Ariel Needs Help

This is Ariel Decker.

Hi, my name is Nancy Decker. I am fundraising for my son Ariel Decker, 30 years old. Ariel suffers from a mental disability. Today he hardly speaks and is disabled.

He has been treated at state-run facilities for 17 years. My husband and I came to Israel from America in 1980 as independent Christian workers. We had five children in Israel, Ariel being our youngest. Our marriage fell apart around the time Ariel was born.

Ariel took on the burden of his broken family. He never felt like he fitted in anywhere. When he reached the age of 12 he became depressed. I was advised to take him to the mental health facilities in Jerusalem.

That's when this all started for Ariel. They gave him one medication, and then another and another to counteract the side effects of the others and they kept changing and adjusting over the years.

The long-term effects of the strong medications have caused a chronic condition in Ariel. He barely has any memories of life without medications. He has spent his whole life in and out of hospitals. It has become evident that this will be the way the rest of his life will be.

We are not expecting now that he will walk away as a completely healed person, but with more personal and active daily therapies, he would be able to gain the necessary identity, skills and techniques to become a responsible person.

The doctor at the hospital in Israel recently admitted to me that they are overworked and understaffed. According to him, there were 37 men with 2 doctors and one social worker. The only therapy Ariel got was a higher dosage of medications.

Ariel needs more personal, one on one treatment. There is a desperate need for more personalized treatment for many people who are being diagnosed, overmedicated and left to fend for themselves.

We recognize that if Ariel could get this kind of help, he would have a much higher chance to improve, learn to be independent and responsible, and for building a future. Otherwise, he will stay on the same course that he's been going on for the past 17 years.

He has tried the state-run mental health system for so long. As time has passed, the system has become more overworked and understaffed, the epidemic of mental diseases has multiplied, and Ariel has become lost in the crowd and stuck in the revolving door syndrome of hospitalizations.

I am not able to support a good private facility myself. I am therefore hoping that by opening this "Go Fund Me" page, Ariel will be able to go to a residential treatment center.

Please consider donating to this cause.

Thank you very much.