The Right to be Ill
Individuals with Schizophrenia have Legal and Ethical Rights
Most recently, I have been listening to the audio book, “Killing Reagan” by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard. The book tells the story of John Hinckley. John Hinckley was the would be assassin to President Ronald Reagan. He suffered from schizophrenia.
I have been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder since 2020. Prior to that, I was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2010. I feel like I have a little perspective and information on the illness. While I’ve never contemplated an assassination, I too have done things under the influence of my illness that I regret.
What caught my attention in the audio book, was the portion saying Hinckley’s parents kicked him out of the house. He couldn’t meet the rules of a behavior contract that his parents and he had signed. The contract was what I’ll describe as a wellness contract.
I can relate.
My family imposed a wellness contract on me at one point. I was becoming more ill. I couldn’t satisfy the contract either.
Today, I ask, surely there is a better way to help someone than simply presenting them with rules in the form of a contract.
The spring of my failed contract, I got sicker and sicker.
In my defense, I was fully on my medications.
The authors of the book, “Killing Reagan” explain that the attempted assassination never would have happened if Hinckley hadn’t been kicked out of his parent’s home.
I’m treading on uncertain territory in the next thought. My thought is that the idea that you establish your boundaries with a contract and then go no farther, is a principle of wellness for the family.
I have heard it said in AA that you can’t help someone that doesn’t want help.
I suppose the same applies to someone with a mental health crisis, but let me stress, “They are not in their right mind!”
I couldn’t meet my contract in the spring of 2021. I ultimately intersected with the police and was committed.
Hinckley was unable to meet his contract in 1980, and he intersected with the police. He was committed.
Let me stress though that a president nearly died because of the boundaries in the form of a contract with his parents.
While this article is entitled, “Right to be Ill”. We do have involuntary commitment rules in this country. In my state, the mental health board can order that you receive treatment.
A lawyer once said to me that many of the homeless you see around the city have mental illness, but unless they “act up”, they have no fear of mental health treatment being imposed on them.
In Hinckley’s case, he acted up. He “acted up” in a big way. He nearly killed a president.
In my case, I broke the wellness contract, eventually “acted up” and was committed.
In both our cases, we roamed the nation.
I suppose the system works. We can say that with the current system, those with mental illness are afforded more rights. That is they have more “right to be ill”.
My state has a statute where you can write a mental health care directive and designate a power of attorney.
To summarize my points, I think family and friends should do everything they can to get help for those suffering from mental illness. They honestly can’t help themselves.
The whole community has to be better educated about how to handle severe mental illness with more confidence and more compassion. If there was less stigma around psychosis and better outcomes, then I think people would be more inclined to stay on their meds and talk more openly about their symptoms and behaviours to watch out for with friends and family and eventually colleagues and managers. Things are better than they were but there is still so much more to do to rationalise this illness in the mind of the general public. This will then lead to quicker recoveries. People in recovery will be able to educate others about what this illness feels like, eventually creating a virtuous circle of better understanding and better care. 🙏
Thanks for sharing your story. My mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1953 and died in an institution in 1966. I've been trying to understand since then who she might have been aside from her illness. It was a different time and "treatment" was mostly institutionalization, because there were few tools at the time. Your story is important.