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NAMI Wake CountyThe IrisPage 3Schizophrenic. Killer. My Cousin.By Mac McClellandMother Jones, May/June t’s insanity to kill your father with a kitchen knife. It’salso insanity to close hospitals, fire therapists and leavefamilies to face mental illness on their own.“’None of us are suggesting that we need to go backto 1930, when I as a psychiatrist could say, ‘I don’t likethe sound of your voice, so I’m going to keep you in myfacility that I also happen to own for three weeks.’ Youhave to have a system of checks and balances.’“But the pendulum has swung far past patients’ rightsand well into the territory of wild neglect. The dismantlingof the mental-health system has left those willing toundergo treatment with no options, and rendered thelaws to protect against dangerous scenarios ineffective.‘Danger to self or others is defined too limitedly,’ (Dr. E.Fuller) Torrey says. ‘(Y)ou either have to be trying to killyour psychiatrist or trying to kill yourself in front of yourpsychiatrist.’ Some states have less-strict provisions, buteven there, no open beds plus the expense of keepingsomeone in the beds equals admission standards that aretoo high and discharge standards that are too low.“Regardless of what you think about commitment rules,the bottom line is you have to have facilities. If there hadbeen a facility—not ‘a psych ward in a general hospitalwhich is set up to see people with eating disorders anddepression,’ Torrey says, but a clinic staffed with theappropriate kinds of professionals and with an open bedand antipsychotics that have proven to be extremelyeffective if properly administered— if my Uncle Markcould have taken Houston someplace like that—maybecrimes like Houston’s could be not just predictable, butpreventable.”In ‘no-man’s land,’the mentally ill pile up in NC jailsby By Craig Jarvis — cjarvis@newsobserver.comAll his mother wanted to do was get help for her son. If he resumedtaking his medications for bipolar disorder, he could get back on track.But the police, who she hoped would take James Franklin Taylor Jr.to a crisis treatment center, instead booked him into the Wake Countyjail on assault charges. He has now been there for more than threemonths, refusing to take his medications or to even talk to anyone ashe deteriorates into incoherence with no clear path out of jail.That’s not the way it’s supposed to work, but Taylor’s situation is notunique. North Carolina’s county jails hold thousands of mentally illinmates, some of them waiting for weeks or months to be evaluated ortreated.This is not just a problem in North Carolina. Over the past severaldecades across the country, patients who were phased out of largeinstitutions so they could be treated in their communities found therewasn’t enough help. Without treatment, many ran afoul of the law andthen tumbled into a nightmare of compounding problems.Nationally, studies estimate between 15 and 20 percent of jail andprison inmates have a serious mental illness.In North Carolina, that translates to roughly 5,500 in prison and anestimated 3,400 people languishing in jails that were built to holdthose charged with crimes for only a short time, all of them withschizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other illnesses. To compare, thestate has 850 beds in its mental hospitals.“This has become a very, very common occurrence,” said AdamAdams, a psychotherapist who evaluates jail inmates in Wake County.“They sit in jail for months, sometimes on a very minor offense. Jailhas become the largest mental institution in the state.”For the past two decades, police across the country have beenlearning special techniques in handling the mentally disturbed througha concept called crisis intervention team training. Raleigh police haveembraced the concept and have trained about 150 officers. That’s 19percent of the department; mental health advocates would like to seeit closer to 25 percent.Gerry Akland, president of the Wake County chapter of the NationalAlliance on Mental Illness, has trained police in that method. He saidit’s difficult to second-guess how an officer handles a confrontation likethat, and officers have broad discretion. But, he said, training needsto improve to give them a better sense of situations such as Taylor’s,where they have to decide whether to ignore a crime in order to divertsomeone from jail. “So far, the training has not gone into that kindof depth,” Akland said. “Those are tough things for an officer to dealwith.”Read the entire article at the following 0/in-no-mans-landthe-mentally-ill.html

NAMI Wake CountyThe IrisPage 4A Visit to Dix HillOn Saturday, May 4th, my husband, David and I walked in 2013 NAMIWalk on the campus of Dorothea Dix Hospital. NAMI is a grassrootsadvocacy organization founded by family members of persons withschizophrenia in the 1970s. These family members came togetherto advocate for better care of their relatives, and for mental healthprofessionals to stop blaming families for causing schizophrenia. Today,NAMI is the one of the largest mental health advocacy groups in the US,with national and state offices, and local groups that vary in the intensityof their grassroots work. Their focus is much broader than schizophreniathese days.I walked with a team from the UNC School of Social Work, and raninto lots of friends, as I’ve been in the mental health field in NC for thepast twenty years. I saw kindred spirits from NAMI Wake, Gerry andAnn Akland, and Louise Jordan, and my friends from NAMI Orange,Lisa Hamill, and Barbara and Gove Elder. Barbara and Gove are alsoactive with Faith Connections, and are working with faith communitiesto be more inclusive of persons with mental illness. I walked with formerclients, and with Club Nova members.The Dorothea Dix Hospital, originally called Dix Hill, was created throughthe advocacy work of one woman: Dorothea Dix. Starting in the 1840s,she crusaded across the US for moral treatment of the insane, creatingreports on how they were inhumanely housed in prisons and poorhouses,and was successful in getting state legislatures to make land grants tocreate state hospitals. In the early days, the state hospitals in NC werefull communities -- with working farms growing food to feed the patients,and patients working in the facilities on the grounds.wayside in NC. The headline in the Raleigh News and Observer thismorning is about the increasing number of the mentally ill in jails. Theyland there for minor offenses, don’t get proper treatment, and get worse,not better.In No Man’s Land: The Mentally IllBefore we left the grounds, David and I knew that a visit to Dix Hillwouldn’t be complete without a stop at the Dix Cemetery. Starting in1859, patients who died were buried on a lovely hillside. If they had nofamily, they got a plaque. There were long rows of these small plaques.Some were visible, some were not. Were they buried beneath the grass,or had they been removed? We saw dates that spanned a hundred years.If there was someone who loved you, you might have a monument -- wesaw two honoring mothers.Dave and I enjoyed our day -- we had fun with friends, raised money fora good cause, and we visited ghosts who constantly remind me of whyI do what I do.Ms. Dix, we still have a long way to go. Whatever happens with thisbeautiful land in Raleigh, I hope we won’t forget your vision of humanecare for persons with mental illness, and that your spirit will stay aroundto sustain us.The history of Dorothea Dix HospitalAt the end of her life, Dorothea Dix was dissatisfied with her progresstoward improving the care of the mentally ill. There was a significanthistorical event that may have gotten in the way: the Civil War. Duringthose years, she shifted her care to nursing the war wounded.The Dix campus is currently in the news -- it’s a beautiful piece of landwith rolling hills, expanses of green, and lovely trees. The hospital closedlast year as part of the state plan to shift care from the state hospitalsto local communities. The empty forensic unit building looks grim withits fences topped by barbed wire, but the cottages with stone fronts arelovely. And many state workers in the NC Department of Health andHuman Services still work in buildings on the grounds.What will become of Dix Hill? The city of Raleigh, and a group ofprominent citizens called the Dix Visionaries, foresee a city park alongthe lines of NYC’s Central Park. In her last days in office, Gov. Perduesigned a contract with the City of Raleigh to lease the land for a park.But, the Republican legislature is challenging the deal.Dix Legacy ParkWhatever the outcome for the land, the vision that Dorothea Dix hadfor humane care of the mentally ill seems to have been thrown to theby Bebe SmithBebe Smith

NAMI Wake CountyThe IrisPage 5Friends, family say Raleigh man who died after Tasing incident battledPTSD after Gulf WarBy Thomasi McDonald — tmcdonald@newsobserver.comRALEIGH — Thomas “Tommy” Sadler emerged in the public spotlighton April 10 as a naked man yelling obscenities in a church parking lotjust before he died after a Raleigh police officer used a Taser stun gunto try to subdue him.“He would be back over there in his mind,” Lynn Sadler said. “Hewould relive those things.” The couple separated and divorced in2007. Tommy Sadler moved to North Carolina, and Lynn Sadlermoved into the new home they had built.Stan Williams, Sadler’s morning coffee drinking buddy, recognizes thatpart of his friend. “He had anger issues,” Williams said of Sadler. “Itwas like a temper tantrum lived under his skin, ready to explode at anymoment, like Tourette’s syndrome. It just comes.”“I loved him, but we weren’t able to have a healthy relationshipanymore,” she said. “Even my best friend loved him. She bawled hereyes out when she heard about the divorce. He told funny stories andalways had lots of interesting things to talk about. He was witty andhad a very creative mind.”But Williams also remembers a guy who loved his parents anddaydreamed of owning a silver, 1969 Plymouth GTX with a burgundyinterior. Williams said casual conversations at their favorite coffeeshop on Hillsborough Street would often turn serious when Sadlerasked him how to better communicate with his live-in girlfriend or howto tell his son he loved him. “He was just a big, fat country boy wholoved his Mommy and Daddy,” said Williams, 50, of Raleigh. “He waslike a little kid in a 45 year old’s body.”During his encounter with police, Sadler collapsed in the middle ofthe street, about 50 yards from the home he rented on Mial Street inthe Five Points neighborhood, and was pronounced dead. The StateBureau of Investigation is reviewing the incident. The results of anautopsy to determine how Sadler died have not been released.Thomas Jeffrey Sadler grew up in the small town of Powhatan, Va.,west of Richmond. After high school, he enlisted in the U.S. Marinesand saw combat during the Gulf War, according to his ex-wife, LynnSadler.After his military discharge, Sadler briefly attended two small collegesin Virginia but left school and was invited to try out as a linebackerwith the Cleveland Browns and Green Bay Packers, Lynn Sadler said.She said her former husband’s dreams of a pro football career werequashed after he injured his knee.Instead, he enrolled at George Mason University in Northern Virginiaand majored in sociology. Lynn Sadler was studying nursing atShenandoah University. A cousin of hers introduced them. “We fell inlove immediately and became the best of friends,” she said.The Sadlers graduated in the spring of 1998 and married later thatyear. Their only child, Thomas James “TJ” Sadler, is now 12. Thecouple purchased a townhome in a new subdivision in Bristow, Va.,southwest of Washington, D.C. Tommy Sadler worked in portfoliomanagement for a private company, while his wife worked as a nurse.“He was making bank,” Lynn Sadler said. “It was well over 100,000.”Lynn Sadler said she and her former husband were building a newhome when things started to go downhill. “He changed,” she said.“He was irritable, unsettled, and he just couldn’t seem to find his nicheanymore and instead of laughing we were having more arguments.”Tommy Sadler was also having nightmares about the Gulf War.Lynn Sadler said her former husband was diagnosed with posttraumatic stress syndrome while living in North Carolina. Sheremain

have a psychiatric unit--they will determine whether you need to be transferred to a psychiatric hospital/unit and, if so, will find a bed. Another option in Wake County is the Wakebrook Crisis and Assessment Center, operated by UNC Healthcare, which focuses just on behavioral healthca