Sylvia Mignon: When Your Expertise Can't Save Your Child

Welcome to Why Not Me the World? Podcast hosted by
Tony Mantor, broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join
us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will
make you laugh, some will make you cry. Real life
people who will inspire and show that you are not
alone in this world. Hopefully you gain more awareness, acceptance,
and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi,
I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me the World?
Humanity over Handcuffs the Silent Crisis special event. Joining us
today is Sylvia Mignon. She is a licensed Clinical social
Worker and Therapist LICSW who specializes in clinical work with
mental health clients, abuse survivors, and individuals with substance abuse disorders,
and correctional population. She is also the author on textbooks
with topics including substance abuse treatment, family violence, child welfare,
and mental illness. With her extensive expertise, we are thrilled
to welcome her and look forward to her valuable knowledge
she will share with us. Thanks for coming on. Can
you give us information on what you do?
I'm a social worker, I'm a professor merit of criminal justice.
Pretty unbelieved football this is the work I do and
how little I've been able to help my son.
Yes, unfortunately that does happen. Can you expand why it
was that you got into this business?
Well, I grew up in a dysfunctional home. I chose
a career of social work to try and help other people,
and I was unable to help my father, who was
a chronic alcoholic. So after social work school and during
social work school, I worked in the field of substance
abuse treatment. My husband and I are both clinicians specializing
substance abuse, and I've always appreciated the power of extending
a hand to someone in need, to see the severity
of mental illness, to see the severity of substance abuse
among people. And I also had the experience of living
three year in Mexico and seeing extreme poverty there when
I was fifteen. So I enjoyed teaching college courses in prisons,
not but the most capable students I've ever had, And
a lot of my career has been about talking about
things that most people typically don't want to talk about them.
Yes, unfortunately, there is a definite stigma that goes along
with anything that's associated with mental health. So how do
we change that. What are some of the steps that
you've taken. What have you seen that actually works to
help us achieve what we're aiming for. How do we
get to a place where people will focus on the
individual and offer help rather than getting caught up with
the stigma.
Well, there's so much to be done. And my son,
who has a Skitzell effective disorder, is an example of
someone with severe mental illness. That even those who work
in the field mental health professional stigmatize people at the
most severe end of mental illness. That's a huge problem.
So we have stigma among the general public, and we
have stigma among those psychiatrists and others who purport to
want to help the severely mentally ill. We've created bureaucracies
that do not work on behalf of clients and families.
The bureaucracies we create are designed to work for those
who work within those systems. As a professor of criminal justice,
I can easily attests to other criminal justic the system
work on behalf of judges, attorneys, probation officers, people who
work in the system and don't have enormous or much
regard for defendants, and those who must come into contact
with the system. I hard back to the work. I'm
a sociologist of Max Weber who did a lot of
work on bureaucracy, and the idea of developing bureaucracy is
about making work more efficient, how to get things done well.
What's happened in the mental health field and criminal justice
is that the bureaucracies work on behalf of themselves, leaving defendants, clients,
and their families without the help they need. So, yes,
we need more education of how people who are different,
people who need extra help, and I fear we're going
to see families without the help they need.
How do we bring everyone together when each person holds
their own views and ideas. Often it's just a matter
of perception. People see things a certain way, even if
that's not the full picture. So how do we shift
that outlook and show what's really going on? And how
can we encourage the bureaucracy to ease up a bit
and be a little more open with what can help
the people that need it the most.
Well, we do that by modeling interventions and behaviors. I'm
happy to say there's still a number of people working
in criminal justice and in the mental health field are
committed to working with individuals and families. So we do
that one client at a time. We do that by
seeking out about the things that are not working well.
I'll give you an example. In Massachusetts, the governor has
decided to close a sixteen beds psychiatric unit on Capecok
called Casset Mental Health. I work with people who work
there over forty years ago, and now it's too expensive,
and now they want to cut the staffing. It shows
incredible ignorance to think that Massachusetts can do with fewer
psychiatric beds when many more are needed. The other day
there was the opportunity to come before officials and talk
about what should happen. A lot of people came. They
stood up, They spoke against this. They told the stories
of clients and families who need these services. There were
people who came in the flesh, people who came via zoom.
I was one of the zoom folks. That's how I know.
So standing up is a critical part of getting attention.
But I've also seen politically when people are so concerned
about their own needs, when they don't have enough to eat,
when they don't have adequate housing, it's very difficult to
be concerned about problems of others, and that's what we
seem to be doing in politics today. Rather than focusing
on all that we have in common. Some of the
other things we do is we promote programs that look
to identify the things we have in common. For example,
I practice yoga for thirty nine years and I teach
yoga at my local senior center. Yoga practices talk about
the importance of coming together, of supporting one another, of
being aware of what's happening around the world, and staying engaged.
Too easy these days to say I've got my I've
got what I ne need see by yes.
Unfortunately, I've said many times this country is a country
that it's not a problem until it affects our family.
How do you think we can change the mindset of
those that don't see the urgency or the need. Sometimes
people have to realize it's not about our kids having
mental illness. It can be the ones that's around them.
It affects our families in so many different ways. With
that said, it actually affects our whole community in ways
that we don't see it sometimes. What kind of proactive
steps do you think we can take to make a
change that ultimately will help everyone.
I'm not optimistic about that happening. In the current political climate,
those who are politicians could be willing to learn more
about mental illness. Recently, when my son was in the
hospital and they were not treating him appropriately, they began
to charge him with assault battery against other patients and staff.
They were doing that intentionally, tony to rid themselves of
a patient they thought was very difficult. This my son
belonged to the State wester Recovery Center where they had
the staff to handle him, and this hospital could not
arrange for him to be transferred. I worked for months.
I called the Commissioner of Mental Health the Massachusetts I
called to the medical directs there. I worked very, very hard.
Did I call my legislator. Absolutely nobody cared enough. They
looked the other way, bringing fourteen assault battery charges against
someone in psychosis as a real attention getter. It has
resulted in my son being put in jail when he
has severe mental illness. He had no history of violence
prior to his stay in the hospital. So we're pointing
out that this particular hospital was not willing or able
to treat my son appropriately. They were not able to
provide care. They were not able to get him to
a place that could provide care, and so we need
to work more at educating people who work with the
mentally ill.
What were some of the things that you saw during
your son's stay at the hospital.
Each time I went to visit my son, I ended
up saying to the staff, your staff is under educated
and undertrained to know what psychosis is. So that's a
really important place to start. Historically, psychiatrists have not looked
forward to treating the most severely mentally ill. The most
severely mentally ill are those with bipolar disorder and those
with a schizophrendy spectrum disorder. Those who have a schitzophreendia
spectrum disorder about one percent of the global population. That
means a lot of mental health professionals do not regularly
come in contact with people with schizophrenia unless they choose
that as a specialty, unless they have that is a
special interest. Dame is true for psychiatric hospitals, the smaller
private places. They want to treat depression, they want to
treat anxiety with pills, and they are not prepared for
the most severely mentally him. So we need to do
more to prepare those mental health professionals. And you may
be aware, Tony, that the field of mental health treatment
is moving in the direction of training more psychiatric nurse practitioners.
They are much more willing to engage with a severely
mentally ill than the typical psychiatrists. It's become a sad joe.
What's the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychiatric nurse practitioner.
The psychiatric nurse practitioners willing toll you back. You know,
they're willing to engage and be helpful.
Well, at least we are getting some people out there
that continue to try and do what they need so
they can help.
Absolutely.
The bottom line is we just need people that are
willing to get out there, step up and help any
way they can.
So we need people to step up and have and
who know how to help. I'm the author of five textbooks.
I love to have been a novelist, but don't know
how to do that, So I have two textbooks on
substance abuse, I have a textbook on child welfare, and
my most recent book is All Social and Mental Health
Evidence based policy and Practice and it's with Springer. So
my book won an award and now I've just signed
a contract to write a second edition of that so
as a textbook, it will be used in social courses,
bs W and MS courses. I feel it's very important
to put information out there, and I like Springer as
a publisher because not only do they like the academic stuff,
they like the real world stories of what it means
to have mental illness, what it means to be a
family member of someone with mental illness. Most people, as
you know, just don't.
Know, yes, for sure. It's what I call the big
unknown it is. I use that because I talk with
a lot of people that are in the autistic communities. Yeah,
and the thing that they go through is when they
first find out their child is autistic. It's the big unknown.
They don't know what to do, who to call. They
are just totally confused and afraid of what to do.
I see those with mental illness are the same. They
are in the unknown and not sure what to do,
facing a scenario that they never thought they would ever see. Yeah.
So that said, what would you tell those families that
are just first finding out that their child may have
some mental illness? What are some of the basic steps
to start.
It's hard to say what's the most important, But I
would recommend going online. There's a lot of good information
on schizophrenia bipolar disorder online. There are books written by
family members, even those who have someone with schizophrenia in
their family. There are books and articles written by people
who have schizophrenia. So there's the education piece, and then
the next piece is the support, locating the people who
understand you, locating the people who have been where you are.
I'm the queen of support groups. I've been doing for groups,
so people who helped me when I started five years ago.
Now I'm the facilitator for the Schizophrenian Psychosis Action Alliance.
Now I can pass on the wisdom I've acquired from others,
and that's of critical importance. Today there are support groups
for people who have schizophrenia and biler. Schizophrenian Psychosis Action
Alliance has really ramped up their support groups. They have
groups for families. Now they're working to get a sibling
support group. National Alliance on Mental Illness offer support groups.
There are vocal vendors of mental health services that offer
support groups and they're free of charge, so that's huge.
Yes, the best thing that people can do is reach
out to all these organizations and find out as much
as they possibly can about it. You had mentioned your son,
Can you give us a little information on him?
My saw on this twenty seven. He's been sick for
nine years. Our family has had nine years of hell
trying to help and Tony, And just last week from jail,
he said, you know, Mom, I don't think all you're
doing is really helping me. And I had to say,
I agree. I think you're right. I have wore iirelessly,
the equivalent of more than a full time job, and
as ill as my son is, he came fourth with
what I thought was an extremely meaningful insight.
So in this situation, what can you do? You've tried, everything,
you've thought about everything. You look back and realize that
everything that you've done has been for him. What's the
potential for the future.
Well, I'm between between now. We were in court recently.
I had a beautiful letter from Ann Corkrant to the
judge about the importance of treatment. I was encouraged to
write a letter to the judge myself, just one page,
which I did, and when we went to court, my
efforts were refused. I was not allowed to submit Ann's letter.
I was not allowed to submit my own letter asking
for mental health treatment for my son. Now, why do
you think a judge would refuse to get more information?
Spending most of my career as an academic and a professor,
I think having information is really important, having facts, different
points of view. Isn't that something that we want to
equate with justice and even handedness and equity. I thought
that was a pretty profound message there, and it's a
strong reminder as Anne's letter pointed out the importance of
educating judges about mental illness, of educating defense attorneys, assistant
district attorneys, prosecutors. The need is enormous.
Yes, I agree, one, Judges, lawyers, everyone involved in a
legal system needs to have a better understanding of mental
illness and how to work within the system but still
come up with something that's going to help people. So
the more knowledge they have, hopefully the better off we are.
But may not want it and may make a conscious
choice to reject. It's painful, extremely painful, you know, of course,
it's very painful to be in court with your child
who so ill, who's in shackled and handcuffs, looking horrific,
and being told what you have to say is not important.
Yeah, So in closing, what would you like to tell
the listeners that you think is very important for them
to hear. Some may be going through similar situations that
you have seen, So what do you think is important
for them to hear.
I think we've made the point, and I'm sure most
of your guests have the importance of educating yourself, the
importance of picking and choosing what you choose to share
with others, especially family. Know most people I say my
son has severe mental illness, I don't give the diagnosis
because people find that frightening. They think someone with severe
mental illness is going to be violent. So we need it.
Can choose, decide what will share, and do our real
sharing with the support groups we choose to participate in.
And let's remember that these national organizations such as the
National Shattering Silence Coalition, the word is spreading the advocacy
when we can come together and work together. I'm working
with a woman who's a dear friend now I met
on the support group. We are trying to see whether
it will be possible to bring a class action loss
against the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health that fail so
many clients, so many of their families, and I have
to stay working in criminal justice. Tony, I'm the least
litigious person I know. But we know what we need
to do. We know the importance of bringing people together
who have been impacted, sharing the stories.
Yes, that's huge. I think that's a very good thing
for people to get together tell their stories. This way,
they know they're not alone in their fight. The one
common thing I hear from most everyone I speak with
is how they think the system is fractured and it's
just a nightmare to navigate through the whole thing for
their children.
Yes, and you know, oftentimes experts say it's a broken system. Well,
in reality, it never worked. No one ever cared enough
to have a smooth working system. If we did, we
would have an adequate number of psychiatric beds in every state.
There is no state that has an adequate number for
those with severe mental illness, those who experience psychosis. Now
we discriminate in terms of the availability of medications. Some
of these medications a shock can cost thousands of dollars.
How many people have access to that. My son is
one of those who needs to be medicated against his
will in Massachusetts. While he did well in the group
for two years, he decided not to take the medication anymore.
Seventy five percent of people with severe mental illness come
off the medication on their own. And you know what
they said in his group home, it's his basic human
right to refuse medication. We met with them, my husband
and I baked to them, said, you don't know what
can happen, basic human.
Right, Yeah, exactly. Well, this has been a great conversation
and a lot of great information. I do appreciate you
taking the time to come on.
Well, I appreciate you, Tony. You have so many skills.
I enjoyed reading about you.
Well, just just trying to take and do my part
to make a difference if I can, and you.
Are doing that and that's much appreciated.
Yeah, well, thanks for coming on. Like I said, I
appreciate it.
Thank you very much.
Well, the pleasure's been online. Thanks again. Thanks for taking
the time out of your busy schedule to listen to
our show today. We hope that you enjoyed it as
much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you
know anyone that would like to tell us their story,
send them to tonymantor dot com. Contact then they can
give us their information so one day they may be
a guest on our show. One more thing we ask
tell everyone everywhere about why not me? The world, the
conversations we're having, and the inspiration our guests give to
everyone everywhere that you are not alone in this world