Several Broken Systems. Schizoaffective Disorder, Felonies, And Finding the Answers.

 

Part one of a monstrous tale of several broken systems designed to cause suffering.  

The broken criminal justice system is so terrible but I might just survive it. I have been charged with three felonies and supposedly I owe the state of Arizona 78,000 dollars.  I had Covid twice this year, 2021.  It has been a tough year and I was feeling better when I got the summons to appear in court. 

My son has schizoaffective disorder, and he was diagnosed when he was 17 years old. He is now a middle-aged adult.  We remember receiving two checks every month for disability.   Then in 2012 there was a review of his disability case.

Just sit right back and I will tell a tale about the Mental Health System and how it doesn't work and never did.  It is a long story, but a judge decided unfavorably against continuing payments.  Schizoaffective disorder does not have a cure or a magic pill.   The prognosis in not good.  This did not prevent this adjudication judge from deciding that my son was good enough and could work.  This judgement was appealed and then remanded back to the judge.  Church Falls Headquarters also stated that my son should resume getting his disability payments.  Another judge heard this case and decided that if my son would be consistent with his medication, he could find suitable employment.  The judge was not a doctor, but he was allowed to weigh in with expert medical advice.  In 2014 my son decided to take his own life and was on life support for 2 weeks.  He felt the judge should have heard him and believed him.  He had no money and hated to continually ask me for some cash.  He felt like the lowest of the low without a job or money of his own, and he was an adult.   My son is doing great now.  It took me wising up and being aggressive with the mental health system.

It happens all the time. The disfunction of the mental health system is growing daily.  There is a book called Mad in America by Robert Whitaker and it is a must read for families with loved ones in the horrible and ineffective mental health system. It should be a must read in college especially for social workers and psychologists.  In the book Mad in America Robert tells wonderful stories of the Mentally Ill recovering and receiving good food and being treated with kindness.  The first home for curing mentally ill patients started in America and was successful.  Then there seemed to be a push to eliminate the mentally ill.  Starving, beating, and lobotomies were the new reality. The Nazi's gassed the mentally ill as well had those with deformities and handicaps.  The idea of eugenics was coming back to America and the most horrible situations developed during the great depression.   The USA Banks were robust and thriving before 1913.  The Federal Reserve took over and they were a group of bankers from Europe.  They caused a crash and great poverty happened.  My Mom lived through that time.  The school system was better for her and my aunt that it is now.  I don't think Eugenics ever left us.  Kids and Families were devalued.  Some groups of people were devalued.  And the creation of Big Pharma and the side effects of medication spread to the area of psychiatry.   For the next century the message was to take your medication and shut up about the side effects.  But the side effects are killing your brain and if you try and stop them, especially abruptly, you will become unstable and probably try to kill yourself.  There are other therapies, but, you won't hear about them, and your loved ones will not receive them. Like I said,  get the whole story,  read Mad in America,  and read it quick. That is my earnest suggestion.  

The disaster of the medical health system is next on the list of nightmares. During the upheaval with my son’s case and the lack of money we were experiencing, I started passing out and hitting the ground.  I would wake up convulsing and shaking.  I had no medical insurance, but I knew that the ER would see me no matter what.   The ER or Emergency Hospital could not decide how to treat me for this condition.  The problem was in the tests used.   Standard blood tests did not test for toxic black mold or Stachybotrys chartarum.  Most environmental toxins are not tested for in the emergency room.  I was close to death.  I could not continue working and my son’s money stopped. I was using up the little bit of savings I had.  Curious and observant me, I noticed that black mold was sprouting in the cracks of my damp bedroom wall.  I write about this in a blog I called Surviving Black mold.   I had just enough money to grab what I could and drive back to Phoenix to stay with a friend on her couch.  I drank green smoothies.  I did get better.  It took several years but I survived.  Many people don’t survive.  I ran across an article that said Brittany Murphy and her husband died due to Stachybotrys chartarum.  Louis Gossett Jr said that he almost died from toxic black mold in his Beverly Hills home.  Veterinarians find that pets die from toxic mold.  Toxic Mold is a killer.  I just don’t remember the older relatives mentioning it taking lives 100 years ago.  It is associated with “sick buildings” Bad construction materials and poor enforcement of laws that serves humans.  It is a sign of the times.  

I have been speaking about broken systems. The amount of disability income has not gone up very much in the past 20 years.  In Phoenix a two bed room apartment is about 1200 dollars.  The monthly amount of disability is now at 750 to 800.  Single moms cannot afford to live.   They are doing unspeakable things sometimes to survive.  Sometimes families are doubling up and grandparents raise the kids.  What happens when there is no family.  Either they just don't exist or they refuse to help?  We had a little bit of both scenarios.    

My son needed a stable environment to survive his increasing stress.  Schizoaffective disordered people need structure and stability to endure and cope and not be hospitalized.   I would work for a few months.  Usually, I worked part time and then I would become very ill and have to quit.  I had another social security number and used that one to start getting early retirement.  It all looks like I had devised a fraudulent scheme but it was not working for me and it was not a get rich quick scheme.  My only goal was to stay alive and help my son not go into a manic psychotic episode. Sometimes he just had conversations with invisible people. He would string up Christmas Tree lights all over his room and he believed it was a communication devise. Sometimes it was more serious and life threatening. My son would become so removed from reality he would venture out of the home and be gone for days.  One time he took the only car we had and drove it until it ran out of gas. He did not have a phone or a wallet.  He was walking toward the Grand Canyon when a policeman found him.  He said his friend (imaginary) told him a space ship would pick him up in the Grand Canyon.  Another lost adventure kept me praying for days.  His brother found him walking backwards in a track field.  He was just exhausted and dehydrated.  There are more stories, however some of the stories embarrass my son when he is back to his baseline.  He realizes now that he needs some back up plans to survive.  There are times that he has given his wallet away to strangers.  All of his I.D.s are then missing.  That is the worst part of Schizoaffective disorder diagnosed people. 

There is a fantastic story called “Fancy Toast and a Coffee Shop Called Trouble”.  The owner of the coffee shop suffered from schizoaffective disorder.  She would often get lost and did not know who she was.  I believe she had her name and address tattooed on her arm.   Click here for the location and back story of her shop.  Trouble Coffee Shop. 

The Legal System is a joke.  

It would be hard to win my legal case but the public defender is angry that I will not settle for the plea bargain.  Before this year I never had anything on my record.  There were no convictions.  Not even a traffic ticket for speeding.  But overnight a big mistake happened.  The investigation had many errors in it.  

Going back to the black mold and when one is dying, I reapplied for disability but they kept denying my case.  I wanted to live for my sake, my son’s sake and all the people I care abouts sake. I had another Social Security number It was obtained in 1987 when I was escaping a man who tried to kill me.  I did escape and I remained in Flagstaff where I decided to go back to college.  Usually I would use which ever of the two cards had the best credit score.   Having two Social Security numbers is not illegal.  It depends on how you use them and for what purpose.  I had a son who was hospitalized and I used my second card to apply for early retirement.  It is a messy and complicated story.  It went unnoticed until I mentioned it to our social security office.  I wanted to straighten up this mess.  That is when I ran into huge obstacles.  Someone has to be a criminal or a felon.  The system demands that you can't have been in a situation where you were dying and totally had to do something about it.  That is so wrong.  

I have met the right attorney and I believe my case is winnable and better yet dismissible.  This will become another one of those stories and life will go on.  

There will be a part two of this story.    I am going to be encouraging people to elevate and change some systems.  I have chosen the mental health system to work on.  It seems like NAMI used to be a force to reckon with.  They were powerful at one time.  I think they may have become co-opted.  Anyway.  

More to come.