Breaking the Silence: Serious Mental Illness Pt 2
In part 1 of Breaking the Silence: Serious Mental Illness CBS 6's Alyssa Caroprese revealed she has a close family member with serious mental illness. Mental illnesses like schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, borderline personality disorder, etc. can be very difficult on all members of a family, leading to increased tension and stress. Navigating the mental health system can further complicate matters with many barriers preventing easy treatment for patients.
Since her family member's diagnosis Alyssa has gotten involved with NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Over the years she has attended NAMI family support groups and one in particular at Ellis Hospital. That support group is ran by Kevin Moran, a Colleague Support Specialist who has worked at Ellis for 28 years in psychiatric care. He created the group more than 20 years ago to help educate families on mental illness. The meeting is now associated with NAMI Schenectady and meets every Wednesday night at Ellis Hospital.
FULL INTERVIEW:
Alyssa sat down with a Niskayuna family that attends this support group. For the sake of privacy, we will refer to them by fake names of Kate and Joe. They have a son whose diagnosis is potentially paranoid schizophrenia, but still not totally clear.
When asked about what the most challenging part of getting treatment for their son was Joe said, “Availability of care. He needs to get in to see somebody and there just is a long waiting list or it’s difficult to find anybody who’s available to get in to see, so it becomes three weeks, six weeks. They’d do a wellness check and show up and he wouldn’t answer the door so there wasn’t anything they could do.”
Other challenges have included the response from law enforcement and their lack of mental health awareness.
“More than once the police would come to our house and say, ‘Well we can either arrest him or do nothing. What do you want us to do?’ And it’s kind of like, well neither,” Joe said.
On other occasions law enforcement would fail to recognize the incident as a mental health crisis.
“Sometimes when the police would come they would say it is just a disagreement between, it’s time for him to move out, it’s just a disagreement between you and your son. They would say to him, ‘C’mon you’re a grown up,’” Kate said.
Kate and Joe have had a similar response from hospitals at times. Despite their son being in a mental health crisis, keeping him hospitalized was not easy.
“We would show up and he would be in a state and the nurse would check him and talk to us and say they’ll definitely keep him. The shifts would change at midnight, new people would come in at midnight and they would evaluate him again and they would release him,” Joe said.
The family does feel some mental health services have improved, along with law enforcement’s response to crisis calls, but they still struggle to get their son the help he needs.
Their son’s illness has changed their family in many ways. At times, it’s been difficult on their marriage. Their younger son has taken on the older brother role and is not as close with his sibling. They say holidays are not the same anymore.
Kate said, “We always had a big meal. We always had other relatives there. Now you don’t do any of that stuff because you don’t know what’s going to happen. You don’t know if he is going to be able to be with other people. Is he going to be bizarre? Are we going to have to call the police?”
Kate says other family members don’t ask about him.
“It’s like he’s dead, even though he’s not dead, so that’s very sad. If he had cancer they would ask about him,” Kate said.
Kate says our loved ones do not ask for mental illness and that they deserve patience, love and support, not punishment.
“Just like every other family member, we might get unhappy or angry with them but we still love them and we want them to be well too,” Kate said.
Kate and Joe are involved with NAMI beyond just attending support group which has helped them through their son's illness.
NAMI offers many support groups around the Capital Region for both those with mental illness (peers) and their loved ones. They also offer free educational classes led by trained volunteers that can be very helpful for families and caregivers - NAMI Basics, NAMI Family to Family, NAMI Peer to Peer and NAMI Homefront. The classes and support groups can be helpful in educating yourself and meeting others in similar circumstances.
Click Here to Donate to Alyssa's NAMI Fundraiser
Breaking the Silence: Serious Mental Illness I
Breaking the Silence: Serious Mental Illness II
NAMI Capital Region Support Groups
NAMI Capital Region Free Classes