Clark County mothers fight for mentally ill children
ColumbianJan 27, 2019
Calvin, then 21, jumped off the Interstate 5 Bridge into the
He was previously diagnosed with bipolar I disorder. Before he jumped, he had been incarcerated for months at the
He was once an honor student and member of the debate team at
Calvin left college after suffering symptoms of a suspected mental illness. His life since then has been characterized as a roller-coaster ride of hospital stays, mental health clinic visits and run-ins with the criminal justice system.
"I had to really grieve the loss of the vision that I had for my son,"
The Clarks' story is just one of many for
Although it's been a long and arduous journey for Clark and her son, their fight is really just beginning.
Since discovering, firsthand, the state's troubled mental health system, Clark, 53, has become an advocate for improving care for people with serious mental illness. She leads the advocacy group Mothers of the Mentally Ill, more simply known as MOMI, which is working closing with Gov.
"It's almost like my son had to fall through most of the cracks to get the whole picture of the problem," Clark said.
To get here, Clark said she realized she had to be the change. She's spent 20 years studying yogic dharma -- the life's purpose or calling -- and said she can't deny that this is hers.
"I believe when things happen, you either answer a calling or you don't, and if you don't, you'll always feel a little out of sync with your life," she said tearfully during an
Calvin's crisis
Calvin was arrested in
Calvin was transferred to a facility in
The hospital released Calvin prematurely, Clark said, and he was still psychotic and dangerous. He needed emergency services when he returned home, but Clark was told that her only option was to take him to an emergency room or call 911. She called for help; but, because of his warrant, police took him to jail rather than diverting him to a hospital.
"That's the part that just blows my mind. The criminal charge is always going to trump a civil service," Clark told The Columbian in a
The next few months would prove to be nothing short of a nightmare for Clark and her son.
"It's really hard to advocate from the outside when your ill family member is a legal adult. There's not a lot of provision in the law. It's a whole string of laws and local policies that get in the way of everyone's good sense and judgment," she said.
"It felt very shaming, and I knew that's not where my son belonged and that the system was malfunctioning badly," Clark said of visiting her son in jail.
A District Court judge ordered that Calvin be sent to
Clark bailed him out in
"I thought getting him in would mean he would be treated for his illness in a more comprehensive way," Clark said. "Instead, he came out of a (nearly) two-month incarceration and two weeks in the hospital no more stable or well than he was before."
Then, the day after Calvin's case was dropped, Clark was hosting a Bunco party for a dozen friends when Calvin locked her and her husband out of the house. They called 911, believing he was an imminent threat. Her husband, not wanting to wait for police, intervened, and an altercation ensued. By the time police arrived, they misread what was happening, Clark said, and they arrested her husband on suspicion of domestic violence assault. Police refused to recommend a psychiatric hold for her son, she said.
The next morning, Clark got a call that Calvin was picked up by police, threatening to kill himself. He was involuntarily committed for five days before being dropped off at the men's homeless shelter Share House in downtown
Since then, Calvin has told his mother he didn't want to die. "He just wanted help, and he can't believe that's what it took," Clark said.
Her husband's case was dismissed months later, after her interview with attorneys. She said the responding officers' lack of training nearly destroyed her family.
"This is why (Involuntary Treatment Act) laws need to change," Clark said. "Families are supposed to wait until they're attacked?"
Mothers of the Mentally Ill
Clark's frustration with the system and a need for a supportive community led her to the
"All of our stories are pretty bizarre; but in a way, it normalizes the bizarre," she said in a
It was at a NAMI fundraiser where
O'Connor's son,
Her son, too, has been jailed for various crimes, one of which gained media attention after police say he called a 14-year-old boy a racial slur, punched him several times and threatened to stab him. He later pleaded guilty to harassment and fourth-degree assault, court records show.
O'Connor said her son was unstable and hearing voices at the time of the incident. "Can you imagine? You're hearing voices in your head, and now you're in jail," she said. "Jail is the worst place for them."
"One of the things about mental illness is we need to start treating it like a medical condition, because it is the brain that's inflamed," O'Connor said.
She said our society doesn't know enough about serious mental illness and said the subject is taboo.
"Parents can't be responsible for intensive case management and housing and medication decisions. It's too much, and we don't have the training. We can't possibly have that training to fulfill that role," Clark said.
When Clark's son was arrested again in
Clark was trying to figure out who should be held responsible if her son died in jail and decided it would be Inslee. She called his office and requested a meeting. She was told to fill out a form online. The form asked if she was part of a group, because if she was, she'd likely get a meeting sooner. That's when the idea of MOMI manifested. Clark started calling friends, including O'Connor, and asked them if they'd join her group. It took off from there.
She created a Facebook page for the group and has been flooded with requests from people to participate, receiving calls from all over the country.
In June, MOMI arranged to meet with Inslee's policy adviser on mental health to discuss concerns and ideas for improvements in the system. The day before its meeting, Inslee held a press conference to talk about the decertification of
MOMI proposes: reforming or replacing the Involuntary Treatment Act, which allows for an individual to be committed to a mental health facility against their will for a limited time period; funding Program of Assertive Community Treatment, an integrated community-based treatment, rehabilitation and support services model; funding supportive housing and inpatient beds; and administering the Mental Health Advance Directive, a legal document that outlines a person's wishes about what types of treatment and services they want during a mental health crisis.
"Mental health is such a broad topic, and we just have silos being worked on. We can't have one function without the others," Clark said.
Since that meeting, MOMI has hosted several community forums about mental illness -- discussing how the group believes failures by the state government have put people who are severely mentally ill in a position where their most likely outcomes are homelessness, incarceration or death -- and a roundtable, where legislators attended.
"The best thing NAMI can do is get community members interested in helping to fix things to make it better for people who have severe mental illnesses. They can tell the stories much better than an organization can. They're the ones who are going to make the changes," McCarthy said of MOMI.
'I see now what's possible'
Clark said she feels like Inslee and state lawmakers are listening.
In December, she spoke during Inslee's unveiling of his proposal to reshape the state's mental health care system at the Navos treatment facility in
Clark told the subcommittee that current ITA law traps people in an "illness state" so the only way out is through violence. Her son didn't meet the criteria for treatment until he attempted suicide, and when he was incarcerated on a felony.
"He has told me that the ITA did not protect his liberty, but instead, guaranteed he would lose all his civil rights, locked in jail and isolated from his family," Clark testified. "My son has cycled through a dozen involuntary commitments, each required him to lose almost everything before he qualified for help and then provided the most minimal care -- three of them dumped him into homelessness. After each short stay, he's been arrested or rehospitalized immediately at higher cost and with a worst prognosis."
She implored the subcommittee to amend the law so that violence isn't required for treatment and hospital stays are long enough for recovery.
While Clark pushes for change through MOMI, her son, for the last six months, has found some stability.
Calvin is at
"I see now what's possible," Clark said, adding that she believes her son is being treated with dignity and respect. "I think as he recovers from these really, really rough experiences he's had, they will direct him toward his own dharma."
___
(c)2019 The Columbian (Vancouver, Wash.)
Visit The Columbian (Vancouver, Wash.) at www.columbian.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.