ADvocates for Mental Illness treatment REform(ADMIRE)

We are a growing group of family members of loved ones with serious mental illness(SMI) who are advocating for change in Milwaukee County, the state of Wisconsin, and the USA.

Please join us! Email Sandy at milwmomformentalhealthcare@gmail.com.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead

“As caregivers, we earn our PHD in serious mental illnesses within the first five years, alongside a master’s in social work. We become versed in SMI pharmaceuticals, medication management, and evaluating SMI symptoms. We become experts in LEAP, CBT, and DBT. Navigating SSD, SSI, Medicaid, and Medicare becomes second nature. Once you realize the system is anything but systematic, you become an advocate for change, utilizing the brief window of time before bedtime, all while knowing you have a full-time job the next morning. To say we face headwinds is an understatement; we’re dealing with category 6 hurricanes.“ April, from the book Schizophrenia & Related Disorders: A Handbook for Caregivers by Nicole Drapeau Gillen

Self-determination and self-direction are based on the idea that everyone should be able to choose what is in their own best interests. Someone experiencing psychosis has impaired judgment, often believing specific actions to be in one’s best interest when clearly this is not the case. This conflict between the ideal of self-determination and self-direction and the reality of gravely impaired judgment when experiencing psychosis creates a controversy of involuntary treatment of those with psychotic illnesses. I strongly support involuntary treatment of those with untreated psychosis (including myself) just as I think it is appropriate to take the car keys away from someone who has had too much to drink. Involuntary treatment for a person with untreated psychosis is analogous to refusing to let someone with dementia walk out into a snowstorm wearing only pajamas and house slippers. Society recognizes that intervention is necessary to prevent the elderly person with dementia from harming themselves, yet intervention remains highly controversial for the person in psychosis when judgment and grasp of reality is impaired.

Entire Article

Darrell Herrmann, Mental Health Advocate Living with Schizophrenia