Let’s Talk about the Law - Mental Illness and Legal Matters, Part One (Ep. 12)

Guest: Judge Lisa Wexler, Connecticut

In past episodes we’ve had the chance to talk with social workers, psychiatrists and other practitioners about the “flaws” in the system to get help for people with schizophrenia - get them off the streets, into treatment, and stable. 

Many of our listeners have shared frustrations with the law, confusion about the process, and want to know more. Today we get the story from the other side of the bench.

Judge Lisa Wexler (https://www.lisawexler.com/ )has been a probate judge in Connecticut since 2013. She is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and NYU School of Law. She has practiced law in NY and CT for many years and is also a professional mediator . Lisa is also the creator of The Lisa Wexler Show, a daily talk radio show airing on WICC-600 in suburban CT and metro NY. 

We Talk About: Part One

Commitment laws in CT and the abilities of conservators. 

• Can medication for schizophrenia or other SMI (serious mental illness)  be legally required? Enforced? In what circumstances/places?  By whom (who has the authority)? 
• Hospitalization/ Involuntary commitment in mental illness
• Hearings re disability, etc.
• What’s it like on your side of the bench? What goes into the judgments you make regarding mental illness and conservatorship? What do you look for when you meet someone who may need to be conserved?
• Who make the best conservators? Family members or professional conservators?
• What is the “black robe effect?” Does it work?

Much more to come in Part Two, episode 13

Transcript

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SPEAKER_02 0:01

Welcome to our podcast, Schizophrenia. Three moms in the trenches. From the place where schizophrenia and real life collide. East Coast, West Coast, Middle America. With Miriam Feltman, Mindy Gryling, and Randy Kay. Welcome to episode 12. In the past episodes, we've had the chance to talk with social workers and psychiatrists and other practitioners about the flaws in the system in getting help for people with schizophrenia, get them off the streets into treatment, get them stable, keep them stable. And many of our listeners have shared frustrations with the law, confusion about the process. And they want to know more. So today I'm so excited because we're going to get the story from the other side of the bench, at least in Connecticut. I'm delighted to welcome our guest, Judge Lisa Wexler of Connecticut. Welcome, Judge Lisa.

SPEAKER_04 0:59

Hi, Randy. Such a pleasure to be here. Hello.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

We're so glad to have you. Now let me just give a bit of a bio about you. So Judge Lisa has been the Westport Weston Probate Judge here in Connecticut. That's my home state, since 2013. And you're a graduate of John Hopkins University, NYU School of Law. Are you a native New Yorker? Just curious.

SPEAKER_04 1:21

Well, I was born in Brooklyn and raised in Woodmere on Long Island. So yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

Okay. And I'm a Queens girl. So we have that in common. Judge Lisa has practiced law in New York and Connecticut. She's a professional mediator and the creator of the Lisa Wexler Show, which is a daily talk radio show airing on an AM station in Connecticut, W I C C. Also, it's in Metro New York. And I love this. She's been married forever to the same great guy, two kids who are no longer technically dependents. I'm jealous. And is accompanied everywhere by Shayna. Is that how you say it? Shayna, of course.

SPEAKER_04 1:59

Tell us a bit about Shayna. She's what? Shayna, my mate. Oh, so Shayna's a little Bichon. She's two years old. And I actually brought her with me today to the hospital because I regularly go to St. Vincent's Behavioral Health. And you know what, Randy? Normally she accompanies me to nursing homes and all my hearings in town hall. But the last hearing I was at, a psychiatrist, I was talking about that. And she wrote me a letter and she asked me to bring the dog. So I did. So I brought Shayna today to a hearing. Yeah. She likes a therapy dog trained, sort of? She will be. She's a little young, but my other Bichon was. So she's just she's in training. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

That's amazing. Well, welcome. Uh, we're just gonna have a conversation. I know you and I have met, and I'll explain that in a minute, but uh Mindy and Mimi are gonna get a chance. And I'm in Connecticut, so are you, uh, Mindy, middle of the country. You're representing the entire middle of the country by being in Minnesota, and and Mimi or Miriam is uh you represent the whole West Coast because actually you live kind of up and down the coast. So, Judge Lisa, I've met you a couple of times, and because I'm constantly in a situation of trying to retain conservatorship for my son. Now, in Connecticut, uh, Mimi and I were talking about this before the show, we don't use the term guardian, right?

SPEAKER_04 3:25

No, well, we do actually, but not in the context of mental health matters. The guardians are used for purposes of people with intellectual disability who were born with an intellectual disability and they have an IQ of 69 or uh under. And when they become 18, the probate court myself, I appoint guardians for those persons.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Okay, speaking for the whole Midwest, I'm not sure. I'll speak for Minnesota anyway. Here we do have guardians for both people with developmental disabilities or elderly people with dementia and people with mental illness. And then conservators would be dealing with um money matters or the estate.

SPEAKER_04 4:12

Oh, so you you separate, so here we have conservator of the person, and we do pronounce it funny. They pronounce it conservator instead of conservative. Oh my goodness. I know it's weird, but I've had to get used to it. So it's conservator of the person and conservator of the estate. And what you're saying is you have guardian of the person and conservator of the estate.

SPEAKER_02 4:30

Okay, okay, and I never knew I've been saying conservator or conservator for my whole life. So in Connecticut, it's conservator, but it's a conservatorship, right?

SPEAKER_04 4:40

Right. Or conservatorship, whatever, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

Okay, crazy English. Yeah, and um, and Mimi, what are you used to?

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Also, the same thing, guardian is of the person, and you know, honestly, I have not had any experience with this, except talking about it theoretically with other people. Um, in the very beginning, I looked into it and had a couple conversations 15 years ago about Nick, but he we've always been able to manage Nick and have not had to do that. And I was told early on, don't even try, it's impossible to get.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

Okay, so let's see how that can be. So, full disclosure for me, as I said, I I've met Judge Lisa a couple of times, and uh because you are the probate judge in a town where my son was in the hospital a long time ago, that's where my conservatorship is. And so I've had to renew, and he had a lawyer representing him. This was it's going back maybe 10 years, nine, 10 years, and we had a hearing, and you were kind enough to grant me conservatorship again, which I he was presenting so well. I didn't know if that would happen, and I want to ask you about that in a second. And then recently, uh our listeners know that my son just lost his job in COVID and everything came crashing down, and he spent five and a half months in the hospital after nine years of success, such as the roller coaster of having a loved one with schizophrenia. And we had another hearing so that I could have right to, well, actually, the hospital could have right to involuntary commitment and right to Medicaid against overobjection. Uh, my son did not, Ben did not show up for that hearing, but it was up to you to make that decision. So we have met, and at that time, I thought, wow, we'd love to have you on the podcast. And I know you that you've shown interest in speaking for a NAMI group. So I'm just so glad to give you that opportunity and to be able to pick your brain. So, how much can you explain about the commitment laws in Connecticut and like what is a conservator? What can a conservator do? Like, can we force people to take medicine? How does that work?

SPEAKER_04 6:56

So I just gave a two-hour lecture to all of the probate chair just a couple of weeks ago on commitments. So I don't want to go that far into the weeds, but let me just tell you, let me let me start with where you what you really want to know. In Connecticut, the only compulsory administration of medicines is in a hospital setting. This differs, I know, from other states. So when somebody has a chronic mental illness of, for example, schizophrenia, if they end up being admitted into the hospital because of what we call a PEC, a physician's emergency certificate, where they can be held but not for longer than 15 days unless there's a commitment proceeding. Um, when they're eventually committed, if there's a conservator in place, there is a separate hearing that the probate judge can decide if it is necessary for the person to be better, and with the presumption that the person is already gravely disabled or dangerous to himself or herself or others, that the medicine can be compelled to be given in a hospital setting. If the person's in a hospital long term, the authority only lasts a maximum of 120 days, and it ends anytime the person is discharged from the hospital. So if they're in for two weeks and they rotate back and they decompensate and they have to come back in, you have to have a hearing all over again. It is actually technically the conservator who has the authority to press the go button. The judge only gives the conservator authority to discuss the matter with the doctor, and in consultation with the doctor, it is technically the conservator who has authority to say, yes, you can go ahead, and if my son says no, you can restrain him and you can put an injection into his body. But hopefully it won't have to go that far because when he hears that the judge has said he has to take it, hopefully he will take it.

unknown 8:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

And that's the black robe effect, which we'll we'll talk about in a minute. So in my state, as as you know, but I'm telling uh Mindy and Mimi, anything, anytime I've had a hearing, and it's happened three or four times, and my son has been hospitalized nine times so far. I fought like heck to get the rights, and I got the rights, but I always had right to medicate or to suggest or to work with the doctor to medicate, but never to choose the medication. That's been a sticking point for me. And whatever right I did have disappeared the minute he was discharged. The minute. The minute he was discharged. All right, Mimi, tell our judge Lisa a little bit about your story and what do you want to know?

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Well, my son is 35, he's been sick for almost 20 years now. When he first got sick, as I was saying earlier, uh we did in the beginning look into conservatorship, but in California, we were just, and he was very sick then too, and being hospitalized and everything. But we were told the advice that we got is don't even waste your time trying, figure out some kind of way to control what he's doing. And we were lucky because he was um relatively young and agreed to this deal almost 20 years ago that we would give him a roof over his head and food to eat and um a pack of cigarettes a day, but now he's quit. And in exchange for that, he would take his medication. And we've been able to wield that power over him ever since. Somehow it just locked into his brain that this is the deal.

SPEAKER_02 10:40

Right, it's a finagle chip instead of a conservator better.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

But you know something I was told by a very wise doctor in the very beginning when I was paying Nick to take his meds, and my daughters were looking at me like they wanted to kill me because nobody had ever paid them once to take their amoxicillin, and they were seeing their brother get money to take his pills in the morning. But the doctor said to me, everything that you every rule, every belief that you have about parenting, about mothering, it's out the window now. All that matters is keeping him safe and getting that medicine, very, very good advice. Yeah. And you do what you have to do. And it it sort of is imprinted in his brain. I'm wondering what it's like then on your side of the bench. Like what goes into the judgment that you make about conservatorship?

SPEAKER_04 11:31

You're talking about specifically conservatorship for the purpose of administering medicine in a compulsory setting in a hospital?

SPEAKER_02 11:38

Or the one that lasts because my conservatorship lasted after the discharge.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Yeah, I'm confused with the terms. I mean where you basically run their life. Okay, I think you're talking about conservatorship.

SPEAKER_04 11:51

Okay, so I so there's a wide range of conservatorships, and there are obviously people who need them because they have dementia, cognitive disorders, strokes, but for purposes of mental illness, it's a whole different category. So here are some of the things that I think about. And just so you know, I'm one of two judges in the state of Connecticut that have the most experience in terms of the highest volume of these cases. Because it happens that in my district is a mental health hospital, it's a behavioral health hospital, that's all they do. And they are one of the few hospitals in Connecticut that take poor people. So they're always busy. They've just merged with Hartford Health. We get patients from all over the state, and I'm there several times a week on average. So just so you know, I've been a judge for about eight years, and and I do have a lot of much more experience than the average judge. So, what goes into my head for these cases? A couple of things. First of all, there is a bias in the law, and it's a good one, that family members should be someone's conservator. But I find that in mental health matters the bias is sometimes misplaced because very often the person who's the conservator is seen as an enemy of the person with the schizophrenia. And it's the nature of the disease, but it's also the fact that the conservator is the one who's telling the doctor that they have to take medicine when very often they don't want to take it. So we have a couple, more than a couple, but a couple of really good professional conservators who all they do is represent their state contractor. They take a lot of training, they get a certain amount of a fixed payment a month. They have staff 24-7, 365 days a year to answer a phone, and the person themselves is always on call, like always. And there's one or two good ones in my area, and I find that they are incredibly well networked for housing and discharge plans to keep these people on task and compliant as much as possible in a situation where the non-compliance is the biggest problem. So the first thing, and I know it's a long-winded answer, but the first thing I want to tell you is that for cases of mental illness, I probe gently to see if the parent is actually the proper person to be the conservator. And very often, sometimes, if we're not sure, we can make them a co so that the parent is still getting noticed and very involved, but the other guy can be the bad guy. And sometimes I want the other guy to be the bad guy, who, by the way, isn't just a bad guy, but is so hooked up into housing. Housing is the biggest problem for people with chronic schizophrenia. Your children are so lucky to have you, but you are an anomaly. In the world that I'm living in with chronic schizophrenia, most people's families have abandoned them, or they have outgrown the one mother or father that adored them because they're in their 50s now or whatever. And the family is gone. If a family is gone, then what happens? You're with a stranger anyway. So I'm just trying to let you know that not every case is the same, they're all different, but for the chronic schizophrenics, I don't want to call them schizophrenics. You can say it, it's fine, it is what it is. Okay, okay. I don't want to call it.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

You have bigger things to worry about.

SPEAKER_04 15:31

Okay, okay. So for people with a chronic illness, the parent is not necessarily always the best, even though I want the parent to be very much involved.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

So that's well, do you see it as you don't want that the parent isn't capable, or that you or you're basing it on seeing a lot of potential hostility from the child?

SPEAKER_04 15:51

Um, both capable of what is necessary in terms of resources in the community that are available. I'm talking about all the financial entitlements, the fact that every single year you have to re-up your disability. If you have too much money in your account, you're off. I want them to have husky, I want them to have all that stuff. And these professional conservators, that's what they do. They have paralegals that do this every day of the week. They know how to hook into all these entitlements. Hey, it sounds like a dream come true to me. I think I want one of those. Why am I a conservator? I'll tell you, Randy, I thought about it when I met you. Yeah, but you're such an unusually capable, competent parent. There's your that I didn't raise it. But when I see people, not you, I always raise it. And you know, you could always call me up and I can give you the name. I think I actually gave you the name of the gal that does a fantastic job for people.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

But anyway, I so I will I will hit you up for that when you know when the time comes. I mean, right now, my son, we did get him into housing. Good. And after nine years of living with us, you know, with Finagle Ship, um this is much better. I can be his mother now. Well, that's what I'm talking about. That is what I'm talking about, which which I love. Which you wanted to add, or should I move on to Mindy's question? Because it was a great answer.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

Sorry. Okay. I don't know if you can hear the thunder in the background, but it's really thundering here. So getting on the air here. Minnesota is totally different, I can tell, from from Connecticut. So our son, for Judge Lisa's thumbnail sketch, he's 43. He's been civilly committed um in probate court seven times. We tried for guardianship the last time and we did not get it. It's very, just like uh Mimi said in Washington, it's very hard to get here. Why? Uh because he was not considered sick enough to warrant it. We're we're a big civil rights state here in Minnesota. A person has their right to make their own decision. So it's a very, it's easier to get civilly committed, I think, for someone with mental illness than it is to get a guardianship. And in fact, NAMI, Minnesota doesn't recommend that guardianship is the way to go because guardianship here, it doesn't sound like we would get anywhere near the conservators or guardians that you have in Connecticut, because here we have a whole system of case managers and social workers. Well, we have that too. And housing specialists. So all the things you're saying that the conservator, I'm gonna call it because I can't pronounce it right. Um, the conservator does, the other staff does those things. The reason that we wanted and that a lot of families wish they had guardianship here in Minnesota is because of family involvement. So in we are told, are you the guardian? No. Well, then your person is their own person, your son is their own person.

SPEAKER_03 19:14

But they're sick. And so you they start him with the HIPAA stuff, and then you don't know anything, and you're the one, you're their lifeline. That is this whole situation.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

So that's why families here in Minnesota would like guardianship because the mental health system, because of HIPAA, and just because of a variety of things, all related to HIPAA, but preceding HIPAA as well, are you know, we know what we're doing and we're doing it, and you're a family member, you're on the outside. And are you so are you the guardian? No, you're not. Well, then uh we'll step in and we'll do everything.

SPEAKER_04 19:50

And Mindy, I have to ask you something. If your son is committed, yes, and I don't know what the standard is in Connecticut. The standard for commitment is they have to be either gravely disabled or dangerous to themselves or dangerous to others, they have to be found that by two independent physicians in addition to the inpatient, and the hospital has to be the least restrictive environment. So, but once they're committed, at least in Connecticut, among the doctors in my hospital, they believe that there's no point in being committed unless they're being given antipsychotic medicine. And when patients refuse to take it, they have to have a conservator to force it. And that's where I come in. How does the hospital handle people who come into a hospital and are committed but don't want to take medicine? What do they do?

SPEAKER_01 20:43

They give it to them anyway, and they don't have to involve a conservator. We have something called Jarvis Hearing, and it used to be you got civilly committed, and then later you would have a Jarvis hearing, which is named after the person who was arguing against involuntary medication. And then once you had that hearing, then you could be the hospital could give you meds. And now, actually, when I was in the state legislature, I worked on a civil commitment reform, and that was one of the things we did that the civil commitment hearing and the Jarvis hearing had to take place simultaneously. So as soon as you're committed, you're also Jarvis, we call it in Minnesota. The hospital can give you meds, and your uh commitment involves your having to stick with your discharge plan, which includes always for civil commitment. Take your meds and you know, do the basic things that that you're required to do. Otherwise, your civil commitment could be your provisional discharge could be revoked and back you are to the to the civil commitment court.

SPEAKER_04 21:51

So let me ask me ask you about that. I'm curious. So at this civil commitment hearing, is the respondent. Is the patient represented by counsel?

SPEAKER_01 22:02

Yes. The patient is represented by counsel. And the commitment is usually brought by the hospital. The first time Jim was committed, they conned me into doing it, saying you're much more apt to have the judge do it if you are the no. And uh that was very bad advice. It just meant they didn't want to go to court. So then I did make an enemy of my son. So I always will resent the person that gave me that advice. Bad advice. I make sure it's the hospital administrator, but it's it has nothing to do with guardianship. Guardianship, the reason we sought that for our son was because he was being victimized by a girlfriend who got him into crack, and she was taking him twice a week to give blood so that she could have drug money for that. She all his possessions, a drug dealer took over his apartment, et cetera, et cetera. So we felt his life was in danger. His dentist noticed uh dental problems and so forth. And so uh that's what we wanted it for, but the they did not deem it serious enough because he had his own choice. If he wanted to have that girlfriend, that was his choice. So we don't have, I didn't get any help from that. And then on top of it all, though, as I said, Nami was advising against it, because then you end up parents here are not, we don't have any bias in the law. It's quite the reverse. And the court is very rarely would ever appoint a parent. And then the guardians are often at odds uh with the parents. Nami said that creates more problems often than it solves. Having a guardian who's not really very the the parent would be the one at the hospital, the parent would be the one trying to find housing, but meanwhile, you can't do a thing without this absentee.

SPEAKER_04 23:54

Okay, so that's really very different because here's what happens. Uh and by the way, you say go to court. In in Minnesota, is the court coming to you? Because I am like the old-fashioned circuit judges that you used to see on TV. I go to the hospital.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

Um, some of the civil commitment courts are in the like we have a hospital that sounds just like your hospital. It's the one for uh indigent people, and the civil commitment court is there, but the other courts, the probate courts, are in the city halls and so forth.

SPEAKER_04 24:26

No, but my my probate court's in the city hall, but we don't ask sick people to come to me. My point is, how do you have a commitment hearing with somebody who's sick? They have to come to court.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

The first time Jim went to court, the first time Jim went to court, he argued and put laid forth his case, and afterwards he decided he was never going to win, so there's no point in bothering. So he doesn't even go. And he doesn't often care to go, and they don't care if he goes or not. But here's my question for you. I really wish when Jim is in court and the judge is talking to him, Jim has also been in uh criminal court, and the judge is talking to him. I so want that black robe effect to apply. And sometimes it seems like it does, and other times it doesn't seem like it does. So, from your perspective on your side of the bench, how often do you think that works for people before you?

SPEAKER_04 25:23

So, you know, first of all, I don't wear a robe. It's a it's a tradition, it's a tradition in our probate system. Some judges break it, but I sort of am fond of it, that I don't wear a rope because we are traditionally much more accessible than other judges. And we sort of like to keep it that way. But I still conduct the courtroom, which is to say a conference room, with I think a lot of seriousness and decorum. Would you agree with that, Randy? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. You still know you're in a courtroom. It's just I don't. So if what you mean by the black robe effect is the impact of having a judge listen and talk, I call that soft power. And I think it's very effective. I I have gotten notes and letters from people that have told me how effective it is. I I have to tell you, I wasn't even gonna tell you, but since you brought it up, I got a letter. I'm gonna cry now. I got a letter from a mother maybe two months ago, and she wrote a poem and a letter to me. And the letter said, Dear Judge Wexler, you don't remember me. Or you may not remember the truth is I didn't remember her. I didn't, because I do hundreds, not thousands now. Anyway, you may not remember me, but we remember you. Because in a courtroom five years ago, 2015, in St. Vincent's Hospital, in a commitment hearing, you said to my son, they just haven't figured out the right recipe yet, but you're gonna get well. I said actually the right cocktail is how I said it. I said they haven't figured out the right cocktail yet, but you're gonna get well. I'm sorry that you have to be a guinea pig for this, but stick with it, have some faith in your doctors, and you're gonna get well. Well, apparently the parents held on to this, and I mean it. And six later, she wrote me this letter about how he had gone to college, graduated college, and and she thanked a ton of other people in mental health. I mean, she had a lot of people to thank, but she wrote this poem where she wrote about me and how the words I said in the hearing gave them strength and gave them positivity. So if that's what you mean by the black robe effect, I try.

SPEAKER_03 27:56

I try, yeah, yeah, try to talk to people.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

Thank you. Let me get in line for your court as well. I have not heard those kinds of things. This feels more like a a criminal proceeding to me.

SPEAKER_04 28:11

Not not in my court, Randy. Is my court like a criminal proceeding?

SPEAKER_02 28:14

No, not at all, not at all. And and I think that to me, what was amazing in the hearing where my son was there, and you know, as conservator, I've never really abused it, and he knew that, but every once in a while he gets contacted, like, are you sure you still want your mother to be conservator? And that was the the instance of that.

SPEAKER_04 28:33

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 28:34

And he was at the time doing quite well and presented himself very well, and somehow you saw through it.

SPEAKER_04 28:40

That's you because it's the nature of the illness, Randy.

SPEAKER_02 28:45

Right, and and you know that, which is great.

SPEAKER_04 28:48

And and so what we I was nervous, I was nervous, I was nervous to break what wasn't broken. In other words, when I saw you and your son, he was well and he was being managed, and I thought, if I if I if I jigger this, um, and your son, by the way, was not was not asking to break the conservatorship, he was inquiring and probing about it, but he wasn't, I'm angry, I want this done, I don't need it anymore, Your Honor. He wasn't like that at all, and so I thought I can't break, I can't, what do they say? Fix what isn't broken? Yeah, I was afraid because he was doing so well. I don't want to disturb that. Why do I I wouldn't want to disturb that?

SPEAKER_02 29:37

And for years it worked, so thank you, till till COVID. So COVID, and and what you said before is true. And I do remember you giving me the name of that woman, by the way. I just have to find it on the scrap of paper. But this to me, at the moment, not having to be my son's babysitter and so although I still am being a social worker because I'm trying to get disability back, because Social Security doesn't seem to think schizophrenia is a disability if you're doing well. We're having trouble. They won't they won't accept hospital records as doctor's records because hospital records evidently don't count. And so kidding me in an inpatient step. That's what I said. It doesn't, he what they said is that, and I have to say, the social security guy is trying really hard. He's he's being very kind and he's really speaking to me, and we've got other people working on it. But he said the only psychiatrist that filled out the form knew Ben when he was doing really well and working as a waiter in a restaurant, and he wrote him as highly functional on the papers. Oh now he's in a new system and he's got a new psychiatrist who's only met him once, and you know how well somebody can present when they're stable in one meeting. So I'm trying, I'm trying to write letters and share information about I can't imagine why you can't get the psychiatric from the inpatient stay. I mean, that's the most counting piece because he said in Social Security, they don't count hospital records because if you have a heart attack and you go in the hospital, but then you get cured of your heart attack and then you come out, you're not disabled anymore.

SPEAKER_04 31:10

So they don't they have to change the law for chronic mental illness.

SPEAKER_02 31:15

They do. They have to change a lot of laws. They change a lot of laws, and you know, but anyway, that's where we are. So I am currently not having to supervise my son's medication, which is such a gift because he is in housing, which is another gift, and he seems happy there.

SPEAKER_04 31:32

And what's happening? Does he have visiting nurse every day giving him ads?

SPEAKER_02 31:36

He is, and he's on an injection right now, and he's not on the medication that worked so well for him before. So that worries me, but it is what it is. No. But this brings us back to what you said before about the professional conservator, because Connecticut is only one of three states in the US that doesn't have assisted outpatient treatment or AOT. And we have spoken about this in past episodes with other social workers who talk about it. And to me, that would be like my son would probably take meds if a judge told him he had to, or if he would never take it, even in the nine years he took it, he never did it because I told him he had to. He only took it because I said that's the price you pay to live here. Like you don't have to take your meds, but we'll change the locks and it worked for nine years and then it didn't, but whatever.

SPEAKER_04 32:24

So do you wish but look at the population of people that don't have a you or a Miriam or a Mimi.

SPEAKER_02 32:32

Right.

SPEAKER_04 32:33

And so they don't have any kind of familial, quote unquote, coercive situation. So what have they got to lose? Nothing. So the cycle is in and out and in and out. And the person I saw today, he had gotten out February 22nd. He was back in by the 27th.

SPEAKER_02 32:50

Not surprising. I mean, my son was almost there.

SPEAKER_04 32:54

It's expensive, it's it's expensive, it's unnecessary, it's exhausting. It takes a human toll, a financial toll. It's terrible.

SPEAKER_02 33:05

Well, clearly there's a lot more to talk about here. Please join us for episode 13, which will be part two of our conversation about mental health and legal matters with Judge Lisa Wexler. Hey, thanks for joining us for this episode of Schizophrenia Three Moms in the Trenches with Randy Kay, Mindy Gryling, and Miriam Feldman. To get in touch with us or to learn more about our books, please visit our websites at MiriamHyfenfeldman.com, MindyGryling.com, or Randy K.com.