‘I would be lost’: How families can help someone who is mentally ill
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‘There’s something terribly wrong’
His family tried to save him. They blame his downward spiral into death on his mental illness, and his lawyers.
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For Donavan Gardner, bipolar disorder felt like a roller coaster.
His mania made him feel “on top of the world,” but he couldn’t handle it. Trauma drove him to catatonic states. He gained and lost jobs.
Run-ins with police landed him behind bars.
When he was 21, his car broke down, and a police officer stopped him for walking down a Kansas highway. He ended up in the Wyandotte County jail.
His mother helped him get transferred to a mental hospital in Larned, Kansas — no easy task, as Gardner recalls — where he spent six months and his mental health declined even more. At times, hallucinations kept him from even realizing he was incarcerated.
Medication eventually set him on a better path. Gardner, 41, of Kansas City, Kansas, now works to help others with mental illness through advocacy, self-published books and public speaking.
He couldn’t have done it without two big factors: the support of his family — his mother, brother, aunts, cousins. And his commitment to get better: to go to therapy, to take his medication, to not give up.
But, ironically, a third factor set him on a path for treatment: He committed a crime. His incarceration meant he could be forced into a mental hospital. But that was a worst-case scenario that no one wants.
Most families must rely on perseverance and help from support groups and professionals to persuade a mentally ill loved one to seek treatment.
Gardner offers a simple piece of advice: “The best thing for somebody to do is to add support and understand, and be able to just treat you like a person.” Understand that mental illness is a sickness.
“If my mom never put me in the hospital, if my mom never did certain things, then I would be lost,” Gardner said. “I probably wouldn’t even be here today.”
Some mental illness is treated through therapy. Serious cases like Gardner’s often require a lifelong treatment plan that includes medication.
For many families, navigating through the resources available and keeping a loved one on a steady treatment plan are difficult, said Anthony Simpson, president of Kansas City’s chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. But that is precisely where his organization can help.
His and other mental health organizations offer support groups for both patients and their loved ones and help them find the right mental health professionals.
“How in the world do you support someone who, you know, they love you, and you know that they want to do better, but they just seem to not have the capability of making better choices?” Simpson said. “And the reality is that’s going to be different for everyone.” But cases share some similarities.
First, he said, people need to acknowledge their own mental illness and take part in their own treatment. In serious cases, like Gardner’s, that may only come from a run-in with law enforcement and forced hospitalization. And even then, the person has to stay in treatment. It doesn’t always work out that way.
“It’s incredibly frustrating, because we are designed to help, right?” Simpson said. “Our kids, they fall and they get a scrape, we go get a Band-Aid. … If it gets worse, we take them to the emergency room. We’re designed to help. We’re designed to comfort, to aid.
“And a lot of times with mental illness, it is one of the most helpless feelings. Because a lot of times, it seems that no matter what you do, you’re not helping.”
Experts suggest families have honest conversations with loved ones about mental health when they see warning signs and remind them that seeking help is not a weakness.
Many people aren’t aware of the resources available.
Mental illness, Simpson said, is “one of those things that even as a society, we’re really hesitant to talk about, to address.”
“When we approach this kind of health situation like that, we have limited our access to resources that are available to help.”
This story was originally published September 19, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
