Description
Discussion Board #2 Instructions
I am attaching the Discussion Board instructions, rubric, and book to be used.
Please review these videos and think about the health policy issues, and the psychiatric, ethical, and legal implications of this story. Consider each stakeholders viewpoint; from patient to parent/family, mental health provider, police officer, and general population at large. Think about the impact of the behaviors of the different stakeholders in this situation, how could this be different?
Pete Earley was formerly a journalist at the Washington Post. Kevin Earley, his son, was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. Pete and Kevin have opened the eyes of people all across the country to the needs of the mental health community and the problems in the mental health system in America.
PLEASE CREATE SUBTOPICS TO FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS AND RUBRIC AND WRITE SOMETHING UNDER EACH SUBTOPIC AND STAKEHOLDER MENTIONED IN THE INSTRUCTOINS TO MAKE IT EASY ON THE GRADER TO GIVE US FULL MARKS.
For example,
Health policy issues
Psychiatric implications
Ethical implications
Legal implications
Perspectives
Patient
Parent/Family
Mental Health Provider
Police Officer
General Population
Copy and paste link into your browser if they don’t open
https://youtu.be/Dom_pBkgCL4 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
Minimize Video
https://youtu.be/yxYmTm7pQuw (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
Your initial post will be due on Friday at 11:59 pm. Then on Sunday, by 11:59 pm you are to respond to 2 of your peers. Your response should include your thoughts on their posts that furthers the conversation. This should be more than “good job” and reiterating your peers’ thoughts. (A general guideline for more substantive posts is at least 250 words)
There are no minimum number of references to be use for this discussion board, however it is expected that there will be references used. Make sure that you accurately cite your references in your initial post and response posts. REFERENCES SHOULD NOT BE OLDER THAN FIVE YEARS. I WILL PROVIDE ORIGINAL POSTS FROM OTHER STUDENTS TO WRITE 2 REPLIES IN A SEPARATE QUESTION.
Recommended for further reading: Pete Earley’s book: ” Crazy: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness.” ISBN-10 : 042521389 ISBN-13 : 978-0425213896
Discussion Board Rubric SP22
Criteria
Ratings
Pts
Timeliness
view longer description
5 pts
Initial posting and response on time.
3 pts
Initial posting is on time, response is late
1 pts
Initial posting is late and response is late
0 pts
No Marks
/ 5 pts
Initial Posting
view longer description
25 pts
Posts well developed statement that fully addresses and develops all aspects of the task
15.79 pts
Posts well developed statement that addresses most aspects of the task; lacks full development of ideas.
7.89 pts
Posts adequate statement with superficial thought and preparation; doesn’t address all aspects of the task.
0 pts
No Marks
/ 25 pts
Response Posting
view longer description
5 pts
Response to 2 peers are posted on time
3 pts
Responds to one post in timely manner, missing one response post
1 pts
2 response posts are completed but late
0 pts
No Marks
/ 5 pts
Content Contribution
view longer description
25 pts
Demonstrates analysis of others’ post; extends meaningful discussion by building on previous posts. All required responses. (At least 250 words)
15 pts
Elaborates on two response posts that are partially developed and needs further expansion OR one response post that extends meaningful discussion by building on previous posts and one that is missing full development
13 pts
Elaborates on only one response post that extends meaningful discussion by building on previous posts, no second response post
10 pts
Elaborates on one response posts that is partially developed and needs further expansion and missing one response post
0 pts
No response posts
/ 25 pts
References & Support
view longer description
20 pts
Uses references to literature and readings, and personal experience to support comments.
12 pts
Incorporates some references from literature and personal experience.
6 pts
Uses personal experience, but no references to readings or research
0 pts
No Marks
/ 20 pts
Clarity & Mechanics
view longer description
20 pts
Contributes to discussion with clear, concise comments formatted in an easy to read style that is free of grammatical or spelling errors.
12 pts
Contributes valuable information to discussion with minor clarity or mechanics errors.
6 pts
Communicates in courteous and helpful manner with some errors in clarity or mechanics.
0 pts
No Marks
/ 20 pts
Total Points: 0
Unformatted Attachment Preview
Discussion Board #2 Instructions
Please review these videos and think about the health policy issues, and the psychiatric,
ethical, and legal implications of this story. Consider each stakeholders viewpoint; from
patient to parent/family, mental health provider, police officer, and general population at
large. Think about the impact of the behaviors of the different stakeholders in this
situation, how could this be different?
Pete Earley was formerly a journalist at the Washington Post. Kevin Earley, his son, was
diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. Pete and Kevin have opened the eyes of people all across
the country to the needs of the mental health community and the problems in the mental
health system in America.
Copy and paste link into your browser if they don’t open
https://youtu.be/Dom_pBkgCL4 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
Minimize Video
https://youtu.be/yxYmTm7pQuw (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
Your initial post will be due on Friday at 11:59 pm. Then on Sunday, by 11:59 pm you are
to respond to 2 of your peers. Your response should include your thoughts on their posts
that furthers the conversation. This should be more than “good job” and reiterating your
peers’ thoughts. (A general guideline for more substantive posts is at least 250 words)
There are no minimum number of references to be use for this discussion board, however it
is expected that there will be references used. Make sure that you accurately cite your
references in your initial post and response posts.
Recommended for further reading: Pete Earley’s book: ” Crazy: A Father’s Search
Through America’s Mental Health Madness.” ISBN-10 : 042521389 ISBN-13 : 9780425213896
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
PREFACE
PART ONE – THE NINTH FLOOR
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
PART TWO – SMOKE IN THE AIR
Mike’s Story: 3
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
PART THREE – “A DAMN CRUEL DISEASE”
Mike’s Story: 4
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
PART FOUR – SEARCHING FOR A SAFE PLACE
Mike’s Story: 5
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
PART FIVE – DÉJÀ VU
Chapter 34
Chapter 35. Solutions
Mike’s Story: 6
Acknowledgements
HELPFUL RESOURCES
HELPFUL BOOKS
“A book as riveting to read as it is important it be read. Pete Earley
uses his son’s experience to take readers on a harrowing personal
journey, exposing how public policies and laws make it difficult for
relatives to help loved ones with mental illnesses such as
schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and how today’s failed system
often relegates people overcome by these no-fault conditions to jails
and prisons, instead of to treatment. This book is two stories—
Earley’s frustrating personal experiences trying to help a son stricken
by a severe mental illness, and his remarkable journalistic
investigations into the dreaded ‘ninth floor’ psychiatric cell-block at
the Miami-Dade County jail. Many of the tragic situations he
uncovers were preventable. Maybe, with this book, they can be.”
—Senator Pete V. Domenici (R-NM) and Nancy Domenici
“Crazy is a godsend. It will open the minds of many who make
choices for the mentally ill. Countless numbers of us owe Pete
Earley and his son Mike a great debt.”—Patty Duke
“Out of the depths of a father’s pain comes a magnificent gift to
those of us who love someone who has a mental illness. Propelled
by his personal search for healing for his son’s bipolar disorder,
former Washington Post reporter Pete Earley has used his
considerable skills to meticulously research why the mental health
system is so profoundly broken. In Crazy, Earley takes us on his
compelling journey through psychiatric wards, jails, and urban
streets in search of his son’s sanity. In the process, this courageous
journalist gives us a blueprint for saving minds, healing spirits, and
making the mental health system accountable to those it purports to
help.”
—Bebe Moore Campbell
“A combination of old-fashioned muckraking and genuine empathy
… an important manifesto.”—The Washington Post Book World
“Extraordinary.”—National Post (Canada)
“A case for major policy reform … a harrowing account of a father
trying to obtain treatment for his adult son.”—San Antonio Express
News
“Chilling.” —The Washington Post
BOOKS BY PETE EARLEY
Non fiction
Family of Spies
Prophet of Death
The Hot House
Circumstantial Evidence
Confessions of a Spy
Super Casino
WITSEC
Fiction
The Big Secret
Lethal Secrets
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3,
Canada
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin
Books Ltd.)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)
Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110
017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Mairangi Bay, Auckland 1311, New Zealand
(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg
2196,
South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet
addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any
responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher
does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or thirdparty websites and their contents.
Copyright © 2006 by Pete Earley.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any
printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage
piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized
editions. The name BERKLEY and the BERKLEY design are trademarks belonging to
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Earley, Pete.
Crazy : a father’s search through America’s mental health madness Pete Earley.
>p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-440-61239-8
1. Mentally ill—Biography. 2. Mental illness—Case studies. 3. Mentally ill—
Family relationships. 4. Mental illness. 5. Parent and child. I. Title.
RC 463.E
362.1’092—dc22
[B]
Most Berkley Books are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales
promotions, premiums, fund-raising, or educational use. Special books, or book excerpts,
can also be created to fit specific needs.
For details, write to: Special Markets, The Berkley Publishing Group, 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014
http://us.penguingroup.com
This book is dedicated to persons with mental illness and those
who love them. I would like to thank specifically
these individuals who helped my son:
Hossein Bakhtar
Nawathip Boulom
Il Nam Cho
Dr. James F. Dee
Donald Graham
Penny Hinkle
Barbara Hunter
Dr. Don Infeld
Susan Infeld
Andrew Kersey
Patti Luzi
William Luzi
Jay Myerson
Robert Straub
Mike Wallace
I will never forget your kindness.
MAJOR PLAYERS
Mike Earley Author’s son
Alice Ann Collyer Diagnosis: schizophrenia
April Hernandez Diagnosis: schizoaffective
Ted Jackson Diagnosis: bipolar disorder
Judge Steven Leifman Judicial reformer
Tom Mullen Director, treatment program
Dr. Joseph Poitier Miami jail psychiatrist
Judy Robinson Advocate
Deidra Sanbourne Diagnosis: schizoaffective
PREFACE
I had no idea.
I’ve been a journalist for more than thirty years, a reporter for the
Washington Post, the author of several nonfiction books about crime
and punishment and society, some of them award-winning, even
best-selling. I’ve interviewed murderers and spies, judges and
prosecutors, always seeking the truth and attempting to convey it so
that readers can see the people and the events for themselves—can
understand not only what happened, but also why.
But I was always on the outside looking in. I had no idea what it
was like to be on the inside looking out. Until my son, Mike, was
declared mentally ill.
If my son had broken his leg, most doctors would have agreed on
the diagnosis and treatment. “Sir, your son’s leg is broken into two
pieces. The bone needs to be reattached, the wound closed, and the
body allowed to heal.” But that wasn’t what happened with Mike.
One psychiatrist said he had bipolar disorder, another said he
showed early stages of schizophrenia, a third said he had
schizoaffective disorder. They prescribed a dizzying range of
different drugs and different therapies, and even worse, because he
was an adult, I couldn’t simply swoop in and make medical decisions
for him. An array of incompatible laws about patient rights stood in
my way, like a line of trees.
But even that was nothing compared with what happened when
Mike, suffering delusions, committed a crime and was arrested.
Suddenly, the line of trees became a forest. The contradictions, the
disparities, the Catch-22s multiplied, until I began to despair.
“I just feel so damn helpless,” I told my wife, Patti, one night. “I
want to do something, but I don’t know how to help him.”
“Then do what you do best,” she said. “You’re a journalist. You
make your living investigating stories. So investigate this. Pete
Earley, the journalist, can dig out information that Pete Earley, the
father, would never be able to get. If you want to help Mike, and
others like him, then write about what he is going through, and find
out why the mental health system in this country seems to be in such
a mess.”
I hesitated. I didn’t know how Mike would feel about it, and I didn’t
want to risk writing something that might anger the people who’d be
dealing with his case. I was also scared about what I might find. In
the past, it wouldn’t have bothered me if I’d discovered alarming
conditions in the mental health system. Now this disease wore a
recognizable face.
I decided to do some preliminary digging, and the more I dug, the
clearer it became: What was happening to Mike was not an oddity. It
was a tiny piece in a bigger story. A major shift had occurred in our
country. The mentally ill, who used to be treated in state mental
hospitals, were now being arrested. Our nation’s jails and prisons
were our new asylums.
In 1955, some 560,000 Americans were being treated for mental
problems in state hospitals. Between 1955 and 2000, our nation’s
population increased from 166 million to 276 million. If you took the
patient-percapita ratio that existed in 1955 and extrapolated it on the
basis of the new population, you’d expect to find 930,000 patients in
state mental hospitals.
But there are fewer than 55,000 in them today. Where are the
others? Nearly 300,000 are in jails and prisons. Another half million
are on court-ordered probation. The largest public mental health
facility in America is not a hospital. It’s the Los Angeles County jail.
On any given day, it houses 3,000 mentally disturbed inmates.
These statistics gave me an idea, but before I pursued it, I wanted
to talk with Mike.
“I’m thinking about writing a book about the criminalization of the
mentally ill,” I told him.
“Okay,” he replied.
“Mike, I want to make certain you understand what I’m going to do.
I want to write about you and how you got into trouble with the law.”
“Do you think people will want to read that?” He sounded
surprised.
“It would be more than just your story.”
I outlined my plan. I would write about his mental breakdown and
how it had led to his being arrested, but I’d fold his personal story
into a much larger one—an examination of the mental health system
in America today. In order to do this, I’d find a jail in a major city far
away from where Mike had been arrested, and I’d spend time inside
its cell blocks, observing mentally ill prisoners. I’d select individual
inmates to shadow, monitor their criminal cases through the courts,
and follow them into the community. I’d interview correctional
officers, public defenders, prosecutors, judges, mental health care
professionals, and the police. I’d talk to parents, siblings, and
spouses. I’d consult historians about how the mentally ill have been
treated over the decades and centuries, and I’d question the civil
rights lawyers who fought to pass laws to protect them. I’d meet with
legislators and state hospital administrators. But my main focus
would always be on the jail and the prisoners there. I’d use it as a
microcosm. It would serve as my hub, much like the center of an old
western wagon wheel. The inmates whose lives I would chronicle
would be the spokes jutting out from it.
Could I be objective? Probably not. I’m a father first, a journalist
second. But I could be honest and thorough and relentless.
Mike was still taking strong doses of antipsychotic medication
when I first mentioned my idea to him, and I could tell by his reaction
that he was having trouble focusing on what I’d just said.
“You’re more important than any book,” I explained. “I don’t want to
write anything that might harm you or limit your future. I’ll forget
about doing this if you want me to.”
He didn’t seem to understand how a book might hurt him, so I
explained that writing about his illness could stigmatize him. “I’m not
interested in making you a poster child for mental illness.”
He was quiet for several moments, and then said, “If a book will
help other people understand what it’s like to get sick and be
arrested, then do it.”
“Are you sure?”
“If it helps someone else, yes.”
We talked about using his name. To my surprise, he wanted me to
print it. “You’ve got to be honest,” he said. But I was still hesitant. We
compromised by agreeing to use his middle name. It would be a thin
veil.
I was still nervous that Mike might not really understand the impact
of what I was proposing. I couldn’t predict what might happen in the
future—five, ten years from now—after I outed him in this book.
“Dad,” he said, “tell my story.”
“I’ll let you read it. You can go over the parts about you.”
“No! I don’t want to do that,” he replied firmly. “I trust you to tell the
truth.”
This book tells two stories. The first is Mike’s. The second describes
what I learned during a yearlong investigation inside the Miami-Dade
County jail in Miami, Florida, a city that’s home to a larger
percentage of mentally ill residents than any other major
metropolitan area in America. I was given the complete run of the
jail, its inmates and employees, with no restrictions. Although the
portrait that follows was taken from a single jail, it could just as easily
have been a snapshot of any community in America.
For privacy reasons, I have used pseudonyms to identify most of
the inmates. The exceptions are my son and prisoners whose cases
have already been heavily publicized. All the characters in this book
are real, and I have not changed any other facts about them. Their
voices, and those of all the other people in this book—lawyers, lawenforcement officials, doctors, social workers, family—who are
attempting to thread their way through the mental health maze in
America, are reported accurately.
There have been many books by professionals and journalists
writing from the outside looking in. There have been many books by
patients and inmates writing from the inside looking out. This book
attempts to do both.
If you belong to any of the groups mentioned above, I hope the
book provides some extra light and clarity to the situations you face
every day. If you do not, I hope it will inspire you to action, for the
stories told here, in this day and age, are extraordinary, and worthy
of your attention.
If it could happen to my family, it could happen to yours.
Mike’s Story: 1
How would you feel, Dad,” Mike asked, “if someone you loved killed
himself?”
It was not a threat, delivered in anger. Rather, my son’s voice was
tired. I was speeding south along Interstate 95, driving from New
York City to Virginia. We were a couple of miles north of Baltimore.
For the past few hours, I had been begging Mike to take Zyprexa, a
medicine prescribed for mental disorders.
“Pills are poison,” Mike snapped. “Doctors don’t know what they’re
talking about. I just think differently.”
I had first learned that he was slipping earlier that morning.
“Something’s wrong,” his older brother had telephoned from
Manhattan to tell me. Since that call, I’d discovered Mike’s dementia
actually had become obvious several weeks before, when he’d found
a videocassette on the sidewalk while walking to a subway near
Times Square. It was Oliver Stone’s movie Heaven and Earth, a gutwrenching account by a Vietnamese woman about the fighting there
and its aftermath. Mike had watched it three times, and he had
become convinced it contained a secret message aimed at him.
“As soon as you see it, everything will make sense,” he told me.
“You’ll see.”
I pressed harder on the gas pedal and again suggested he take a
Zyprexa tablet.
“Okay,” he finally declared. “I’ll take your damn pill.” But he paused
just before he slipped the tablet into his mouth.
Please, God! I silently prayed. Swallow it!
As I watched, he took a gulp of water from a plastic bottle that I’d
given him, but when he wiped his lips dry with his sleeve, I noticed
his hand drop down next to the car seat, and he shook it.
Was that the pill?
“No one dies unless God wants him dead,” he announced.
“Did Patti’s first husband choose to die?” I asked.
Patti was my wife, his stepmother. Her first husband had died from
cancer, making her a widow with four children. My question annoyed
him. So he ignored me. For several moments, neither of us spoke,
and then, suddenly, his thoughts came in rapid fire, bouncing from
topic to topic without any apparent connection.
God. Capitalism. Satan. Comic books. Sex. Spontaneous laughter.
Mike saw an encrypted message in a bumper sticker on the blue
sedan ahead of us: “Believe in Him!” It was a signal from God, he
told me. They were everywhere. But only he could interpret them.
Just as quickly, Mike began to cry. Tears flowed from his eyes and
he moaned as if he were an injured animal that had been struck by a
car and knocked sprawling into a roadside ditch. The last time I’d
seen him in such agony was when he was five years old and he got
smacked in the head with a stick while playing with friends. A oneinch gash in his scalp had turned his silky blond hair crimson and
sent him screaming to find me.
Now he was twenty-three.
“Why are you crying?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why can’t you tell me?”
“Because you’ll hate me forever.”
Patti had already alerted the emergency room at Inova Fairfax
Hospital, near where we lived. It was where we’d gone when he’d
suffered his first psychotic episode. That was when I first heard the
words bipolar disorder. It was a mood disorder that caused its
victims to switch in seconds from feeling euphoric to feeling suicidal.
Hospital security guards had to wrestle him down the first time we
took him there. But I shoved that memory aside and drove. My
speedometer registered 95 mph. I wanted to stop and use a
bathroom, but I was afraid.
What if Mike took off? He had run from me before when he had
been delusional.
I couldn’t risk it. My needs would have to wait.
Mike began laughing.
“Dog God!” Ha ha ha. “God Dog! Get it?”
Hang on, son! I thought. The doctors will know what to do.
It was 8 P.M. by the time we reached the emergency entrance. An
intake nurse rolled her eyes when Mike tried to convince her that he
was perfectly sane. She snapped a white plastic ID around his wrist
and led us down a hallway into a room, where another nurse soon
appeared and questioned him again. She asked me about Mike’s
psychiatric history. While I gave her the abbreviated version, he sat
unconcerned on an examination table, ignoring our conversation and
glancing through an old copy of the New Yorker.
Mike’s first psychotic breakdown occurred during his senior year at a
university in Brooklyn. I have since learned this is not an uncommon
time for mental illness to strike young men and women, because of
stress. He had been about to graduate and was having a difficult
time finding a job. I had never suspected that he might have a
mental illness. There was no family history of it, at least that I’d been
told of. The first hint that something was wrong came one weekend
during a phone call. We spoke every Sunday, and he mentioned that
he’d taken five homeless men to McDonald’s that morning for
breakfast.
“Why’d you do that?” I asked.
“They were hungry and I wanted to talk to them.”
I didn’t understand, but then fathers often don’t understand why
their sons and daughters do certain things in college.
Later that night, Mike called me again. He wanted to clarify his
story. Now he wasn’t certain if he had actually taken them to
breakfast or if he had just dreamt that he had. He said he was having
difficulty eating. Everything tasted bad. He’d been vomiting a lot. He
started to cry, and I told him that I’d come up to New York in the
morning.
“Everything will be okay,” I assured him.
Before hanging up, he added that he’d gone to a party in the
dormitory the night before, and it occurred to me that he might have
been given or taken some hallucinatory drug. The next morning
while I drove to Brooklyn, Patti telephoned several Manhattan
psychiatrists and found one who was willing to see Mike
immediately. I found my son waiting for me in his room. He didn’t
want to talk to a shrink, but after an hour I persuaded him.
“Let’s hope it’s drugs,” the psychiatrist said after interviewing Mike.
“What!” I replied, clearly shocked.
“It’s better than the alternative,” he explained. “Your son might be
mentally ill.”
Mike and I spent that day talking in his dorm room. I told him that
we’d find a way to make everything okay. We hugged. I drove home
on autopilot. He went to see the psychiatrist two more times, but
then he stopped. There was simply too much schoolwork. Besides,
he said, he felt fine. “I’m not crazy!” he told me. “I just need to eat
better.”
And he had seemed okay when we talked on the following
Sundays. Now, looking back, I should have known better. How could
I have been so stupid? There’d been lots of clues. But I’d wanted to
believe the psychiatrist had overreacted. I’d wanted to believe Mike
was just nervous about graduating. Besides, I had my own daily
problems to juggle. Life had gone on, and the few times that I’d
reminded him of the McDonald’s incident, he complained, “Stop
asking me about that! It was no big deal! Everything is under
control.”
And then his mind broke.
Five months after Mike had taken the homeless men to breakfast,
one of his college friends had driven him home to me.
“He’s not right,” his buddy said.
Mike hadn’t slept for five nights. He’d spent most of his days
wandering aimlessly through Manhattan. He’d walked twenty miles
one day going nowhere. He’d also become fixated on a friend named
Jen, only she didn’t know it. He was convinced they’d soon be
married. He told me his plans shortly after his friend dropped him off.
“I’ve got to save her,” Mike said. “I’ve got to save Jen.”
“From what?”
“Evil.”
Because he hadn’t eaten, we drove to an International House of
Pancakes, his favorite place for morning food. Mike looked
exhausted, but when he talked, he seemed rational about everything
—except for Jen. Whenever I asked about her, he’d become giddy
and tell me how much he was in love and how he and Jen would be
married soon. When we got back home after eating, I persuaded him
to go to bed and left him in his bedroom. I slipped into my study and
called the psychiatrist in Manhattan for advice. Before the doctor
came on the line, I heard the front door open and slam shut. I looked
out the window. Mike was walking away. I hung up the receiver and
ran after him.
“Where are you going?”
“To save Jen. She’s in danger.”
“This is nuts,” I said. “Come home.”
He started walking faster.
“You’re acting weird. Do I have to call the cops?”
Mike shot me a glaring look and started running. I tried to keep up,
but couldn’t. I turned back toward the house, jumped into my car,
and began searching for him. An hour later, he came home. He
couldn’t find Jen, he said.
“We need to go to the hospital,” I told him. “You need to see a
doctor.”
“I’m not going to see a doctor.”
“Jen wants you to go,” I tried.
“She’s there?” he asked, his face suddenly brightening.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Hurry!” he demanded. “Take me.”
Patti called the hospital while Mike and I were en route. Two
security guards met us at the door. A doctor gave him an injection of
Haldol, a powerful antipsychotic. Incredibly, within an hour, he was
calm.
“I’m sorry,” he said. At that point, Mike agreed to enter Dominion
Hospital, a private mental institution. He recognized something was
wrong. Four days later, his psychiatrist told us that our insurance
company was pressuring him to discharge Mike. Although confused,
Mike seemed to be thinking rationally. We brought him home. Two
days after that, he got up early before everyone, slipped outside, and
decided to go for a drive. About a mile from the house, he let go of
the steering wheel and shut his eyes. He told me later that he’d not
been sure if he was awake or dreaming. He figured the quickest way
to find out was to turn loose the wheel.
The car crashed into a parked sedan. Hearing the noise, its
owners called the police. A sympathetic officer telephoned us.
“Your son is crazy,” he simply said.
I’ll never forget those words.
Crazy.
But Mike wasn’t arrested.
Instead, I was allowed to take him back to Dominion. This time
around, our insurance company let him stay an entire week. When
he was discharged, I asked him what he’d remembered about the
past several days.
“There were two of me: one sane, one insane,” he explained, “but
the sane one couldn’t do anything but watch the insane one.”
We decided Mike needed to stay home for a while and not return
to New York until he was better. He hadn’t wanted to see a
psychiatrist or a therapist, but we forced him to go. His doctor had
prescribed Zyprexa and Depakote. Mike didn’t like the pills. I couldn’t
blame him. He put on thirty pounds. The medication turned his
mouth dry, made him sluggish, and killed his sex drive. One
afternoon while he was out, I sneaked into his bedroom and counted
the tablets. There were too many in the bottle. He hadn’t been taking
them. I confronted him as soon as he returned.
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” he insisted. “I don’t need pills. I
stayed up for five days in New York. That’s what caused this. I just
freaked out. Stop making such a big deal out of it. I’m not sick!”
I reacted exactly the way his therapist had told me to: with tough
love. I drew a line. “Take your medicine or you can’t live here.”
Mike stormed out and moved in with his mother, my ex-wife. For
the next four months, Mike, indeed, seemed fine. When he
announced that he was going back to New York, even I thought
maybe we’d overreacted. Maybe his breakdown was a onetime
event. Maybe it had been brought on by exhaustion. Maybe the
doctors were wrong and Mike wasn’t really mentally ill.
As we’d always done, Mike and I spoke every Sunday on the
telephone after he returned to Brooklyn. But Mike always kept our
talks brief. He realized I was upset because he still wasn’t taking his
antipsychotic pills. Even so, he had done well. He’d finished school
and found a job.
And then his brother called me. Mike had started acting odd again.
The nurse who listened to me describe Mike’s psychiatric history
said a doctor would be in shortly to examine him.
At least this time I’ve gotten him to a hospital before he was too far
gone! I thought. At least this time, he won’t be driving down a road
and closing his eyes to see if he is awake or asleep. He’ll get help.
I looked at Mike, who was still thumbing through the well-used
New Yorker, and I wondered if he knew what was happening.
For the next two hours, we waited. No one came to help us. No
one poked a head in to ask if we were okay. Mike was still reading
the same magazine. He was starting to discern secret messages in
the text. I was beginning to seethe.
“This is incredible,” he said. He giggled.
Another hour passed and then, unbelievably, another. I’d always
prided myself on being polite, patient. But four hours! It was midnight
now. I couldn’t believe we were still waiting. What was the holdup?
“I’m leaving,” Mike announced.
“Just a minute,” I said. I rushed into the hall and waved down a
nurse. A few minutes later, a doctor entered the room. He was in his
thirties, clean-cut, and all business. As he came in, he raised both
hands as if he were surrendering to enemy troops.
“Sorry you’ve had to wait, but we’re busy, and there’s not going to
be much I can do for you,” he said.
I thought: You haven’t even examined my son! But the doctor
explained that the intake nurse had already warned him that my son
believed all medicines were poison.
The doctor asked Mike, “Do you know who I am?”
“You’re the witch doctor. Ow-ee-ow-ah-ah.”
The doctor grinned. This isn’t funny, I thought. I blurted out, “He’s
been diagnosed as having bipolar disorder.” I began to explain how
Mike had been hospitalized at Dominion Hospital twice and how he
had not been taking his antipsychotic medicine for at least five
months.
But the doctor cut me short. “What’s happened before this moment
doesn’t really matter,” he declared.
I was stunned. “It doesn’t matter?” Would he say this to a patient
complaining of any other illness?
“On the drive here from New York, Mike asked me how I’d feel if
someone I loved killed himself,” I said. I wanted this doctor to
understand how serious this was.
He turned to face Mike and asked, “Are you going to hurt yourself
or anyone else?”
“No!”
The doctor glanced back at me and shrugged.
I couldn’t believe this was happening.
“He’s delusional!” I exclaimed. “For godsakes, he’s been reading
the same magazine page for four hours.”
With an irritated look, the doctor asked Mike, “Who’s the president
of the United States?”
“That idiot George Bush.”
“What day is it today?”
Other questions followed: “Can you count backwards by sevens
from a hundred? What does the phrase ‘Don’t cry over spilled milk’
mean? How about the words ‘a heavy heart’?”
Mike answered each question easily. Then he explained that he
was God’s personal messenger and that he was indestructible.
The doctor said, “Virginia law is very specific. Unless a patient is in
imminent danger to himself or others, I cannot treat him unless he
voluntarily agrees to be treated.” Before I could reply, he asked Mike,
“Will you take medicines if I offer them to you?”
“No, I don’t believe in your poisons,” Mike said. “Can I leave now?”
“Yes,” the doctor answered without consulting me. Mike jumped off
the patient’s table and hurried out the door. I started after him, but
stopped and decided to try one last time to reason with the doctor.
“My son’s bipolar, he’s off his meds, he has a history of psychotic
behavior. You’ve got to do something! He’s sick! Help him, please!”
He said, “Your son is an adult, and while he is clearly acting odd,
he has a right under the law to refuse treatment.”
“Then you take him home with you tonight!” I exclaimed.
Before the doctor could respond, we both heard a commotion in
the hallway. Mike was screaming at his mother because she had told
him that he needed to take his medicine. “You drink beer, why not
take your medicine?” she’d asked. “Alcohol is a drug.”
My son was so out of control that a nurse called hospital security. I
was glad. Maybe now they will medicate him, I thought. But before
the security guard arrived, Mike dashed outside, cursing loudly. I
went after him. Meanwhile, the doctor told my ex-wife that it was not
illegal for someone to be mentally ill in Virginia. But it was illegal for
him to treat them unless they consented. There was nothing he
could do.
“Even if he’s psychotic?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Mike couldn’t forcibly be treated, the doctor elaborated, until he
hurt himself or someone else.
Afraid to take him home where Patti and my other children were
waiting, I drove to my office, which was in a ranch-style house where
I’d lived briefly after my divorce. I bolt-locked the doors and hid the
keys. While Mike was taking a shower, I found his old medication,
crushed a Zyprexa tablet, and spiked the milk shake that I made him.
He dra
