(May 9, 2016) Living with my mom this past month has me rethinking about the legal barriers involved in involuntary hospitalizations, the legal/medical notion of “gravely disabled” and the larger politics in the mental health system.
I say rethink because for the last 6 to 7 years, my mom’s unwillingness and inability to seek treatment for her serious mental illness have on numerous occasions forced me and my sister to try and get her involuntarily hospitalized. As my family has learned, however, getting my mom 51/50ed AND treated and stabilized is virtually impossible.
Starting in 2012, my mom became effectively homeless, living in a car. She would at times show up at my home in San Francisco or my sister’s home in Fresno unannounced, weak, tired and distressed. We would let her stay to rest and often use the opportunity to call authorities to conduct a “welfare check” on my mom. The police and ambulance would show up and, while my mom would be assessed by the medics, we would request that the police initiate a 51/50. However, they all would say almost verbatim that to be considered “gravely disabled”, a person has to be lying down on the railroad tracks, in their own defecation, naked!
We have sought court-ordered treatment for my mother through a 51/50 at least four times in the last 6-7 years. Two of those times, she was found confused and incoherent on the side of a road in her car by police officers. The two other times, she was failing to treat her diabetes adequately. Her glucose, consequently, rose above 400, which is considered life threatening.
Each time, however, and despite my pleas for them to treat her, she was released by the hospital in under 24 hours for no longer meeting the 51/50 criteria and without taking any psychiatric medication. It became obvious that hospital personnel were taking much of what my mom was saying during their questioning at face value. My mom can “hold it together” decently when she has to and she learned very quickly how to answer their questions.
I don’t doubt that the interpretation of “gravely disabled” has become more restrictive as funding and resources and beds for treatment centers have been increasingly cut. People with serious mental illness are being unjustly neglected and ignored, unless they do something criminally and/or ghastly wrong.
At this point, my mom suffers on a daily basis with delusions and hallucinations. She spends a good portion of the day and night rebuking and even swearing at the “evil voices” that torment her and that she blames for causing her pain in different parts of her body.
My mom should be in a hospital or treatment center, until stabilized, so she has a better chance at piecing her life back together.
MIKE GAETA
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
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