U.S. mentally ill and their families face barriers to care

Lori, a 39-year-old mother in New Jersey, would like to save for the usual things: college, retirement, vacations. But those goals are far down her wish list. For now, she and her husband are putting aside money for a home alarm system. They're not worried about keeping burglars out. They need to keep their son in.

Mike, 7, began seeing a psychiatrist in 2009, after one pre-school kicked him out for being "difficult" and teachers at the public school he later attended were worried about his obsessive thoughts and extreme anxiety. He was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

As she keeps trying to get help for him, "I am learning firsthand how broken the system is when dealing with mental illness," said Lori. (Surnames of patients and their families have been withheld to protect their privacy.)

"We fight with doctors, our insurance company, educators, each other; the list goes on and on ... It isn't even a system. It's not like there's a call center to help you figure out what to do and how to get help."

Last week, the National Rifle Association blamed mass shootings such as that at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on the lack of a "national database of the mentally ill," who, it claimed, are especially prone to violence.

Dr. Paul Appelbaum, professor of psychiatry, medicine and law at Columbia University, disagrees, however. "Gun violence is overwhelmingly not about mental illness," he said. "The best estimate is that about 95 percent of gun violence is committed by people who do not have a diagnosis of mental illness."

But experts on mental illness agree with one implication of the NRA's argument: families trying to get help for a loved one with mental illness confront a confusing, dysfunctional system that lacks the capacity to help everyone who needs it - and that shunts many of the mentally ill into the criminal justice system instead of the healthcare system.

"Public mental health services have eroded everywhere, and in some places don't exist at all," said Richard Bonnie, professor of law and medicine at the University of Virginia. "Improving access to mental health services would reduce the distress and social costs of serious mental illness, including violent behavior."

Because mental health care is in such short supply, emergency cases receive priority. If a young man has a psychotic break and threatens his mother with a knife, "you can call the police and initiate an emergency evaluation," said Bonnie.

A psychiatrist called to the local emergency room may agree that the man is an imminent threat to himself or others, or cannot provide for his basic needs - the criteria for involuntary commitment in most states. Anything short of that and even someone with a diagnosis of severe mental illness cannot be involuntarily committed.

Critics argue that this emphasis on civil liberties lets dangerous people roam the streets, and cite numerous cases where it has been fatal. In October, for instance, a Tacoma, Washington, man who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and was in and out of mental hospitals for years confessed to killing his father with a hatchet.