Public Comment

I spent yesterday morning in an Oakland courtroom waiting for my 37-year old mentally ill son to appear before a judge for fighting with Berkeley police. He spent four nights in jail and was still in custody with bail set at over $10,000. 

I hadn’t seen Sean for five months, since I finally took out a restraining order to prevent him from coming to my house (usually around midnight) demanding money or to move in with me (my cottage is 900 sq. ft).  

We tried that living arrangement a few years ago and I ended up calling the Oakland Police several times when Sean went into abusive rages. It would take the Oakland PD over three hours to arrive by which time Sean had left the house temporarily. Eventually, I rented him a room elsewhere and changed the locks on my doors. I’ve offered him help to get medical insurance and see a doctor, but Sean has drifted since then and became homeless last year. He kept up his demands for money from me and said if I didn’t help him, I had no reason to be alive. I finally got the restraining order five months ago. 

He insists he’s fine. He’s self-medicating and the street drugs and delay in treatment will just cause more brain damage over time. I don’t believe psych meds always help everyone, but from support groups I’ve been attending for years, I’ve never heard of a patient getting any better without drugs and/or treatment. 

So yesterday, I sat for four hours in a chaotic courtroom until the judge—switching her focus from cases of DUI and petty theft on her left to cases of prisoners-in-custody on her right—called my son’s name. Sean was brought out in prison clothes. 

He looked rough but wasn’t beaten up or comatose, and his nose hadn’t been broken again. He was asking the judge and public defender semi-coherent questions. Watching him showed me how bright and charming he can be when he is desperate. He has a university degree, medical training, and two kids he can’t see because of a restraining order. He’s homeless and can’t keep a job and he still won’t admit to being ill. 

Like so many of the mentally ill, my son has a condition called anosognia or “lack of insight” by which some mechanism or chemistry in the decision-making frontal lobe area won’t allow him to see that there’s something wrong with him. People unfamiliar with the mentally ill, including my son’s estranged father, might call it denial or defiance. This condition of anosognia is often a symptom of schizophrenia. 

Sean is my beloved only child and yet because he is an adult, I can’t get him a diagnosis or treatment without his full cooperation. As the laws stand today, Sean must request treatment (and I would gladly pay for it), or commit a felony to even be psychologically evaluated. My son’s arrest, confinement, and public defense must have cost thousands of dollars. And at this point, I don’t know how many times he’s been arrested. 

Sean can figure out how to apply for and get accepted to nursing school, but he can’t see the one thing that is making his life a living hell--his illness. He will take street drugs with who-knows-what in them, but won’t even consider taking prescribed psychiatric drugs or mood stabilizers (he calls them “crazy pills”) that might make his life manageable and far less dangerous.  

Yesterday Sean was released by the judge on his own recognizance without bail to face another (unknown to me) arrest warrant in San Francisco. After the judge’s order for Sean to return to court in 30 days and Sean’s exit, the public defender approached me. It was clear from my tears and our resemblance that I’m Sean’s mother. 

The first thing the attorney told me was “My client won’t give me permission to speak to you.” 

I told him that my son is mentally ill and needs help and the attorney nodded, but said there was nothing he or I can do without his client’s permission. 

I asked “So he’ll just keep getting arrested?”  

He said yes, probably, and that he saw this kind of thing a lot. I asked about having Sean committed via the 5150 law and he said that is a long way away from where Sean is now. In short, Sean would have to commit a serious crime to be arrested, evaluated, and then (maybe) committed for psychiatric treatment. 

And there is nothing I can do. At least my son is alive, and as long as he’s alive, there’s hope. What I can do is tell my story and listen to the thousands of other family members going through this hell.  

If the current laws are unjust, we must change these laws. By failing to change the laws, county mental health directors are transferring the seriously mentally ill to jails, prisons, shelters, and morgues.  

This could be your child someday.