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My daughter was trapped in the system

by Irene Darmstedter

Irene Darmstedter gave the following speech at a Florida Partners in Crisis press conference February 20, 2003, to raise awareness about the need for increased mental health services funding. For more information on the effort in Florida, visit our Florida page.

This is a topic that's very personal to me and to my family. My 26-year-old daughter suffers from bipolar disorder with psychotic tendencies. Her illness began to surface after the sudden death of my 13-year-old son from bacterial meningitis. At the time, my daughter was a straight A student in high school…a wonderful, outgoing person…someone other parents wanted their sons and daughters to be like.

But soon after my son's death, she began using drugs and exhibiting bizarre behavior. She needed long-term residential treatment. But there simply weren't any facilities that would take someone with a serious mental illness and substance abuse problem.

Over the next eight years, she cycled in and out of hospitals and jails more than 30 times. She was arrested for minor infractions such as shoplifting, stealing food and trespassing and often spent months in jail where she was mistreated and abused by a system that was ill equipped to deal with someone with mental illness. During one psychotic episode in jail, she got into a violent altercation and all of her front teeth were broken.

Finally a sympathetic judge ordered her into drug treatment and granted our family a permanent restraining order to protect our safety. With the restraining order we had a way to get my daughter some safety in jail rather than victimization on the street. But that also failed and she disappeared to the streets.

Every time we heard that the body of an unidentified woman had been found, we thought it was her. We were absolutely desperate to save my daughter. But one of the biggest obstacles to getting her to stay in treatment was that she didn't know she was sick. That's common to people with mental illnesses.

I thought the death of my son was the worst nightmare we would ever have to endure. But this was even worse. I had to take a long leave from my job to protect my family. I also had to put my other daughter in a small private school to ensure her safety. Ultimately I lost my job due to this situation, adding the stress of financial hardship to an already intolerable situation.

Finally, someone suggested that we use the Marchman Act [the Florida law authorizing involuntary treatment for substance abuse] to force her into treatment. I find it ironic that we can force treatment for drug abuse, but not mental illness.

That was when things started to turn around. A doctor at the substance abuse treatment center recognized her mental illness and put her on a medication that cleared her mind and helped her realize that she needed treatment for bipolar disorder.

Today, she is back in college, getting straight As and making a new life for herself. But it shouldn't have taken eight years to find the right treatment. We need to make access to treatment more available.

I came here today to tell my story because I want our lawmakers and legislators to know that TREATMENT WORKS.

It's difficult to go public like this, but too much is at stake not to. These are biologically based brain disorders…not weaknesses in character. We wouldn't tolerate the incarceration of people with Alzheimer's, epilepsy or Parkinson's disease; why are we tolerating this kind of treatment for people with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia?

I urge our legislators to fund mental health and substance abuse treatment. Thousands of lives are depending on it.

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