Fitting

When my phone rang yesterday morning, it was still dark out.  My alarm wasn't set to go off anytime soon, but alarm bells were ringing nonetheless.  I never want to answer the phone that early because I know, deep in my bones, that something must be wrong.  I lay in bed for awhile, trying to decide whether or not I should check my voicemail.  Once I had mustered up enough resolve, I heard my father's voice crackle through the receiver: "Great news!  Your mom's been hospitalized!"

Prepare to take a tumble down a rabbit hole, gentle reader--I am about to introduce you 
to a world where up is down, wrong is right, and getting hospitalized means that you're pretty damn lucky.  Comparatively speaking, that is.  Living with a severe brain disorder rather implies that one has already lost the genetic lottery--securing treatment is a fairly inadequate albeit coveted consolation prize.  

But in order to explain things properly, I feel like I ought to introduce you to my mom.  I've aged a bit since this photo was taken, but this is how I like to remember her:  

Sometimes, it's easier for me to compartmentalize a bit and assign her two different roles: Mom#1 and Mom#2.  Mom#1 is my real mom.  She's pretty great.  She loves reading and dancing and music and nature.  She gives great hugs, spins wild tales, and is always up for an adventure.  She's also a passionate (and somewhat loudmouthed) champion of causes large and small, and no one likes to go up against her.  She has a keen intellect and never backs down.  I really miss her.  I haven't seen much of Mom#1 since the late nineties.  That's when Mom#2 moved in and set up shop, quite without Mom#1's permission, I suspect.  

It started so gradually that no one really noticed at first.  Everyone knows the signs of a heart attack, but few people recognize the early onset symptoms of schizophrenia.  She slept round the clock for over a year and withdrew from most of her social circles.  She struggled with personal organization and depression (but then, she'd always been moody).  It was weird, but it didn't seem all that alarming.  By the time Mom#2 was running the show we were starting to compare notes: Did she seem kinda paranoid to you?  What was with the string of job losses?  Mom#1 was long gone before we ever got wind of her hearing voices.  She was replaced by a scared, angry woman trapped in a sea of neverending nightmares--and I never got to tell her goodbye.  

The point of all this is not to wallow, but to explain.  I feel like there's so much explaining to do.  Our mental health care system is broken, and it's affecting everyone.  My family happens to be on the front lines...we have a ringside seat to the show and have a rather unique perspective as a result.  When you have a family member with a severe brain disorder, your whole worldview changes.  Action movies make you cringe.  You can predict developing news stories before they happen.  And you'll never hold a homeless person's gaze quite the same way after your own parent has lived on the streets.  

The costs of not caring for the most vulnerable members of our society are tearing at our core fabric.  There are threads of influence--chain reactions woven rather haphazardly throughout all of our lives--but most of us never see it.  When preventable tragedies occur, the public tends to view them in isolation.  Very few people connect the dots between a failed legal system, street crime, domestic violence, homelessness, neuroscience, access to health care, suicides, substance abuse, social stigma and overflowing jail cells.  And I have a few theories why.  

First and foremost, no one's really looking.  It requires peering into some of the darkest, scariest parts of our community.  The kind of places that get locked up and swept away.  Out of sight, out of...mind.  And seeing what is truly going on requires getting past some widely held ideas that are often misleading and outdated.  If you're not living it, you're quite over your head.  Of course, folks have tried before, but nothing much comes of it.  

Which leads me to my second theory regarding social blindness: systems aren't that easy to correct.  To borrow an idea from Jay Michaelson, the enemy is vague.  There's not a sole villain to point to and plugging one hole won't fix the groundswell of leaks.  It's hard to develop an overarching narrative to frame all the issues and forces at work in a way that's compelling and keeps the public's interest.  [Unless Paul Haggis is shopping new script ideas.  Call me!]  Absent a kaleidoscopic, Academy Award winning film, that leaves me.  Okay, me and Delaney Ruston. 

I think I have a story to tell, and I'm going to do my best to tell it.  And the reason I'm sticking my virtual neck out on the line is because I truly believe that we have the opportunity to do better.  We can do so much better by everyone.  Jail cells don't have to be so crowded, the gravely mentally ill don't have to be denied treatment, and families certainly don't have to be torn apart.  We can do something about this--I can't, but I think that maybe together we can.  I wasn't sure I was ready to talk about this, but I'm also not sure how many more signs the universe can hit me with.  My mom's back in the hospital again, and this week happens to be Mental Illness Awareness Week--how fitting.