality of life, even when living with a mental illness. We know that much like diabetes, these disorders and diseases can be treated. I always like to say we don’t lock people up in jail for having cancer, why do we do it to the mentally ill? Having a policy in place to make sure that those who need help are getting it - is very important. Just like cutting the budgets with mental health care. Why do we do this when we know it is a “safety net” not only for the person suffering but also for our society?

Learn more about this great organization at their website, www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org . I think you will be very impressed and will find a wealth of information to share with the policymakers in your local area and at the state level. We have the education; now should we not use it to better the lives of countless individuals?

My hat is off to those at the Treatment Advocacy Center! Keep up the good work and continue in your efforts to educate policymakers while making a difference in the many lives that are touched by mental illness.