471E4--Week 13 Questions/Comments--Tuesday

On page 12, the author points out the words that he will never forget was when the police officer said, "Your son is crazy." As we were discussing, terms that could possibly offend someone who has dealt with mental illness. The author makes an emphasis on crazy because I think he is trying to show how that word can affect others. We look at language from the past when dealing with mental illness but in reality are people today anymore acknowledgeable or aware? -Courtney Collier

On page 122, the author talks about why some patients are put in horrible conditions. He says that people are afraid of them which did not surprise me. After that he said people were scared of what they symbolize. People wanted to make their own guilt be eased by thinking that these people deserved their insanity. It reminds me of the beginning of the semester when we studied the colonial era of insanity and people assumed that the mentally-ill were possessed by demons. It goes back to this notion that people were punished with illness for something they had done. - Courtney Collier

While doing research for my paper, I came across an article discussing the toll taken on a family when their loved one returns from an asylum. I enjoyed Earley's account because it was personal and therefore I connected to it more. It really showed that a parent still loves a child, no matter how old they get or how difficult it can be. ~Emily Barry

When a child is little, they listen when the doctor says to listen to their parents and take their medicine to help them get better. As they grow, they may still be ill, but they don't listen to their parents. In the incident that Earley describes on pages 18-19, Mike finds crushed pills in his cereal and overreacts. He should appreciate that his father cares for him instead of yelling when he can't help it in the first place. ~ Emily Barry

I have really enjoyed the reading this book so far. It is interesting to hear Earley's story as a father and a journalist. His experiences with Mike are not uncommon when discussing mental illness. One passage that struck me was on pages 121-122 when he discussed how deeply we fear mental illness as a culture and we want to condemn the mental ill. In reality, every person is afraid of the possibility being mentally ill. This passage seems to fit so well within the book and the discussion of jails. As a culture, we are so quick to label people as mentally ill but what alarms me is that we aren't as quick to help these people.-Maggie Nunn

On page 57, Dr. Poitier said, "Mentally ill people don't belong in jail...By it's very design, a jail like ours is intended to dehumanize and humiliate a person. It's supposed to have a negative impact, to bring an inmate down, to make him not want to come back. This sort of atmosphere is counter to a treatment or helping improve anyone's mental health." This quote stuck with me as I kept reading about the countless stories of people in Robinson and Diaz's support groups. If intelligent doctors and correctional officers recognize the flaws of placing the mentally ill in jails then why can't this problem be fixed or these doctors advocate for the mentally ill? It seems like every person in the chain of command just wants to do their respective job to pass the mentally ill onto the next person. -Maggie Nunn

How do you feel about the author constantly wanting to compare mental illness to broken limbs or cancer? Why does he do this? Is it a valid comparison, why or why not? – Kasey Moore

At one point the author mentions that a mentally ill person stays in jail longer even if he had committed the same crime as non-mental person. Why is this? Don’t you think they would want to release the mentally ill faster because they cost more to keep. – Kasey Moore

I find it interesting that most of the correctional officers and nurses within the psychiatric floor are women. Why is that? It definitely shows a shift in views towards who should take care of the mentally ill in comparison to what we've read in the past where men were preferred because of their strength. Is this the same for the women's facility Earley mentioned? --Carly W.

After reading a semesters worth of books on mental illness I believe for all of us this book strikes home and is the most personal book we have this semester. Though it is impossible for anyone to grasp what mental illness actually is or does except those who go through it themselves, this book allows us to get a little closer. Pete Early’s biggest argument is that mental illness can strike anyone and any family, everyone is vulnerable. Additionally, this book gives us great insight in today’s mental health system and how dramatically different it is compared to the past. Has the mental health system done a complete 360, has it reverted back to over 200 years ago? We are nowhere closer to understanding mental illness than at any other point in history. –Jack Hylan

I am amazed that police forces in Miami (and Miami-Dade) were reluctant to train and utilize a Crisis Intervention Team. It makes so much sense (after all they have SWAT which shows the need for a specially trained unit to respond to specific events) but the hubris of police officials to change, or acknowledge their own shortcomings, hurts the community they are supposed to be serving. –Scott Campbell

I think that psychiatrists and patient’s families should have more say in the institutionalizing and treatment of mentally ill individuals. As Earley points out, it’s a shame that the lawyers, pseudo-rights activists, insurance and drug lobbies have so much sway over lawmakers while the patient’s families and trained doctors remain on the outside of most proceedings. Of course many of the former are driven by something other than the patient's best interest, whether its money or notoriety. –Scott Campbell

I agree with Jack and Maggie. This book is so personal and is by far my favorite. I would read this book even if I wasn't in this class. - Katie Tryon

This book really made me think about my husband's job as a special education teacher. He faces similar problems that this book highlights with his kids. We didn't read much about how mental illness and education and I think this would be another interesting direction to go. We think of schools as safe zones but sometimes the revolving door syndrome happens there as well. - Katie Tryon

I'm not sure what exactly to say about this book. As a member of a family struggling with mental illness this book was much too close to home. The treatment of the mentally ill in jail was disturbing. And the only hospital that inmates from Miami can be sent to is on the Florida-Georgia border? - Joanna Jourdan

Jack, I would argue that we haven't reverted to 200 years ago because now there are laws that prevent families caring for their mentally ill relatives. - Joanna Jourdan

While I feel that we are closer to understanding mental illness than we have been ever before, I wonder if we depend too much on the idea of pharmacology as an effective course of action. Also, why is it that a mentally ill person stayed in jail longer for the same offense? Also, in relation to the first comment I made, who ultimately has the say over whether medication is in someone’s best interest? ~ Alex Young|

I agree with you, Alex. Personally, I think that we depend too heavily upon medication as a solution for our mentally ill when it may just be a band-aid in reality. Psychology consists of more than just the biological aspect...I think that for some forms of depression and anxiety, a cognitive approach of restructuring the way a person thinks would be more beneficial for the mentally ill. Some people do not like the idea of their happiness being dependent upon the consumption of a pill. --Chelsea Chin

What disturbs me the most about this book is the fact that the law enforcement doesn’t seem to know the laws. How can they not know that it is against the law for doctors to place patients in mental hospitals against their will? Should they not already know this? Why are the doctors the only ones who seem to know the law? - Morgan H.

So has anything really changed in the treatment of mental illness, or does it just go between different outlooks and responses that may or may not actually help the patients? Are treatments really more humane or just different based on the time period? - Morgan H.

The “right to treatment” law discussed on page 151 states that it was revolutionary because it gave the mentally ill a legal right to have adequate health care. But how did this grow into mentally ill patients being able to deny all forms of treatment when they really need it? Isn’t this law about obtaining proper care, and not letting on unstable people become victims? - Morgan H.

This book makes me feel so frustrated for Earley and his family. The fact that he could not get help for his son despite Mike's obvious psychosis because of a law, a Virginian one at that, which stated that the hospitals could do nothing unless the person poses a danger to himself or to others, is far from helpful. It seemed as if the law, and the people who must follow it, only view mental illness through one lens rather than trying to understand it as a whole. --Chelsea Chin