MENTAL HEALTH REQUIRES DAILY PRACTICE...


Father of Sandy Hook shooting victim dies in apparent suicide, police say

 FROM TWITTER:
Hartford Courant Retweeted Hartford Courant: Jeremy Richman, the founder of the Avielle Foundation, had an office at Edmond Town Hall, where he was found dead Monday morning, police said
  1. "The death appears to be a suicide... Police are confirming that Jeremy is the father of Avielle Richman who was a victim in the Sandy Hook Tragedy."

  2. "Richman and his wife, Jennifer Hensel, were among the Sandy Hook families who filed a lawsuit against Infowars host Alex Jones, who long claimed on his show that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax."
  3. “He had such a clear purpose of what he wanted to do to honor his daughter,” one of the Sandy Hook family members said. “I’m just shocked. I’m sitting in my car right now crying.”
  4. In the last week, two Parkland, Florida shooting survivors died by suicide. Now, the father of Sandy Hook shooting victim Avielle Richman has been found dead after apparent suicide.

  5. This is so tragic: Jeremy Richman, was a Sandy Hook parent. The Richman family worked so hard to prevent what happened to them from happening to another family
    ...You can read about Jeremy Richman's selfless work here: A Newtown Family's Campaign To Change How We Think About Violence
...Five years ago, Avielle Richman, 6, was shot in her first-grade classroom at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.    (Jeremy Richman/Courtesy Richman Family)  
  1.   Chris Murphy Retweeted Daniela Altimari
  2. ...My god. This is awful, horrible, devastating news. Jeremy was a good friend and an unceasing advocate for better research into the brain’s violence triggers. He was with me in my office two weeks ago, excited as could be about the Avielle Foundation’s latest amazing work.



LIVING IN AN INSANE WORLD...

UP CLOSE & PERSONAL

Living with someone living with Paranoid Schizophrenia is STRESSFUL, DEPRESSING, & DANGEROUS, if untreated

I've watched helplessly as a loved one angrily throws things, breaks numerous cherished items, bangs violently on doors and walls, curses while raging, issues commands, uses hostile body language and threats, defends all actions, and refuses to leave my home.  Do I really have to criminalize a mentally ill person to get help?

I've watched helplessly as a loved one shows obvious signs of mental deterioration after being off medication for more than two years.  But what can I do? How do you deal with someone whose very disease (Schizophrenia) creates an inability to perceive there is a cognitive or thinking problem; a shift in reality that is different from the average person?

Who can help? No one!!! The physical health system is more developed than this country's Mental Health System. Break an arm, you get quick treatment. Have a broken brain, you don't get help, but stigma.  No one wants to have a mental illness so the public discourse is already too little, too late. Questions about what's going on in someone head typically come AFTER violence or mass shootings. But even when there is discussion about mental illness... who really in our society is charged with doing anything about sick or compromised minds. The lack of parity between physical and mental health is thus obvious and demoralizing.

 Who is available to help those who experience MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES? ANSWER:  Not your doctor, minister, or correctional officer. In fact, there aren't enough beds in hospitals or jails for the mentally wounded. Why??? Because mental health is still not a top priority in the 21st century.  Instead, we tend to stigmatize individuals with mental health concerns more often than those with physical conditions. More people typically talk more about cardiac arrest, cancer, or diabetes because they hear more about them. When it comes to mental diagnoses, people are more likely to admit they are depressed, BiPolar, or have PTSD, than they are to reveal they have  Schizophrenia.  Who wants to self-stigmatize, anyway. 
 
SO... who can help RELATIVES LIVING WITH RELATIVES LIVING WITH MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES? ANSWER:  You're on your own!
When you're being domestically abused by someone with schizophrenia, do you call the police and risk criminalizing them or do you seek an Emergency Petition from the Court to have someone with schizophrenia taken to an Emergency Room when after 72 hours on a psych ward they are released and come back, even angrier?  Do you force treatment on those with broken brains via the legal system as advocated by the Treatment Advocacy Center (TAC)?

Or... do you can seek to understand the behavior of someone with schizophrenia via such organizations as NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness). While NAMI is to be commended for its free education courses, awareness campaigns, and lobbying of Congress for more help, the friends and relatives of those with mental health issues still need so much more. 

UNTIL WE GET HELP... we're going to have to help ourselves!!!  The first step for now is to make others aware that a problem exist, that many adults and families are being held hostage by the deteriorating minds of their loved ones.

THE KEY RIGHT NOW... is to avoid becoming DEPRESSED over the situation.  According to best-selling author Marianne Williamson, we should work through the pain rather than trying to numb it.  Her new book - TEARS TO TRIUMPH - is listed below, in case you want to join the discourse about what we can do to help the ones we love when they are not cognitively at their best.  Peace & Love.



CHANGING MINDS... UPDATE!

Monday, June 27, 2016
WELL, HE'S HOME... 
& UNDER ARREST! 

The former DC Congressman - WALTER E. FAUNTROY - was booked at 12:30pm today (6/27/2016) after a non-stop flight from Dubai to Dulles Airport in Virginia. According to The Washington Post, the Prince Georges County Bench Warrant for his arrest was REISSUED this morning. After clearing Customs, the legendary Civil Rights Activist was "singled out" by Homeland Security, arrested, and taken to the Loudoun County Detention Center in Virginia.  

 Since the newspaper says Walter Fauntroy didn't post bond... there the once historic minister sits. That means his much anticipated reunion with his wife and children has been delayed. But that's not going to last long since he is likely to be extradited to Maryland soon.  Surprisingly, his long-time attorney, Johnny Barnes, told the The Washington Post that an arrest had not been anticipated. Really??? What did Barnes think would happen after Fauntroy publicly announced he was finally coming back from the Middle East after fleeing in 2012 to avoid arrest.  

 Even I could see the handwriting on the proverbial wall of justice when I posted news of Reverend Fauntroy's return yesterday. It certainly makes sense that those who were left holding a bounced $55,000 check for four years, might want him arrested immediately. It would take a real shift in reality for those who are due money to support Walter Fauntroy's wish to first have some intimate time with his family upon his arrival.  Talk about delusional thinking after four years of warrant dodging. 

 So let's hope that while the former Civil Rights Activist sits in jail that his family and lawyers will quickly request a MENTAL HEALTH ASSESSMENT for him. If he has Schizophrenia, as I suspect he does, he needs immediate medical/psychological attention.

 If family and friends can show that Walter Fauntroy has been mentally challenged or experiencing cognitive deterioration for years, that may at least get him moved out of the General Jail Population and into the smaller more segregated unit for those with behavioral health issues. In the meantime, given Walter Fauntroy's biblical background, he would do well to remember that after the trial and the cross, came the RESURRECTION!  In other words... it's not over yet but atonement is a process. It's a miracle Walter Fauntroy was finally able to push fear out of the way and replace it with love for his baby grandson and others. May the healing of everyone... now begin.  Welcome home, Pastor!

                                                                                         6/27/2016

CHANGING MINDS...

CHANGING MINDS & Mental Illness

Sunday, June 26, 2016
...THE GOOD NEWS... the Honorable Reverend Walter E. Fauntroy, the fugitive from justice for four years, said this week that he is coming home from Dubai. 
  THE BAD NEWS... the once, much-respected Civil Rights Activist is returning with some hard-to-ignore signs of Schizophrenia. And that means he's going to be a handful for his family, friends, and others to handle when he is arrested. 
    Don't misunderstand... I'm a long-time admirer of the man who was DC's first delegate to Congress. I well remember the last time I talked with Pastor Fauntroy. I called him on June 30, 1974 when he was on the pulpit at New Bethel Baptist Church and asked that he come to the phone for an urgent message. As a young radio reporter at WWDC AM&FM in DC, I had just learned that Dr. Martin Luther King's mother (Alberta) had been shot and killed at the organ at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. As the first female morning drive-time news anchor in Washington, DC, I wanted Rev. Fauntroy to hear about the shooting from me first, so he would be prepared when the rest of the world started calling for comments. 
     I truly respected this man who was so close to Dr. King. But I also know that NO MAN IN HIS RIGHT MIND would leave his kids and wife of some 50 years to selfishly hide out in foreign countries. So something happened! It is one thing to focus on Fauntroy's "debt and delusion," to quote The Washington Post (5/5/2016) but it's also important to recognized that this once distinguished figure may be mentally ill and probably has been so, for some time. At a time when 1 in 5 people are being diagnosed with mental illness this year alone, it's obvious that more of us might need to know more about the common signs of mental illness. It's all around us on a daily basis.
    I live with friends and relatives who either suffer from serious DEPRESSION, MOOD CHANGES (Bi-Polar) or SHIFTS IN REALITY (Schizophrenia). As a medical researcher and mental health advocate, I find Schizophrenic changes in cognitive behavior to be the most cunning and difficult to deal with because those with such a condition are typically cognitively incapable of admitting something is wrong with them. It's a BRAIN THING! And few people who encounter them, understand how much they are in a SURVIVOR MODE.  A broken hand... we can see. A broken brain goes a long time without being noticed. Until some kind of treatment is obtained, people with Schizophrenia think their ability to talk and reason is a sign they are sane. They don't get that their reality or assessments of situations actually differ from others; they often become so lost in their own unrelenting thoughts to notice a difference. PERCEPTION IS A CHOICE among the sane; those who are mentally challenged struggle with Schizophrenia can be at the affect of making increasingly inappropriate choices.
    Since the purpose of the brain is to survive, it's not going to tell us we're crazy. Indeed, because people with Schizophrenia can be articulate and charming. They rarely seem to notice that they are more about being INTERESTING, than INTERESTED in others. It's what they need, want, and see going on. It's a one-side world for them until some healing begins in the brain. They are mentally overwhelmed and typically exercise POOR JUDGMENT, lack EMPATHY, and become more careless about writing checks and paying bills. Their Paranoia and Delusional states, if present, make unannounced visits and keeping appointments, a problem. It's helps to remember that it's the frequency and intensity of these things that push them up the mental health spectrum toward mental illness. Since we're largely living in an INSANE, FEAR-DRIVEN SOCIETY, we'll all have to work harder to be kinder, more loving, and God-driven. In other words, SANITY=love and INSANITY= fear. 
    So it's an encouraging sign that Walter Fauntroy wanted to come home to see his "new" 2-yr-old grandson, rather than die in the desert alone. Because he didn't have a Passport, money, or a sound mind to do so... his coming home is indeed a MIRACLE! Thanks to this country's State Dept. and caring friends who made this happen. My heart is already broken just thinking about how this 83-year old history-maker, missed being with family and friends to celebrate his all important 80th birthday in 2013. NO MAN IN HIS RIGHT MIND... would chose to be homeless, alone, and sleeping in alleys in a Foreign country when he could be home enjoying his well-earned Federal and DC pensions with his loved ones. 
   So... it's good news Walter Fauntroy is coming coming home to a city where he was once dearly loved and supported! In my opinion... there's no shame in being mentally challenged. The shame is not accepting treatment that will begin to give the brain a rest. And jail... is not a good place for anyone with mental health issues. Let's hope his lawyers tell those who come to arrest him this week that Walter Fauntroy is not a criminal... he's sick!  Let's hope that some lawyer with a mental health background will be able to point out to the court that Walter Fauntroy was not in his right mind from 2007 on.  The evidence for that is there. Just ask his friends, family, and colleagues when they began to notice changes.  The headlines say it all!


GOVERNING BY DEFAULT...

IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST?

To what extent is it in the public interest to defund the federal government?  Who benefits?  Who loses?  

As a sociologist, or a student of social relationships between and within institutions and organizations, I’m trained to ask different kinds of questions and to look for intervening variables.  For example, given the outspoken opposition to three national public interest-type laws - Social Security (1935), Medicare (1965), Affordable Care Act (2013) – what is different this time?  The question is not why did 535 members of Congress fail at keeping the people’s government running. For to focus on a government “shutdown” is to become too distracted to see history being made in another area, a political party becoming less relevant, and the outstanding success of the nation’s first president of color. 

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)

www.healthcare.gov
  • Young adults under 26 may be eligible to be covered under parent’s health plan
  • Americans with pre-existing conditions may be eligible for health coverage under the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan
  • Guarantees right to ask that your plan reconsider denial of payment


Go beyond the rhetoric (Obamacare) and metaphors (socialized medicine) and you begin to grasp the muddled thinking of a small group of Republicans who believe they achieved their goal by making government smaller. Some even appeared on the nightly news saying shutting down the government has been a three year goal because the public would then get to see it doesn’t really need as much government as it thinks.  Such convenient ideology shouldn’t be surprising from a party which traditionally prefers marketplace solutions (competition) for health care issues.  The very political party that also calls for fiscal responsibility, now sees itself as a champion of the people, even, as it downsizes the economy via furloughs or shirks responsibility to govern.

Yet, the 80 Republicans, a vocal minority, who announced on TV they were “gitty” about “shutting down the government,” are not representative of racial progress in America. In fact, this gang of 80 became the intervening variable with calls for “massive resistance” to a law they were the first to label - “Obamacare.”  So the answer to the question about what has change since implementation of Social Security and Medicare is rather obvious:  RACE! The battle was no longer just between Republicans and Democrats but between a Black president and a growing number of Republicans who couldn't see beyond his race.

Using a campaign of confusion and misinformation, this gang of 80 pushed a different kind of ideological agenda, one reminiscent of the civil rights struggle in the 1960s. Instead of compromise and conversations, the new strategy became to kill the Affordable Care Act by any means necessary!  According to media, reports, the gang of 80 comes from Gerrymandered districts, deliberately consisting of mostly white, conservative, anti-government constituents who already believe shutting down the government is in the public interest.

But there's a problem because there's a growing perception that Republicans are not sharing the pain of the American people. Even if the GOP did actually believe that furloughed federal workers would not suffer and that downsizing government is good for the economy, the gang of 80’s insistence on using the federal budget to defeat health care reform was not the a smart strategy; it has, in fact, paved the way for what is likely to be a massive implosion within the Republican Party.

In sociology we call the gang of 80’s style of thinking: cognitive dissonance. The phrase means something more than contradictions; it represents the holding on to two opposing ideas at the same time.  Such a paradox is apparent when the very group that depicts itself as “patriots” or protectors of freedoms, also attempt to limit freedoms by dismantling the government that produced the freedoms or tampering with the freedoms of those who might benefit from a democratically passed law, such as the Affordable Care Act (ACA)

Hence, by linking non-budget (health reform) and budget issues (government funding), the GOP ended up holding Americans and the economy hostage. Even if the gang of 80 had decided to tie  representation for the District of Columbia in Congress to not funding the federal government, the results would still be the same:  distracting, insane, unpopular, and un-American.

So what exactly does the shutdown of government accomplish for the Republican Party? Not much.  The majority of Americans (72%) did not support holding the ACA hostage strategy. Carrying out such a scheme for a narrow-minded, racially-identifiable group of constituents demonstrates the extent to which the GOP does not and will not represent a diversity-changed America.  But the most extraordinary result of the Republican Party’s success in "slimming down" the federal government is the extent to which the President of the United States won.

On October 1, 2013, President Barack Obama accomplished what no other president was able to do over a 100 year period – reform the nation’s health care system.  The implementation of the law passed by Congress in 2010 marked a stunning victory for a president and the American people. That Mr. Obama was able to do so with the full support of those who had historically opposed such change - physicians, insurance companies, and businesses – is nothing short of revolutionary.  That an African-American president will go down in history for the Affordable Care Act, in spite of ongoing incipient racist efforts to defeat it, reflects a significant turning point and singular achievement in the 21st century.  And finally, like the great social and economic changes, opposed by many Republicans in the past - Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid - OBAMACARE is already showing signs it is going to work in the long-run.  

No wonder some people nearly went crazy trying to defeat Obama's potentially historical accomplishment.  In the end, it can be argued that the ideological or "hard" wing of the GOP lost the battle both on the economic and social fronts.  Check and checkmate!  Putting political egos ahead of the needs of most Americans, especially in the age of social media, is not play well around the country. That shot heard around the country on September 30 turns out to be an injury to the foot/base of the Republican Party.  As William Shakespeare would say... it merely amounted to a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing, as the GOP hobbles along more slowly in a nation its makeup doesn't reflect.  The question now is how long before the GOP explodes within.

Look for the orchestrated government shutdown to be like a 72-hour hold on a mental ward, Given the impotent results, there's no reason to keep it going past three days or Thursday, October 3, 2013. After all, governing by default or organized chaos is not usually a winning strategy. The American people deserve better.  Did someone forget to tell the gang of 80 that we are the government!