'My Son Is Mentally Ill', So Listen Up

Article here. Finally, a MSM article about boys and severe mental illness that isn't the typical lock-'em-up fare. Check out the stats re the number of boys in jail with mental health problems. Not only do men often get prisons while women get psychiatric commitments for the same offenses, but it looks like states also prefer to jail mentally ill boys instead of treat them. Excerpt:

'As the camera rolls, Stephanie calls psychiatric hospitals near her home in San Antonio. Repeatedly she is turned down. Nothing can be done for her son, she is told, unless "he is a danger to himself or others." It is December 2009, and Daniel's hallucinations last more than two hours.
...
Daniel is 14 now, and his mother no longer needs to convince doctors that he is mentally ill. He suffers from bipolar disorder with psychosis. In the past four years, he has been hospitalized more than 20 times.

But a diagnosis merely marks a beginning. Raising a child with mental illness is "a roller-coaster ride through hell," Stephanie says. She is engaged in an epic battle on multiple fronts.

What if Daniel has an outburst in public and is misunderstood? What if he succumbs to the voices? How can she help Daniel find joy?

And what about the rest of her family? They need her, too.
...
The only time mental illness dominates the national conversation is when something goes tragically wrong. But the dialogue doesn't last. It gets buried under arguments about gun control, video game violence and unheeded signs of trouble -- until there's yet another mass shooting.
...
She plays a video of Daniel enduring an episode of psychosis from May 1 of this year. His legs and arms shake while he sits on a picnic table in the backyard. He places his head between his knees. Then, he stands and paces. He swats the air. His head darts back and forth, as if trying to shake the demons he sees and hears.

"This doesn't happen all the time," she says. "It happens when he has something really stressful going on at school or he has a cycle. Sometimes, the cycle comes every two months; sometimes they're more frequent. I'm happy when they're gone for five months, but that hasn't happened for a while."

Stephanie's voice trembles. Some of the cadets cry. "You guys are my psychotherapists," she tells them. "Not a lot of people want to sit and hear you talk about mental illness."'