This is a sort of update on my friends situation and some observations on how the criminal justice system works for persons with mental illness. My friend Craig was arrested last month while in the middle of a mental health crisis. He is now in jail and awaiting a hearing that will determine his fate. I have a clearer picture of the story of how this all happened now and would like to share what I know. Both Craig and his partner Heather have given permission for me to write about their situation. Both of their names have been changed to protect them and I will not give the name of the state or city where my friend is jailed. For the whole story please join me below the fold.
Craig and Heather have been together for ten years. At one point they had a buddhist marriage ceremony but they are not legally married. In fact Heather may still be married to her first husband, although she thinks he may have divorced her while they were on the streets on meth. They are both in their early forties and both on disability for mental illness and medical problems.
Craig has fetal alcohol syndrome. Craig was orphaned at the age of five and adopted by his much older half brother and his half brothers wife. His adoptive mother is still in his life and lives in the city where he is currently jailed. She is a recovering addict, like Craig, and in fact is the one who introduced him to meth. When he was quite young his adoptive father molested him and his sister and there may have been other family violence. When he was ten years old Craig nearly died while huffing paint. This may have been after his adoptive parents split up. They split up over the sex abuse so his adoptive mother tried to protect him.
They were definitely split up when he began taking meth at the age of 16. He took meth for 26 years. I don't know how he survived. He mixed meth with heroine. He was in jail about 8 times that I am aware of. Meth is easily abailable at the jail and is being brought in by the guards. Meth ran his life completely during those years. His problem was made worse by the fact that he has family and friends in his hometown who have long term been in the meth trade. He never had any problem getting the drug and was often 'gifted' large amounts by family and friends.
Heather was adopted from Germany at the age of about three. She told me that her adoptive mother sounded just like the grown ups on the Charlie Brown cartoons. Her adoptive parents did not speak German and she and her adoptive sister, adopted at the same time, did not speak English. She has also described the anger frustration and violence that she and her adoptive sister received from their adoptive mother. Apparently it was so bad that at one point her adoptive father, who she said was never violent, slapped his wife upside the head and asked her how she liked it. The abuse got worse after her adoptive mother gave birth to her own child. The adoptive mother was much more careful not to do it in front of the father. At the age of five Heather was disabled/paralyzed for several years by Rheumatic fever. She also suffered brain damage. Her first sexual experience was date rape. She was thirteen. When she reported it to her mother her mother laughed at her. Heather started doing meth after she met Craig. He introduced her to it. She did meth for about 9 years with Craig.
Craig and Heather hit bottom about four years ago. While they were on meth, and had been up for several days, Craig and Heather went to Walmart to shoplift merchandise they could sell for drug money. I guess that Craig did all the stealing. He takes care of Heather. He was caught and ended up fighting with security. At this point Heather decided enough was enough. She left him and went to stay with her mother. They were separated for about three months. After losing Heather, Craig also decided it was time to quit. He was on probation or parole or out on bail I am not sure which. He was expected to turn himself in on a certain date to serve his sentence in the jail where meth was easily available. He did not. He felt that he would not be able to quit that way so he fled to Oregon. After a couple of months Heather decided to trust that he really had quit and joined him. This was about three and a half years ago.
When I met them just over three years ago they were homeless and saving their social security checks up to get a place. I have seen them at least twice a week in those three years, usually more. They have never had a relapse. At one point a neighbor actually paid Craig to 'run an errand for him' and because he needed the money he did. He did not use any. I can tell. I have been around it and I would not spend a minute being friends with anyone who was still using. It killed too many people that I love. So they got a place and since then are on their third apartment. They live in my building now.
About a month ago Craig's doctor prescribed a new high blood pressure medication for him. Among the side effects were: insomnia, anxiety, depression, restlessness, severe chest pain and shortness of breath. Did I mention that my friend is bipolar with schizo effective? He had all of those symptoms and after not sleeping for three days he had a psychotic episode and began to hallucinate. And I began to panic and wrote a diary asking for advice.
I have to pause right here and say once again what a wonderful and supportive community this is and thank everyone involved for their help and caring.
When he began to have the severe chest pains he thought he was having a heart attack. When the ambulance got here he panicked and took a swing at the EMT. So the police were called. And he was arrested. And he had that warrant from his hometown for that crime he committed while a drug addict. And he never served the time for it because he was trying to get off meth. So he was held as a fugitive from justice and not sent to the hospital. And because he was psychotic and did not remember that he was allergic to Depacote he was put on Depacote at the jail. Which made his mental problems exponentially worse.
At one point in the jail here while he was on a psychiatric med that made his psychosis worse he decided to drown himself by flooding his sell. He stuffed his blanket into the toilet and the cell flooded and of course like the bad and neglectful parents that all cops are at heart, they punished him for making them come in there and deal with him. At some point they figured out that he is allergic to depacote and stopped giving it to him. He was finally able to call us and talk to us. He thinks his ankle may be broken and says his back feels worse than it did before they operated on it last time. They never x-rayed or treated this at he was extradited to his hometown. They haven't done anything there either. They especially will never under any circumstances give a former drug addict in jail any kind of pain medication that would help.
Did I tell you how easy it is to get meth at the jail in his hometown? Well when he got there he knew everyone at the intake center. Everyone who worked there. He also is having a nice little reunion with lots of old friends from back in the meth days who are in jail now. When he got there they put him on suicide watch in the medical ward. That meant 23 hours a day in solitary. They also are trying to get him to take meds he does not want to take. I told him to request that they monitor him if he agrees to take it. He is afraid, and I do not blame, that if he has a bad reaction to the new drug he will get hurt again. He is now in general population with all his old meth buddies.
So this mentally ill man who is recovering from a serious psychiatric episode, and is in terrible pain was first held in almost complete isolation for a week and then released in this state into a population where he has access to his drug of choice.
But the very best news of all is this. They may just drop all the charges and tell him to go back to Oregon and never come back. But all that will take some time. first they are going to hold him in jail for several months. I would laugh if I did not want to scream so loudly. WHY DID THEY HOLD HIM IN JAIL HERE INSTEAD OF TAKING HIM TO THE HOSPITAL WHERE HE BELONGS, TAKE HIM TO WHERE HE IS IN SEVERE DANGER OF RELAPSE, MAKE IT ALL AS PAINFUL AND STRESSFUL AS POSSIBLE ONLY TO SAY THEY WILL RELEASE HIM AND DROP ALL THE CHARGES. IS IT JUST ME?
Sorry about the all caps screaming but I am thinking in screaming right now. Because what this means is that this whole episode will have the same effects as if they had forgotten that he ever existed. The only difference is all the time and trouble of all the law enforcement people. The difference is that his mental problems are now going to be much worse. The difference is that all of this cost money. And the difference is this too. If they take too long to decide to send him home Heather will in all most likely loose their home. Craig will not have a home to go to when he gets out. Heather cannot cover the rent on her own. She will lose the place and the stress of being homeless will make her more likely to relapse.
The end result of all this criminal justice might be that two people, who were at least able to care for themselves and stay out of trouble for the most part, might now become drug addicted street criminals.
Of course it is not that cut and dried. To be honest I am very ambivalent about the whole situation. Three and a half years ago when he first came here Craig turned himself in to the local police. They just said if he stayed out of trouble he had nothing to worry about. He then contacted his hometown police or DA(Not sure which) They said if he attended NA meetings(Which he was doing on his own anyway as I recall), paid a $200 fine and gave them a clean pee test they would drop everything. For less that two months of payments on the big flatscreen tv they were buying for much, much more than it was worth from the rent to own rip off place he could have avoided this. For the price of two months of the cable they used to get he could have taken care of it. To be fair they got rid of cable to get the TV, but they were paying about $3k for a $1k tv. and they are on SSI and SSDI. But they are both like children. They can only care for themselves on a basic level. Taking care of something like this is far beyond their capabilities for both intellectual and psychiatric reasons. This also makes me ambivalent. As a person with some severe mental problems I believe that the best this for most people is to let them make the choice that is right for them. This is why I am very pro-choice even though I would personally like to slap some women for the choices they make. I still believe that in many ways Craig and Heather should be allowed to make most, if not all, of their own choices. I just wish we had some structural support for people like them. And myself to be honest. Support to help us make the right choices and to step in when we just can't.
I know that something like that would not be easy. It would take legislation and the formation of a government organization tasked with the support and care of persons with mental illness. It would take training professionals to work with us in this role(more jobs!). It would take a reform of the criminal justice system and mental health delivery system. It would take the formation of crisis intervention teams to work with police and medical personnel to intervene in situations like the one I describe. I still think it would be cheaper than making people like craig into criminals(and a lot easier on future victims) I believe also that it would be cheaper than keeping so many locked up in prison and jail. Many, many more persons with mental illness could become working, taxpaying citizens if they had the appropriate support to do so. Increasing the tax base and there for helping to pay the costs of the program.