In a struggling state when it comes to caring for adults with severe mental illness, weekly online discussions offer a call to rest and change.
Denver — I asked to see and hear.
one hour. No notes. I don’t have a camera. No recording. I just wanted to ask.
An hour later, after hearing personal stories from parent to parent, it was clear. No matter what politicians, bureaucrats, and others think they are doing to address the state of the state’s mental health care system, it is not enough for these parents of children with severe mental illness.
The system, or at least what passes for the system, is broken in both serious and mundane ways, they say.
That day, I asked if I could return to their weekly Zoom call, but this time with off-the-record talk in mind. That’s what my parents said.
I have agreed to use first names for all but one of my parents. Colorado Rep. Judy Amabil, D-Boulder, was an exception.
“None of these parents can help their children,” she said. “So yeah, I feel like that’s why I’m here. To work on it.”
She also has an adult son who is severely mentally handicapped.
“He got his first break when he was 18,” she said. “I didn’t know what was going on.”
One day, while the two were driving US 36, he tried to get out of the car. Another day she took him to her local ER.
“They told me, ‘You better go home. Right now, there’s no one to appreciate him,'” she said.
Every Wednesday at noon, parents with similar stories join us on a Zoom call to talk and discuss the “system” they know.
when mental health america We collected data for all 50 states in the annual ranking, and no state performed as badly as Colorado.
Sylvia, the parent of a son with severe psychosis, explains the impact: Colorado now. ”
Bed space is a common topic in our weekly discussion.
In the mid-1980s, Colorado’s two state mental hospitals had nearly 1,100 beds. If the bed space had increased with population growth, he would now have nearly 2,000 beds, but that is not the case. Combined, Pueblo and Fort Logan have less than 600 of him.
Amabile sponsored the bill during the last legislative session This will bring an additional 125 residential treatment beds, which even she admits isn’t enough.
“I went back to this group and said we passed the bed bill. How daring to come back and say there are 125 beds! It’s such a failure. And of course I know exactly where she came from, she said she needed 1000,” says Amabile of hers.
That leads to stories like Jill. She believes the police have arrested her son her 50th time, which puts her in a permanent state of insecurity.
“It’s very nerve-wracking because you never know when the next crisis will strike, when he’ll hit the streets, or when he’ll be psychotic again,” she said.
There were many other stories like Jill’s. These parents are desperate and in need of real solutions.
“It’s hard. It’s hard,” said Silvia, holding back tears. “What often goes unreported is the mental health of caregivers. It is exhausting, but failure to find a solution is so frustrating that parents have to go through this just to secure care. It’s like being
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