As we come to the end of the year, if you haven't already seen the Treatment Advocacy Center's (TAC's) list of The Top 10 Underreported Mental Illness Stories, 2007 I would encourage you to do so.
The second, "Requiring 'dangerousness' before someone can get mental illness treatment is dangerous for everyone," and fifth, "Psychiatric beds are shifting from civil to criminal" really hit home because I have personally had to watch my family member deteriorate to the level of "clear and present danger to self or others" before receiving treatment and because I have a friend whose daughter's untreated mental illness meant that she is currently serving time in a correctional facility, instead of receiving the help she needed in a psychiatric hospital.
As an advocate for changes to our mental health laws in Pennsylvania, the eighth, "Assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) programs make a difference – when they are used" and the tenth, "We are still protecting the right to be psychotic over the right to treatment" really summarize my reasons for trying to see our laws change to an AOT law such as our proposed SB 226. Hopefully, 2008 will see this timely treatment for mental illness piece of legislation become law in my state.
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