Yes. It was the way he ended up getting diagnosed and medicated. When he had his psychotic break I called 911 3 times in about 48 hours. I was given the standard "Unless he is a danger to himself or others...." routine. I called behavioral health and they wanted me to get him to come in "voluntarily." The man was speaking in word salad. He couldn't walk to the bathroom without changing his mind. There was no way in the world that I was going to be able to get him in the car, along with my 15 month old baby, unblockade the gate he had blockaded on our driveway, and be able to drive him to behavioral health. It wasn't until he drug me outside, naked, in the middle of the night and put me in a choke hold i.e. assaulted me, that I was able to get "help."
Even though I had told the police I thought he had some kind of psychotic break or something, they naturally assumed he was on methanphetamine and proceeded to beat the ever living daylights out of a man, who at that point thought he was Jesus and was sure these were his persecutors, sent to torment him because he was Gods son.
They charged him with three felonies, trying to put him away on the Three Strikes Law. This was a man whose only run ins with the law had previously been traffic violations. This then put me, his assault victim, in the position of becoming his advocate. This of course means, that in our small community, law enforcement has zero respect for me, because I'm now one of "those women" who stood beside her abuser, and they would take forever to respond to any emergency I ever called in now, even if some home invasion was going on.
He did attend mental health court for a year, and had 2 or 3 years probation. Mental health court was a good thing. He had to show up weekly at first, to check in. He had to take his meds, be in counseling, hold a job. After a certain amount of time, he graduated to bi-weekly visits, then monthly, because he was doing so well.
But I think it's really pathetic that the only way we can get our loved ones help, is to wait until they commit a crime, and then make sure charges are pressed against them. As it was, he was sent to a state mental hospital for stabilization, then sent back to the jail and the jail changed his medications to something cheaper, and he started to destabilize.
The whole system is just another crappy aspect of the crappiness that is mental illness. I'm so sick of it all. I'm so sick of it being part of my life. I'm so sick of the way we handle it as a society. I'm just sick and tired of the stupidity, ignorance, pain and havoc of it all.
