Laurie Turley - “THEY SHOULD HAVE LET YOU HELP ME.” (Maine)
I received a phone call from Carol’s son that she’d been taken by ambulance to the hospital with a serious and invasive lung infection. She was in medical care for several weeks during which time, back on psychiatric medication, her ability to reason began to return, even while her physical health continued to decline.
In one of our last phone conversations, Carol shared that she felt life returning within her, that she felt like she was awakening from a bad dream. She said to me, "I don't know how I got so bad. I was doing so well. How did things get so bad?”
I told her we all knew she was going downhill and we tried to help her, but she refused help. There was nothing family members could do. Her next words were among the last she ever spoke to me. "They should have let you help me. I wasn't in my right mind."
“They should have let you help me. I wasn't in my right mind.” Those words will haunt me until the end of my days.
Read more of Laurie’s story in the upcoming book, TOMORROW WAS YESTERDAY - Explosive First-Person Indictments of the US Mental Health System -- Mothers Across the Nation Tell It Like It Is. It will be available on Amazon.
Carol