Hi everyone. My name is Jason, and I am a member of NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. NAMI is the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to improving the lives of individuals and families affected by mental illness. NAMI has over 650 affiliates in communities across the country that engage in advocacy, research, support, and education. Members of NAMI are families, friends and people living with mental illness such as major depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and borderline personality disorder.
Now I have no doubt that you sacrificed a lot “to protect and to serve.” I, too, gave up a lot to be here. Over the years, I sacrificed not just my mental health, but also a promising career in academia, a happy marriage to my fiancée, a strong connection to my family, a wish to pursue music, an enjoyable parenthood with children, home-ownership over apartment-renting, and if we go back far enough, a normal childhood. I offer my services to you because I want to help the organization that helped me, so that you can be excellent officers when it comes to mental illness.
I want to direct you to the one-page handout I left in front of you. I’m sure you know what it says: “radio call male with mental illness contacted mental evaluation unit, did not meet 5150 welfare and institutions code criteria.” Instead of landing me in jail immediately, LAPD took the time to detain me first and determine my suitability for a 5150, before then deciding to let me go entirely. That sounds like a very enlightened police organization to me. I think ordinarily it would have been a “shoot first, ask questions later” protocol. OK? Rather than the other way around.
We all know someone—“that guy”—who might be mentally ill. He tries to contain himself, but his problems keep leaking out, and he “defecates” over everybody around him! So you reach out to him, “Hey, you seem to be struggling with something. Have you thought of therapy and medication?” And he reacts: “What’re you talking about? I don’t need therapy! I don’t need medication! Go to hell!” Now you’re even more certain that he has got something going on. Then most of the time, people say: “I’m OK. What I do is have a beer and talk to the bartender.” And it seems that most people do cope rather well that way. But consider the last five percent, and you might get WOW’d when he says: “You may be right. I do need some help!”
We all have strengths that cause us to excel in certain respects, and we all have weaknesses that cause us to struggle in others. When a condition rises to the level of a disability, that’s when professional help is in order. That person who is blanketed with denial will lose everyone around him. And a pint of alcohol with chit-chat over pistachios is simply not going to cut it, either. Therapy and medication are not weaknesses. They are luxuries! Ninety-nine percent of people do not have the time, the money, and the energy to work on themselves one-on-one with a therapist, which is more effective than BS’ing with the bartender. And medication takes time to get the right cocktail, and people don’t have the money, time or energy to do that either. But once established, it can help someone operate much more effectively than a temporary beer buzz. Now you know who “that guy” is!
After college, I was diagnosed with a mental illness called bipolar disorder type one with psychotic features. Let me help you understand my experience. Bipolar disorder generates wild mood swings. It used to be called manic depression, like the Jimi Hendrix song. Extremely irritable or blissfully happy on one end, and then profoundly depressed on the other. No happy medium. For me, there are pieces of a mood disorder and also a thought disorder, leading to the psychotic features. I eventually recovered, but it took over twenty years until the symptoms went into remission.
In 1998, I was mis-medicated, manic, and drunk when I got into a fight with my father and brandished a golf club at him. For my bad behavior, I was detained for 100 hours in one of the most notorious jails in the country. I did my time, completed probation, and lesson learned: I vowed never to resort to violence again. In 2014, I suffered a psychotic episode, and over the phone, I uttered a death threat at my mom. For my bad behavior, a half dozen squad cars parked outside my apartment, and a dozen officers detained me in my room for a 5150, while I was handcuffed behind my back to a chair. Ouch! For three hours, the police ransacked my apartment, searching for drugs and weapons. Nothing. The officers uncuffed me and cleared out when the Lieutenant walked in and asked me if I was OK. My wrists were sore, and so was my ego, but we parted on amicable terms. Lesson learned: I vowed never to threaten violence on another again.
Sharing my story with you is important because stories have a powerful grip on the imagination. Sharing a story with you generates knowledge in you of an experience that I had, without your going through it, like simulations. When I was mentally ill, I didn’t give a damn about established conventions or given norms (e.g. honor thy father and mother). I bypassed them, as in the stories I told you. Whether that means I was simply emotionally unbalanced or deeply criminal? Well, I know that you are here to enforce the laws. That’s part of the training. And that could be done out in the field, but it originates in the classroom first.
And what does therapy do? Through talk in a confidential setting, it resolves the hidden conflicts or past traumas in your mind, ones that are stuck and get acted out in your conscious life. For example, if you were to say in therapy to the therapist, “Fuck you, doc, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!” Great! That’s excellent material to work on. Let’s process that statement! But if you were to go to your commanding officer and say the same thing, then you just might have committed career suicide!
What do psych meds do? Think of your brain as an engine. And an engine needs certain things to operate smoothly: engine oil, coolant, transmission fluid. A mentally ill brain lacks these “neurotransmittters,” as they’re called: dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine. Psych meds are those engine fluids that make my brain run properly. I take six different medications to combat this illness: two mood stabilizers, one anti-anxiety agent, one for bipolar depression, one for combating side effects, and an anti-psychotic. And I need every single one.
You might be asking yourselves, if Jason goes around giving talks for free, how does he support himself? Well, my parents financially support me so that it takes the edge off work stress. I’m retired and no longer gainfully employed. I told my parents that in response to their generosity, I would use their money wisely, justly, and fairly. The only vices I have are socially sanctioned: caffeine and nicotine. I think a lot of mental illness boils down to a lack of self-respect. I respect myself, in the same way that we Angelenos respect our cars. I mean, you wouldn’t put shit inside your car, now, would you? Likewise, I don’t put shit inside myself.
So now I will focus on law enforcement. Remember: you are LAPD. You have a reputation for being tough on crime! But do you need to be tough on crazies like me? If you are the first ones to show up when you’re called to the scene and you encounter someone who is actively breaking the law, then you enforce the law. But if someone is not outright breaking the law but is acting outrageously or in a bizarre manner, then you can ask if everything is alright, and ask if you can help. That can defuse a tense situation. But that can be tough to divide. Some criminals are savvy enough to act mentally ill to avoid jail. And some mentally ill are so out of line that their behavior warrants jail. That means you will have to make a tough call. Making that call also means that instead of pulling out your pistol right away, keeping your hand on the holster, and observing what unfolds in front of you, would be wiser. Easier said than done.
In any case, here are some guidelines that you might want to use that I worked out, based on my own interactions with law enforcement that were successful in aim and intention, for mentally ill people:
(1) Sir, comply with my orders (make it easy on yourself)
(2) Sir, I have lethal force. Do you? (don’t make me explain it to you)
(3) Sir, help is on its way. (just calm down and relax!)
But at the slightest sign of escalation, I want you to call immediately for backup. Discretion is the better part of valor. Better a live coward than a dead hero! Some mentally ill are dangerous. Modern psychology has terms for such extreme criminals: psychopath and sociopath. Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer. Mass murderer and serial rapist. These people must be put away for good. They do not deserve treatment. They are beyond reform.
My time is almost up, but let’s go back: “to protect and to serve.” Do you seriously pursue that motto, rather than cynically advertise it? You are here to protect the public and serve the chief of police, even though doing so could get you killed. Know that your commanding officers would never send you off where they would be unwilling to go themselves. And you would never pursue a course of action that your commanding officers would ultimately not want you to follow. The chain of command here is top-down and also bottom-up. But as one wise therapist once taught me about organizational life: “Shit flows downstream, Jason!”
Law enforcement is the last line of defense that prevents the mentally ill from falling through the cracks. Without you, there is no chance of or hope for survivors. If you feel strongly about your profession, then act honorably as always, work hard, make the right decisions, and sacrifice when it is reasonably called of you. Then, this great city of ours that you have sworn to protect and to serve will open its heart to you, and you will find your own pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And we will all live our lives out, rich and respected.
Now, a transcript of this address is with your supervisor. This concludes
my presentation. Thank you for your attention.