Governor signs Joel’s Law to give families access to emergency mental health treatment http://housedemocrats.wa.gov/...
I tried to have lunch with my homeless son last week. He was leaning against a wall in
Seattle. He was hard to recognize. He has lost weight, looked filthy and has contacted lice.
As we set down at a table in a restaurant, his eyes were rolling back in his head. He could barely speak, and I wasn't sure if he knew me.
He admitted he had been up for days high on methamphetamines. He had been paid a day earlier but was broke and asked for money. I asked how he could spend $775 overnight when he had no bills. Of course, the money was spent paying drug dealers and buying more.
He suffers from Schizophrenia and hyper-sexuality. I had no idea the last disorder is even a disease. Imagine walking into a grocery store with your son, go to the checkout stand and listen as he asks a lady checker if she wants to fxxk.
That is hyper-sexuality.
He was angry I was leaving and soon pulled out a knife and started to threaten me, I calmy told him to behave.
He seemed to have a moment of clarity and put the knife away.
I mentioned what happened to his younger brother, and He told me stories of stabbings that has occurred when the attacker was not sane. How would I feel if he hurt a stranger?
I have given up trying to get my 35-year-old son help when he doesn't want any. I know it won't "end" well for my son.
I need to try and keep my son from hurting a stranger in Seattle. I have a paper trail proving I've tried tohave him involuntarily committed.I know my efforts would be of little comfort to a loved one he might harm.
Earlier in Washington state, police would have to see a crime before a person could be arrested. Many times officials said it's not a crime to be mentally ill in this state. If someone doesn't ask for mental health, they can't be forced to get help.
Finally, a family whose mentally ill son was killed by police got the law in Washington state to be changed. Their son was named Joel and was ill for sometime. His parents tried
48 times to force treatment for him.
Now parents can petition a court to have a loved one committed to a hospital for mental health care. The history of the loved one can be used. Even if mental health experts say the loved one does not need hospitalization, the court can over rule the mental health, folks.
I am weary of fighting with society over my ill son. I'm sure many other families are weary dealing with their loved ones.
As parents, we need never to stop trying to keep our ill loved ones from harming or killing a
stranger. Thanks to great family, we have been given a tool to get out loved one into a hospital.
If you are in the Seattle area, call 206-263-9200. If you live in another state, fight to have a "Joel's law" in your state.
Imagine how you'll feel if someone you love hurts or kills someone.
-“There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness, and terror involved in this kind of madness. When you're high, it's tremendous. The ideas and feelings are fast and frequent like shooting stars, and you follow them until you find better and brighter ones. Shyness goes, the right words and gestures are suddenly there, the power to captivate others a felt certainty. There are interests found in uninteresting people. Sensuality is pervasive and the desire to seduce and be seduced irresistible. Feelings of ease, intensity, power, well-being, financial omnipotence, and euphoria pervade one's marrow. But, somewhere, this changes. The fast ideas are far too fast, and there are far too many; overwhelming confusion replaces clarity. Memory goes. Humor and absorption on friends' faces are replaced by fear and concern. Everything previously moving with the grain is now against-- you are irritable, angry, frightened, uncontrollable, and enmeshed totally in the blackest caves of the mind. You never knew those caves were there. It will never end, for madness carves its own reality.”
― Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
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