The call saying a child is dead

Re: “Institutionalizing mentally-ill people is a failed idea,” comment, Dec. 22.

I ask the writers to defer to parents of adult children who are crystal methaddicted and mentally ill, unfed because food doesn’t matter any more, dirty because they are incapable of hygiene routines even if housed in “supportive housing,” and incapable of interaction because voices are telling them to do acts of self harm and that they are surrounded by demons.

A person can go for months holed up in squalor without seeing anyone, until some drastic action of self harm brings the police, medics, and long hospitalization.

Advocates, often parents , are told that their adult children who are barely functioning and out of touch with reality are “adults making adult decisions,” and that the provincial Mental Health Act recognizes them as responsible agents in their own lives, a clear triumph of ideology over reality.

The writers dismiss, as coercive and a transgression of human rights, the concerns of those of us who want safety and an opportunity to get one’s mind back by removal from the street or “the scene” for a time. Even in their lovely dream world of wraparound service, all an individual has to do is refuse service. Don’t show up for appointments, refuse to move to highly “supportive” housing (if it exists) because it’s perceived as invasive, and if housed, refuse entry to the apartment.

What exists for people who struggle with addiction and mental illness is a last stop “mental health and addictions centre” in Burnaby, which allows people on a so-called “secure ward” to get passes to go into Vancouver and trade sex for meth, and return having been assaulted because of extreme vulnerability.

The writers denigrate my hope for a truly secure place for people to regain themselves with the support of highly educated and compassionate staff (which would include peers in recovery) as motivated by a self-serving desire to see distressed people “warehoused,” so I don’t have to see them and then pretend they don’t exist.

Listen to anguished parents and friends who have decades of heartbreaking real experience, and see the need for drastic action. Put highminded ideology aside. We’ve had decades of experience, waiting for “the phone call” that says our child or friend is dead.

Diane McNally Victoria