
Why Can’t Virginia Explain How Jamycheal Mitchell Starved to Death in Jail? - jseliger
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2016/05/what_happened_to_jamycheal_mitchell.html
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tcj_phx
Crazy people are hard to deal with. The mental health profession doesn't
really care why people are in its care, it just treats the symptoms with FDA-
approved drugs. Because the patients never get better, there is an ever-
expanding need for beds at treatment facilities.

Robert Whitaker's _Anatomy of an Epidemic_ [1] investigates why "the number of
disabled mentally ill in the United States _tripled_ over the past two
decades," in spite of all the new drugs that are now available.

[1]
[http://www.madinamerica.com/product/62043/](http://www.madinamerica.com/product/62043/)

My girlfriend says she'd rather go to jail, than to another mental hospital.
She's started to recover from her "mental health hell". With the help of the
firefighters, she was able to switch to using the anti-anxiety drug "as
needed" \- the professionals at her 5th mental hospital stay had forced her to
get addicted to this drug. She was good for about 2 weeks, then resumed
drinking and self-medicating for her depression.

The 6th mental hospital didn't care that she'd been drinking, they just
assumed that their patient was delusional because she'd stopped taking her
anti-psychotic. After a week at their facility she was still delusional, in
spite of their injections. I was surprised they released her - I was certain
she was going to the state mental hospital. _(Now that I think about it, after
reading this article, I bet there wasn 't a bed available...)_

She called me the day after she'd been released to a "friend's" apartment (I
was staying with family, 2 hours away)... Could I pick her up? Her friend had
tricked her into buying bus tickets to California; she'd ditched him in Las
Vegas. Five hours later I found her at the 7-11 she said she'd be at.

By this point I'd obtained more of the drug that she actually needed (very
similar to what the firefighters had provided), and she started to calm down.
"Feeling safe" is very important for optimizing a person's mental health.

When she missed her appointment the next day, they issued an arrest warrant.
The next Monday she checked in to my county's local mental health system. A
week after being released, the psychiatric nurse wanted to keep her on the
anti-psychotic that the previous places had forced her to take, but someone
neglected to pre-authorize the injection.

After another two weeks had passed, they started calling to have her come in
for her shot, which she avoided. We talked to her case manager, and he talked
to the psychiatry team. When she went to her medication-review appointment the
following week, the psychiatric nurse didn't see any need to re-start the
anti-psychotics, as the patient was NOT psychotic in spite of being off the
drug for a month, and agreed to the anti-depressant that my girlfriend wanted
all along. (This is not to imply that I think the anti-depressant is going to
help, I just acknowledge that the patient's complaints are actually being
listened to.)

Her medical cannabis card should arrive in a few weeks... I am optimistic that
this "herb" will be the right "crutch" to get her to be much more stable.

edit: typo & clarifications

