Yesterday, I did something out of the norm. I sent two letters out. Both to prisons. Both to men in their 20’s, serving time for violent crimes. One for 13 years. One for life. They both suffer from severe mental illness. One is a friend’s son and one is an ex-client. Neither could get proper help on the “outside”.  Neither is getting help on the “inside” – the justice system and these privatized institutions do not deal with “crazy”. Why should they?

Only 15-20% of Police forces in the country have crisis intervention officers specializing in mental health. [Nightline: 7.22.16]

I have a close friend on Twitter with PTSD who just bought a gun. She sounds angry and out of touch- a lot. Today she’s TRUMPED up by the fear mongering. We are to believe we need to treat these pockets of horrific violence militarily, not as the law enforcement or mental health issue and gun proliferation that it is. We ignore the roots and want quick easy answers.

I wonder if we’ll ever be able to connect the dots to sanity in this country?

 

On another Note-A Confession: I cheated this week and went onto Facebook. I went to check on a friend and came across an Elayne Boosler Game. How could I resist? I checked Twitter today too and even posted via an anonymous account. #Munich #MichaelKinsey #RNC #damn

 I still blame Elayne Boosler for my Social Media Sabbatical slide.

[blog # 9 #AntiSocialSocialMediaExperiment #SummerSocialMediaSabbatical]