"Hold onto the hope and keep moving forward." Those are the closing words I remember from the last speaker this morning at the NAMI National Convention's education session. All of us in the standing-room-only ballroom were there to honor the various education and support programs that NAMI offers. Consumers, providers, family members and NAMI staffers were invited to offer their stories, and tell how programs like Family-to-Family, NAMI Basics (for families with younger children), In Our Own Voice, Peer-to-Peer and more affected our journeys. Wow. How we all need education. How we all need each other.

Tops in the NY Times this week are reactions to last week's story about Deshawn James Chappell, a man with schizophrenia accused of killing one of his caregivers in Massachusetts.  There are those (like our family this week, with Ben back in the hospital after six years of success) who experience first-hand how a cutback in services (to save a penny in the budget) can result in a much-more-costly hospital stay, and the necessity to  repeat recovery steps that had worked before. This doesn't even address the human cost. Still, how much worse when the outcome is a horrifying tragedy like the one in reported in the Times; one that many agree could, and should, have been prevented by proper care. Among the points made in the reactions: From a letter signed by John Olham, President of the American Psychiatric Association : "only a very small percentage of people who live with schizophrenia ever become violent, and then it is usually when the treatment system fails them and they discontinue their medications. " Marilyn and Edwin Andrews of Massachusetts wrote: "When politicians try to balance serious budget problems on the most vulnerable among us, we all pay the consequences. The mentally ill may not have the influence of the wealthy or the cachet of popular programs, but they most certainly need comprehensive, decent care. " Solutions? Better care, managed well, can prevent so much relapse.

It feels like we stepped into a time machine and it's 2005 once again .  That was the last time Ben was admitted to the psych ward in this hospital. And now, we're back.  I've gone from stone-faced shock (Friday) to tears of helplessness and grief (Saturday), to a determination to enjoy Fathers' Day despite the fact that Ben can't be with us (today). And now, with all distractions gone, it's early in the morning and I can't sleep.  My head is spinning with all I must do tomorrow to try and bring Ben back to life again. If I can. Logic tells me that my control is limited at best: this is Ben's journey, these are Ben's decisions. He has somehow managed to stop taking his meds again, and now it's as if the past six years of success - college classes, increased responsibility, full participation in family, and finally employment - are all in jeopardy. But the mother in me is absolutely livid.

The New York Times Book Review article is entitled: The Epidemic of Mental Illness: Why? (June 23, 2011, Marcia Angell) This is the first of two parts, reviewing several books which plan to explode the belief that mental illness is caused by chemical imbalance in the brain. Instead, these books claim, the imbalance of neurotransmitter levels in the brain only appear after psychiatric medications have been administered. They point to the standards allowed by the FDA which permit drug companies to get approval for new medications, as long as they have proof of two studies showing a positive effect - no matter how many studies also were made, showing no improvement at all vs. placebo. Okay. I'll bite. But as further evidence that new drugs are "creating" more mental illness symptoms than curing them, the article states that Robert Whitaker, author of Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America, contends that, in the past: "conditions such as schizophrenia and depression were once mainly self-limited or episodic, with each episode usually lasting no more than six months and interspersed with long periods of normalcy" Really? I mean, come on. Listen, all I can go by is my own son, and the illness I witnessed as it slowly developed, progressed, and took hold.

I have a big speech to give in two days. Fellowship Place in New Haven, CT, whose mission is to “help adults with mental illness lead more meaningful, fulfilling and healthy lives by offering resources, education, and opportunities,” has asked me to be their keynote speaker for their Eighth Annual Dr. Albert Solnit Memorial Lecture. This is not so much a fundraiser as it is an awareness-raiser, and I want to do justice to that purpose as I prepare my part of the evening, an hour-long “Conversation with the Author of Ben Behind His Voices.” My problem: how to tell our family’s story, and Ben’s story through our eyes, in a way that will raise awareness? And while I blog often about our current issues as Ben struggles through recovery, for this presentation I need to go back to the early years of his illness to set the stage for the conversation.