Hello, my name is John Maxwell.  My wife is Susan Maxwell.  This is about our son Jack.

 

He is just 29 years old son with severe bipolar disorder.  He has been hospitalized four times since his first episode just before he turned 21.  

 

We are raising funds to try and get him in a private facility since our health care system is failing him.  We want him to get the care that he, and everyone like him deserves.  We need to make significant changes in how we treat our mentally ill.  Hospitals could not get away with such care for any other physical ailment- the brain is just an organ like any other in the body and it is a crime how they are able to abandon these patients and push them out onto our streets.  Many of us are greatly concerned about the growing homeless problem in this country; addressing our problems with caring for mental illness could alleviate many of the homeless problems. 

 

First a little background on Jack’s history with his illness.  On the three previous occasions when Jack was hospitalized, his psychotic breaks included delusions with voices "in his head."  It started with him going missing during spring break at UC Santa Cruz in the spring of his junior year.  As it turned out, he had gone downtown and had some type of total break and had been found walking down the center of the street in little to no clothing.  The police officers believed he was under the influence and when Jack resisted being taken into custody, ended up with his torso covered in bruises.  Testing ultimately showed that he was not under the influence and when we got him out of jail, he was a little off, but we thought it was the stress of the situation.

 

Three months later, he disappeared from his apartment at school.  Eventually after recovery, he was able to relate that when he was delusional the voices in his head told him to throw himself on train tracks in front of an oncoming train.  Thankfully, he did not do that.  That was his first extended hospitalization.  Every prior hospitalization was at least 30 days.  It took that long for the medication to truly work and break the delusions.  He then no longer viewed my wife and me as the enemy and came home to live with us.   Except for the three years at UC Santa Cruz, Jack has always lived with us.  He has never lived on the streets prior to the last month.  We consider the very fact that he is attempting to live on the streets as evidence of a grave disability.  Normally, he is a brilliant young man, who is extremely sensitive and gentle.  In his altered state, he will become very agitated and will lash out if he feels threatened.

 

His first hospitalization, he thought my wife and I were robots.  A few months after his first hospitalization, he relapsed and had to be re-hospitalized.   We had moved him back down to Los Angeles, so he was hospitalized at UCLA (his prior hospitalization was at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View. 

 

Jack thought we were poisoning him prior to the second hospitalization, but again after treatment and adapting to the medications, he came home and recovered over time.  Four years later, he was finally ready had was accepted into LMU in order to finish his college education.   A week before he was to start, we noted the signs of a break occurring.  He had once again stopped taking medication.  it is an interesting thing, when he stops taking medications.  First, I understand why he dislikes it so much.  It flattens his personality; it amplifies his struggle with weight gain; it has at times interfered with sexual functioning.  None of these things are desirable for anyone, let alone an otherwise healthy young man.  Jack was always a very successful athlete- always on swim team and captain of the varsity water polo team in High School.  He hated how the medication made him feel.  When he stopped, for many months he would seem noticeably better.  His personality would shine; he was more active and more involved, but eventually things would start fraying around the edges and signs of paranoia would appear and the delusions would begin.  He had to be hospitalized.  He was then hospitalized long enough for the psychosis to end and for Jack to agree to come home.  He did so and the next semester enrolled at LMU.  He graduated with high honors in June of 2017.  

 

His doctor retired in late 2017 leaving Jack without a doctor to continue his prescription for medication and probably more importantly, depriving him of someone he would check in with a few times per year to keep him on track.  His prescription ran out.  We managed to get it filled but not before a break of a couple of weeks.  Jack was feeling better, as he always does when he goes off the medication and did not start up again, stating he would only take it in an "emergency."  He did well for six months.  Then a few things caused him stress.  I had a serious automobile accident where I was rear ended on the freeway, totaling my car and causing some moderate injuries. This upset Jack.  Our 15 year old Basset Hound injured his neck and we had to spend all of Jack's birthday in the emergency vet.  This also upset him.  

 

The proverbial straw that broke the camel's back was the suicide of Anthony Bourdain.  I remember so clearly waking up one morning and reading the breaking news stories of the day and seeing that Anthony Bourdain had committed suicide.  I knew immediately this would be a problem for Jack.  Jack is not a celebrity worshiper- pretty much the opposite.  But the one celebrity he truly admired, for his philosophy of life, openness to culture and experiences around the world, his inclusiveness, and for the quality of the show he produced was Anthony Bourdain.  He watched his shows religiously.  His suicide was heartbreaking for Jack.  Within a couple of days, Jack was unraveling.  On the evening of June 11th, he got into his car.  We thought he was going to see one of his friends or get some food.  He was acting strangely but not completely "off the rails."  He did not come home and we hoped that he was crashing at a friend’s house.  He had not brought his cell phone with him, which when we discovered that, seemed very odd.

 

This brings us to Jack’s current story.  At 2 AM on the morning of June 12th, Los Angeles police officers came to our door to ask whether our car had been stolen.  Apparently Jack had crashed into some type of pole damaging his car and then had walked away from the crash.  The police were attempting to locate him, believing at the time that he may have been a car thief.  We explained the situation to the officers, who could not have been nicer.  They in turn advised the Palos Verde police of the situation and an hour later, Jack was in custody.  It was decided that no crime would be charged and Jack would be evaluated for admission to the Hospital, placed on a 5150 hold.  He was evaluated and transferred to a hospital in Long Beach for his initial stay.  Because of privacy laws and Jack’s delusions about us, we were never given any kind of access to the doctor.  I wrote a history for the doctor, but have no idea if she ever considered it.  Just shy of two weeks in the Hospital, the doctor decided Jack should be released.  We begged them to reconsider.  We had brief encounters with Jack at the Hospital, twice in the last couple of days leading up to his release and it was plainly obvious that he was still in a delusional state and at great risk if he was thrust out onto the streets, especially as he was completely unprepared for such an experience and had never lived that life.  He had no money, no possessions with him.  We were ignored; the doctor never had any contact with us.  Jack was given two bus tokens and pushed out the door- doomed to failure.

 

We returned home after not being able to locate Jack in the Long Beach area and the next day filed a missing person's report with the Long Beach Police Department.  A couple of days later we found out that a friend had seen him in Santa Monica.  We felt better knowing he was in Santa Monica and started efforts to try and find him.   Then on the Sunday, July 1st, Jack was spotted in line for food at OPCC with other homeless people.   I asked the Santa Monica police to check on him and see if he could be rehospitalized.  They did not find that he was a danger to himself or others. 

 

Jack again disappeared and we spent untold hours every day searching for him again.  On July 11th, we were informed by a social worker from SB 82 with whom we had been working, that Jack had been picked up and hospitalized again.  However, we were told that he had already been discharged out in the Valley.  No one from the Hospital would return my calls, but my wife was able to reach a nurse in the psych unit who confirmed that Jack had been discharged from the unit, HOWEVER, he was discharged to the main hospital with a medical problem and was still there.  We knew that Jack would not permit us anywhere near him.  He was fully aware that he can tell the health care providers not to allow us contact and not to provide us any information.  We did not want to agitate him into walking out of the hospital since he was not in a lockdown unit and could walk away at any time.  We contacted the hospital and confirmed that he was there, but he was about to be discharged.  We strongly urged them to reconsider.  They agreed to not discharge him that night and promised to inform us before they discharged him.  The next morning, without any contact from them, Jack was discharged.  He was put into a cab and sent to a Salvation Army center in the Valley with no plan in place for his aftercare.  We were told by the nurses that they would never have discharged Jack if he was not perfectly fine, even though they were also fully aware that he was still delusional. 

 

Within 24 hours of discharge, Jack was picked up running down the streets of West Hills naked.  He went to the ER of a local Hospital that did not have a psych unit.  They took very good care of Jack pending a bed becoming available.  Jack was then transferred to another hospital.  My wife met with a fifteen year employee in some administrative position at the hospital for over an hour.  She provided a lot of background information and was told that this would be very helpful in providing care to Jack and making sure that he got better.

 

Less than an hour after Susie left the Hospital, Jack called my wife’s best friend in Northern California asking her to pick him up in Santa Monica, also informing her that he had been married in Hawaii and had a two year old child (clear evidence of delusions).  As it turns out, Jack had been discharged without any warning to us, the day before Susie’s meeting with them and the gentleman from the Hospital engaged in some sort of cruel charade for an hour for reasons we cannot begin to fathom.  We found Jack on the streets in Santa Monica late that night and the police placed him on another hold because it was clear to the officer that Jack was gravely disabled.  He was then evaluated and transferred to the same Hospital that first treated him in Long Beach.

 

For the past five to six days, Jack has shown some signs of improvement, making it clear, as we have said all along that if he was cared for properly and long enough, he will get better, come home, and return to a normal life.  The social worker and discharge planner at the hospital agree that Jack should remain hospitalized.  However, the doctor has once again decided that he does not meet the standard for requiring hospitalization, and has ordered him discharged.  Unless we can find a solution, he will once again be pushed out onto the streets, unwilling to come home, because of his delusions that cause him to fear the people that love him the most, his parents. 

 

We have located a private facility that would keep him and give him the opportunity to get better but their discounted rate is $1,000 per day.  He will need to stay for 30 days most likely.  We have tried to go through the system to get Jack the care he needs but the health system has consistently let Jack down and the constant improvement and regression could cause a permanent psychosis that will destroy Jack’s life.  We have concluded that the private solution is the only way to ensure that Jack gets the care he needs.  We are asking for help in getting that help for Jack as we do not have the ability to pay for the care he needs.

 

I do not believe any hospital would get away with half treating and then abandoning patients for any other physical condition.  I understand we use the term mental illness, however, in my book the brain is an organ in the body like any other organ and mental illness should be treated no differently than any other physical ailment.  If the Hospital is not equipped to provide the necessary care, then there should be a responsibility to make certain that the patient receives the care needed elsewhere.  Two bus tokens and good luck to you is not an aftercare program.  It is also intellectually dishonest to argue that the patients have a right to choose to live on the streets if they want.  When the patient is clearly delusional, which we know that Jack is, he cannot make choices that benefit him. 

 

I know that there are people on the street who actually choose that life and do not want the responsibility and restrictions that they see as part of the “normal” lifestyle.  However, the streets are crowded with the mentally ill and I am certain that the majority of them do not need to be there and could be productive members of society if we did not have one of the worst health care systems in the civilized world.  We should be ashamed of the health care provided in general and mortified at what we do for our mentally ill.  Jack is a very bright capable person if cared for properly and the system needs to stop depriving him of his basic rights and neglecting to provide for his basic needs.  The care of the patient, not financial considerations needs to be paramount.  Unfortunately, the changes needed cannot happen overnight and certainly not in time to save Jack.  We are left with a private care solution, which we can’t afford.  The private facility’s normal rate is $4,700 per day with a discounted rate of $3,500 per day.  They are willing, because of contacts we have made and the circumstances involved, to reduce their rate to $1,000 per day.  Our goal is to raise $30,000.  Thank you for anything you are willing to do.