Public Comment

In the distant past, and I'm talking about the nineteen eighties, it wasn't really a big deal if you had a psychotic disorder and had a relapse. Often, it was anticipated. The mental health treatment systems were good enough toward ill people that we could get some care when this happened. I recall a nurse, as I walked past her in a hallway of a psych ward said, "So Jack, have you written any Pulitzer Prize winning novels lately?" At the time it was a good rib, since back then I had not even been published. That's the sort of thing you got. The nurse was quite nice and she was just joshing with me. 

In the psych ward at Kaiser Martinez, in the late nineteen eighties, I found recovery in the peacefulness of the ward, and I came out of my delusions when a movie was played: "Field of Dreams." Movies aren't made like that anymore. Now it is all special effects, violence, and who can be the best at blowing the other guy away. Analogous changes have taken effect in how people treat those who are ill. 

If you have a psychiatric condition and if you stop treatment for it, you could be in a lot of danger. The treatment system and the new legislation supposedly intended to help mentally ill people recover, are shams. If you have a mental illness, it is exceedingly important that you remain in treatment and don't play games with your meds or do any experimenting with a lower dosage. 

Times have changed. And they have changed for the worse. We don't have compassionate, caring mental health facilities or housing. We could go to inpatient psychiatry in Martinez, which is said by those who work there, it is not a place to be unless you absolutely need it. We have jail. And we have the street. Those are our three choices if we relapse. 

Housing, again, not anything to trifle with. I had a misjudgment concerning my housing almost two years ago, and that decision continues to punish me. At the time, the psychiatric nurse practitioner responsible for my medications was fiddling with my psychiatric drugs because a family member was upset, believing I was very delusional. 

I was not as delusional as the family member believed me to be. When my meds were changed, I abruptly got worse. And I'd been switched to one of the most dangerous antipsychotics, one that could, in some cases, kill. I had a bad reaction to it that caused me to be taken to the hospital by ambulance. This nurse practitioner insisted the problem wasn't caused by the medication. I finally became very insistent about being switched back. And in the process of switching me back, this guy gave me lower dosages. I had been taking a regimen that was strong, but I was getting by. If it isn't broken, don't fix it. 

Judgment is the first thing that goes. And I decided, while on a reduced dosage of meds, that I ought to move here.  

The people I now deal with do not understand my condition because I have been treating it with exceeding, painstaking effort for the last twenty years, because I wanted to get well. I did get well, and, in many respects, it works against me. People don’t see the psychosis: that's because I'm dealing with it through medication, talk therapy and cognitive exercises. People don't get it that I am disabled. 

I have recovered to the extent possible. Yet this recovery can be disrupted. 

I honestly don't know what people think. Are they under the impression that I have a delusion I'm a writer? I don't know. People won't tell me. 

Caregivers and members of mental health organizations, family... and politicians, all complain that the mentally ill individual needs to cooperate with treatment. It is a big lie. We are being dismissed as unsalvageable. A niche has not been created where a mentally ill person can get well and reintegrate into society. 

Jack Bragen lives in Martinez, and is author of "Instructions for Dealing with Schizophrenia: A Self-Help Manual," available on Amazon.