HAPPY NEW YEAR by Dede Ranahan

The new year lies before me

like a spotless track of snow.

I must be careful how I tread on it,

for every mark will show.

(I altered a little. Original author unknown.)

May 2022 be a good year for all of us.

Photo credit: JR/Flickr

LETTER TO CA ASSEMBLY ABOUT LPS REFORM by Dede Ranahan

December 14, 2021

My written comment to the California Assembly Health and Judiciary Committee about LPS (involuntary commitment) reform:

As the mother of a son who fought hard to live with his schizo-affective disorder, I have over 25 years experience with the California mental health system. I don't agree with your conclusions that LPS gives counties adequate tools to meet the needs of SMI or that changes to the act would endanger civil liberties.

I do agree that LPS needs to ensure adequate follow up care. I.e. My son was involuntarily committed to Kaiser hospital in July 2014. Due to the lack of beds in Sacramento County, he was transferred to Dignity Health in Yolo County without our family knowledge even though he had designated me as his representative on his advanced care directive. His records were not transferred from Kaiser to Dignity Health. I was not able to speak with my son's doctor, they asked for my discharge plan even though I wasn't advised of his health status, and they called subsequently to announce that he'd died. The nightmare continued as I fought to get an independent autopsy and toxicology report.

Obviously there's not space here to divulge 25 years of terrible LPS history in my family. I've written two award winning books about this: Sooner Than Tomorrow (memoir) and Tomorrow Was Yesterday (65 stories from California mothers and mothers from 28 other states). Please read their stories if you really want to know what living under LPS law is like.

Tomorrow Was Yesterday includes a 15-point plan to address serious mental illness developed by activists from across the country. Our top 5 recommendations are: 1) Reclassify SMI from a behavioral to a physical medical condition — looking at SMI through a medical rather than behavioral lens would change the way insurance would have to operate, the way we incarcerate SMI, the way we view SMI homeless; 2) Reform HIPAA; 3) Repeal the IMD Exclusion; 4) Provide a full continuum of care; 5) Decriminalize SMI.

Involuntary treatment is not to impinge on civil liberties. It's to make sure that people receive their right to timely, quality treatment. It's to raise the bar for services rather than meeting only minimum standards. Let's stop fighting over "Are you a danger to yourself or others?" We don't do this for dementia/Parkinson's patients. Let's get people into treatment sooner.

Let's get out of the ideological weeds, stop the bureaucratic quibbling, and look at the big picture of what is needed. Bottom line: I'd demolish LPS as it is written and use available funding (reallocated MHSA funds, Medicaid, and reassigned funding given to unaccountable and unreliable nonprofits)to create a new system that has responsibility, accountability, and independent financial oversight (not MHSA oversight).

Thank you. Dede Ranahan

Just made my year-end donation to No One Cares About Crazy People. Please consider doing likewise to help bring this film to fruition. No One Cares documents the horrifying, inhumane state of our "mental illness system." It exposes human rights violations and asks for change. To donate, click on the link to the film homepage below.

No One Cares Film

Image from No One Cares Film

LETTER TO SENATOR WYDEN AND THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON FINANCE by Dede Ranahan

November 1, 2021

Dear Senator Ron Wyden, and other members of the Committee on Finance:

This is in response to your request for input from stakeholders to help you better understand how Congress can address behavioral health care challenges.

First, thank you, Senator Wyden, for keeping at it. I’m sure you don’t remember, but back in the late 1990s you intervened for my son who was delusional and psychotic in Oregon. He died in a California hospital psych ward in 2014. He never did receive the help he needed for schizo-affective disorder. In the interim, I became a mother bear and mental illness activist. I’ve written two award-winning books, Sooner Than Tomorrow — A Mother’s Diary About Mental Illness, Family, and Everyday Life (Nautilus Book Awards Gold Medal Winner, Memoir, 2019) and Tomorrow Was Yesterday, Explosive First-Person Indictments of the US Mental Health System — Mothers Across the Nation Tell It Like It Is (Nautilus Book Awards Silver Medal Winner, Social Change, Social Justice 2020). The second book includes stories from 65 mothers from 28 states, and a fifteen-point plan to address serious mental illness (SMI - schizophrenia, schizo-affective disorder, bipolar disorder, clinical depression, etc.). The plan was developed in 2019 by advocates/activists from across the country.

In January 2021, 150 Tomorrow Was Yesterday readers, from every state in the nation, volunteered to send a copy of the book to the White House (Joe Biden, Jill Biden, Kamala Harris, Xavier Becerra, and individual legislators) thinking 150 copies of the same book from every state might get someone’s attention. Five months later, we all began receiving form letters from the White House thanking us for our “gifts” and for welcoming Joe Biden to the Presidency. No mention of the topic. No reference to the books. It was hurtful and insulting.

The 15-part plan was prioritized by the participants. The number 1 priority on their list is to "Reclassify Serious Mental Illness (SMI) from a Behavioral Condition to what it is, a Neurological Medical Condition." Until we look at SMI through a biological/physical lens, the significant changes we users of the system need will not happen.

I’m not trying to specifically address the questions you’ve posed in your letter. The SMI Plan cuts through all of them. More significantly, it raises issues not included in your list. The suffering in the SMI community (11-13 million diagnosed individuals plus their families) is intense. We’re screaming to the heavens for help. So far, no one seems to be listening.

Summary from Tomorrow Was Yesterday:
“As it stands today, the US mental health/illness system is filled with political landmines and gut-wrenching divisions: parents vs. children, peer organizations vs. family organizations, voluntary vs. involuntary treatment concepts, psychiatrist vs. psychologist turf wars, state vs. federal jurisdictions, HIPAA restrictions vs. parental rights, lack of beds vs. incarceration, unions vs. providers, psychiatry vs. anti-psychiatry, civil rights vs. dying with your rights on, NIMBYism vs. housing, traditional medicine vs. holistic medicine, and funded advocacy organization vs. unfunded grassroots advocacy efforts. I watched my son Pat die because the system is tied up in bureaucratic and philosophical knots.”

I would be happy to send you a copy of Tomorrow Was Yesterday which includes the 15-point plan to address SMI. My hope is that you, and others on the committee, might read our stories, take the plan seriously, and pursue some of its recommendations. It’s a beginning. It’s from the people in the trenches -- the sufferers, the families, the folks the system is supposed to help.

Thank you for reaching out. Let me know if/where I should send a copy of Tomorrow Was Yesterday.

Sincerely,
Dede Ranahan

Available on Amazon

TOMORROW WAS YESTERDAY NAUTILUS BOOK AWARDS 2020 SILVER MEDAL by Dede Ranahan

2020 Nautilus Book Awards:

Dear Tomorrow Was Yesterday Authors,

First, we are stunned with joy by the outpouring of passion, commitment, and collaboration from all of you and which is needed so very much at this time. The pulse of energy embodied in your books has indeed helped to spark the greater life of our world. Please know that we treasure you and your work.

We are thrilled to announce that you are a new Nautilus Book Award Winner! Your book has been selected as an Award Winner in the category shown below:

Title: Tomorrow Was Yesterday: Explosive First-Person Indictments of the US Mental Health System - Mothers Across the Nation Tell It Like It Is

Author: Dede Ranahan with 64 Co-Authors

Publisher: Read First Press

Award: Silver

Category: Social Change / Social Justice

We welcome you to the Nautilus Book Awards family, comprised of highly esteemed authors and publishers from across the USA, and from over 20 nations around the world. You can be especially proud of your book's selection as an Award Winner this season, which attracted a record-number of entries and included a magnificent diversity of high-quality books.

We are grateful for the chance to help promote and celebrate your book by increasing its visibility as a Nautilus Award Winner. And we are truly encouraged by the new perspectives these books present with which to co-create a better future, individually and collectively.

On behalf of all the Nautilus reviewers, team of judges, staff, and volunteers, thank you. May your book's message bring hope, wisdom, healing, and inspiration to many people.

Thank you for your book and all you contribute to Better Books for a Better World.

With warm regards,

Mary Belknap, PhD.
for the Nautilus Book Awards team

Nautilus Book Awards is a prestigious, international book awards program. Previous winners include Deepak Chopra, M.D, Judy Collins, Barbara Kingsolver, Eckhart Tolle, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and many more…

Their core mission is to celebrate and honor books that support conscious living & green values, high-level wellness, positive social change & social justice, and spiritual growth.

During the past 22 years, this unique book awards program has continued to gain prestige with authors and publishers around the world as it seeks, recognizes, honors, celebrates and promotes print books that inspire and connect our lives as individuals, families, communities, and global citizens.

Dedicated to excellence and the highest literary standards, the Nautilus Awards program encourages its winners in getting wider recognition, exhibiting opportunities, industry exposure and enhanced prospects for sales.

https://nautilusbookawards.com

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HOW DO WE GET A NATIONAL PLAN FOR SMI? by Dede Ranahan

Just downloaded the White House National Strategy for the COVID-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness (198 pages). It lays 7 goals out in detail. To date, 24 million Americans have contracted COVID and over 400,000 have died. Hopefully this will be a time-limited health crisis.

Right now, between 11-13 million Americans (and by extension 11-13 million families, maybe 44 million more Americans) suffer from the ramifications of SMI each year. This crisis isn't time-limited.

The country is being crushed with multiple crises, but our on-going SMI crisis needs to be added to the crises requiring immediate attention -- a National Plan. It's way past time to ask for a National Plan.

From Tomorrow Was Yesterday: “As it stands today, the US mental health/illness system is filled with political landmines and gut-wrenching divisions: parents vs. children, peer organizations vs. family organizations, voluntary vs. involuntary treatment concepts, psychiatrist vs. psychologist turf wars, state vs. federal jurisdictions, HIPAA restrictions vs. parental rights, lack of beds vs. incarceration, unions vs. providers, psychiatry vs. anti-psychiatry, civil rights vs. dying with your rights on, NIMBYism vs. housing, traditional medicine vs. holistic medicine, and funded advocacy organizations vs. unfunded grassroots advocacy efforts. I watched my son Pat die because the system is tied up in bureaucratic and philosophical knots."

There will never be a better time than now to ask for what we need and deserve. How can we make this request?

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GOOD AND BAD IN 2020 by Dede Ranahan

I’m pleased to report that Tomorrow Was Yesterday — Explosive First-Person Indictments of the US Mental Health System — Mothers Across the Nation Tell It Like It Is — is doing really well. Thank you to those of you who have already purchased and read our book (65 mothers from 28 states). Thank you to those who have left reviews on Amazon. Reviews help spread the word.

Some exciting new connections are developing from the publication of this book. Too soon to talk about, but more good things might be coming. Keep fingers crossed…

Click on this link to the book’s page on Amazon:

Meanwhile, goodbye 2020. What a year! A friend, just diagnosed with Covid says, “You don’t really have a bubble because people are careless.”

Please stay safe and well in 2021. Over and above surviving, may the new year bring you and your families many blessings. Love, Dede

Please stay safe and well in 2021. Over and above surviving, may the new year bring you and your families many blessings. Love, Dede