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A couple of months ago, I read with sadness the story of a King County boy with mental illness who was denied hospitalization by United Behavioral Health, a private company that will soon oversee some mental health services in Spokane County.
Our family, too, has experienced the frustration of being denied hospitalization for our 17-year-old daughter, though not by UBH. Our daughter has been diagnosed with rapid cycling manic depression and she is gravely disabled. In her manic state, she has no impulse control, is physically and verbally assaultive, is a harm to herself, hates authority and lacks any sense of judgment or consequences. She runs away and is always found in life-threatening situations. Recently, she was found downtown at 2 a.m. with two Level III sex offenders.
In her depressive state, she often gets so depressed she cannot get out of bed. She has suffered bouts with eating disorder, self-mutilation and she has attempted suicide. Luckily for our daughter, she is receiving care at Tamarack Center in Spokane, a psychiatric and behavioral modification residential care center for adolescents. She’s been there a year. Washington only has five residential facilities for adolescents now. Tamarack’s 14 beds are never empty and there is a long waiting list.
Our children didn’t ask to be born this way. Things are happening in their brains that they have no control over. Parents try to get them help and often are denied the help they need. I wonder how many children are in juvenile detention because they are sick with chemical imbalances and mood disorders. Many of these kids self-medicate with street drugs because they feel it helps them slow down their brains. How sad.
I hope under UBH there won’t be a lot of cost cutting when it comes to our children. Most people with sick kids rely on some state funding because care is so costly. I also wish people would rethink the Becca bill, which allows children 13 and older to refuse help. A child psychotically out there cannot make proper choices.
The doctors, nurses and staff at Tamarack saved our daughter and our family. Our hearts will forever be thankful to Angie Mushen, our family therapist, and to Ellen Woltemath, our daughter’s personal residential counselor.
We need to make sure there are enough facilities to help our children; we need to change laws so parents have the right to properly care for our children and we need to have the funds necessary to see it happen.