From Jerri, a Washington parent
My transition age son’s psychosis spiraled out of control in our home in the months leading up to his first serious suicide attempt by jumping from the I-5 bridge in the raging winter Columbia River.
He was deeply paranoid about being poisoned and stopped eating/drinking at times, but crisis response explained that didn’t meet criteria for any intervention. He burned things in the house, threatened to remove us from our own home, screamed into the night from our backyard deck.
All of those behaviors represented a brain attack—a psychotic episode that causes brain damage and worsens a person’s opportunities for recovery into the future if left untreated. None of those severe symptoms or behaviors elicited any help for him or our family. Instead, the system waited until he jumped off a bridge. His instincts saved him because he was an excellent swimmer.
A psychiatric facility treated him for less than a week, not nearly long enough to stabilize his symptoms, and offered our family nothing to help us better understand his severe mental illness condition or how we might support him post-discharge. That incident was the reason our family had to let him disappear into the world, without our home as a base for support, because there was nothing offered to help us keep him or ourselves safe.
He ended up cycling through the typical churn of homelessness, incarcerations, and additional suicide attempts before he succeeded in taking his own life when he was 23. Early intervention was not only unavailable but actively withheld on the premise that he wasn’t sick enough for anyone to care until he was nearly dead, a criminal, or all the way dead.
I want people that develop policies and programs to understand that some people will always develop psychosis and need intensive, high-quality inpatient services from the beginning to offer them a chance for lifelong management of symptoms. Many will immediately experience the common neurological symptom of anosognosia, which blocks self-awareness of illness.
My son’s autonomy was taken from him by psychosis [that ruled] his behaviors until those behaviors killed him. Involuntary early intervention services must be planned as part of the state’s continuum of care, including both inpatient and assisted outpatient treatment options. These intensive services restore autonomy by giving a person a chance to reclaim their grasp on reality.
