I'm sure you've seen this one -

[kyburg]

SAN FRANCISCO - The woman seen dropping her young sons into San Francisco Bay pleaded innocent Friday to three counts of murder.
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Lashuan Harris, described as mentally ill by family members, kept her head down and held her public defender's hand through most of the brief court hearing. She quietly answered "yes" when the San Francisco Superior Court judge asked if she was willing to waive her right to a speedy preliminary hearing.

Harris, 23, faces three counts of murder with special circumstances, making her eligible for the death penalty.

Her lawyer, Teresa Caffese, refused to address questions about Harris' mental state, saying only her client was under suicide watch. She's being held without bail.

"It's very, very difficult," Caffese said. "This can't be captured in words right now."

Authorities said Harris, a former nurse's assistant who was living in a homeless shelter, was seen putting her three boys in the bay Wednesday.

This is a mother who lost custody of her children once - because she was hospitalized for schitzophrenia. Her mother was granted custody - and less than six months ago, asked to have it back - because her daughter had stopped taking her medication.

Haldol.

I'm sorry. You need that to control any part of your mental state, you really don't need anything but a padded cell.

That's what they give the violently mentally ill to keep them killing anyone coming near them. Ask Rita Hayworth's daughter about caring for her mother in her last days with Alzeheimer's, and having to resort to Haldol to keep her calm.

I have every reason to believe that once she got those children over the edge, that mother was going to follow them. Killing her? Probably what she wanted in the first place. Boy, that's going to solve something!

Watch the caseworker get called in next - and blamed.

Truth of the matter? Somebody is that ill, they need following. For that kind of diagnosis, life-long. You want them to live, that is.

Comments

[bluemoonpnw.livejournal.com]

I'm convinced that many of those who had schizophrenia when they commited suicide did it because they didn't want to do what the voices said, like toss their kids in the bay/river/fire.
I really think so about the former neighbor.
Moon

Re: Offensive, much?

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Haldol is cruelty. To live, with that as your only option? You begin to wonder if the patient needs to be euthanized - because the waking state approaches a living death so closely, you begin to wonder.

It's incredibly effective. Scarily so. To put someone on this on an outpatient basis? If she ever stopped taking it, it should have been cause to remove the children again.

Nobody that ill should be asked to parent or deal with Real Life. A padded cell would be a kindness. REALLY.

The fact we have no better tools to treat schitzophrenia - and nobody cares? THAT is so offensive, I don't where to begin.

appologies

[http://users.livejournal.com/little_e_/]

i missed the word "that" in your sentance. i read it as 'you need to control your mental state...' and automatically thought of every person on anti-depresents, ritalin, etc. in the country.

This is what i get for cooking and reading at the same time. My appologies.

I am going to delete my previous statement, okay?

Re: appologies

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Don't - I really have a distinct hatred of the portion of the medical profession that 1) medicates with SSRIs when they aren't indicated and 2) medication for everything and that's ALL.

And then never follow up. Here is a prime case of what happens when we don't follow the patient when a chronic illness is present. This isn't a Epstein-Barr case. This kind of chronic condition kills, and here is the proof.

You can't medicate everything out of existence. Oh, you can try - but the results aren't pretty.

Re: appologies

[http://users.livejournal.com/little_e_/]

Medication is a tool. THrowing a wrench at a car with engine trouble will not fix it. At best you'll get a dent in the hood. Medication can help deal with symptoms, but just because the symptoms are gone or lessened doesn't mean the underlying problem is gone. It's like wearing earplugs because your engine is making funny noises and then being confused when the engine falls out. "but it wasn't making noises anymore!"

Thing is, most everyone is odd in their own little way. There seems to be this trend of trying to medicate everyone down to some prescribed 'normal'... Don't take me wrong, there are definitely people who *need* medicine. (Mumsie dearest comes immediately to mind.) But not everyone. and certainly therapy ought to be just as important.

Unfortunately, therapy costs more than medicine. Mum actually lost her health insurance for about a year because she went to therapy too much. (hrm, who'd've guessed that someone taking care of their terminally ill husband would get depressed?) And yet, despite all of the therapy and whatnot, I've yet to see someone sit her down and say, 'so everyone you know except your husband is a bad person who's betrayed you or your friendship at some point, and this is a pattern going back across your entire life? Have you ever considered that maybe there's something seriously wrong with how you relate to other people?"

*puts soapbox back in closet* I've had enough experiences dealing with people dealing with mental health issues that I could go on for hours. Our approach to mental health in this country is *horrible*. Even when people are getting therapy, that therapy is often shitty.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

My ex, with the kind of bipolar disorder that didn't cause very low lows but caused psychotic highs, regularly got Haldol for a week after episodes. It was what got him down far enough to be trusted to take his lithium. I doubt he was dangerous, but he was erratic and had poor judgement.

This one, clearly, needed not to have custody of her kids, period. Any time someone mentally ill can't be trusted to take meds, they need not to be entrusted with the care of children.

*nods*

[turandot.livejournal.com]

What strikes as unbelievable is that she ever got custody of her own children back from her mother. I say let grandma have permanent custody, if her daughter needs to be heavily medicated like that.

Mind you, I'm not thinking just of these children, I remember reading about something very similar happening in Chicago a decade ago, where a mentally ill mother got custody of her two small children back and proceeded to kill the youngest one by hanging him - some sort of punishment she had decided he deserved in a fit of mania. Her mother had pleaded with a DCFS caseworker about retaining custody of the two, and even getting permanent custody of the children, to no avail.

I'm sure this happens more often than we hear about it, but we just aren't told unless the mother has done something spectacularly gruesome to her children. I think part of the problem is not just that the American health system sucks ass insofar as the distribution of benefits (i.e., those who need help never get it, and when they go to the emergency room they are overcharged for the simplest things), but also that there is some sort of national fixation with always reuniting children with their mothers and trying to mold them into as near a nuclear family as can be, despite all evidence that clearly no such thing is even possible, and said children would be better off living with other relatives. >_

Re: *nods*

[http://users.livejournal.com/little_e_/]

I read recently about the closing of a loophole in CA law which went back to your exact final point--this fixation with uniting people with their nuclear families. In this particular case, fathers who raped their own children were a special class of offender who could just get therapy and some probation so that they could return to their families, while strangers who raped children were sent to jail.

Yup. The sacred family must not be split, even when daddy's raping the babies.

Luckily I believe they fixed that a week or so ago.

Re: *nods*

[turandot.livejournal.com]

That was, indeed, a pretty sad law if it allowed a child abuser to stay with potential victims. =[

Re: *nods*

[http://users.livejournal.com/little_e_/]

not potential. actual.

Re: *nods*

[turandot.livejournal.com]

Alright, I'm updating that observation to "that's insane!'

Re: *nods*

[reannon.livejournal.com]

They had a similar loophole here in Illinois. The sentencing minimums for child sex offenders were much less - even probation - if the victim was a member of his own family. It was a lesser offense to rape your own child than a stranger's child.

I did an investigative piece on it (I'm a reporter). The people I interviewed said when it was established (early 80s, if I remember correctly), the belief was that pedophilia could be treated, and it would be better for the family to get the breadwinner back and supporting his family than rotting in prison. They have since figured out that pedophilia defies treatment, and after our story came out, the legislature passed a bill closing that loophole.

Re: *nods*

[http://users.livejournal.com/little_e_/]

"I'm sure this happens more often than we hear about it, but we just aren't told unless the mother has done something spectacularly gruesome to her children."

And that's not even counting all of the custody cases in which the court awards someone custody despite a history of abuse or neglect, or cases like Andrea Yates...

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

God, the poor woman.

How was she supposed to ever get out of a homeless shelter and get her kids taken care of while on Haldol? She could probably barely follow the shelter rules.

I winder if she had any medical coverage at all, and if paying for that godawful drug was an issue. Or if she was on Haldol because it's *all* the state would pay for?

Clearly, yes, she shouldn't have had those children in her custody.

So god damned sad.