So they came down in the ambulance when they came to talk. They were like, Well, we're not too sure It's a grey area. Like, how can this be grey? There's a ball of her hair beside her and she'd been cutting her hair. We're concerned she's mentally not well. We do need help. They did take her away. And I'm telling you, it was heartbreaking because she was trying to run away from them and they were grabbing her by her pants and she was fighting. Finally, they got
her in the ambulance. So she went to Surrey Memorial Hospital for two months. And in the emergency, when they took her in, she was screaming at us, saying that I'll never talk to you girls ever again, like me yelling. We were just making sure she was going to be okay.
Well, situations like this are incredibly hard to imagine having to call the police or an ambulance in this case to have your loved one committed to a psychiatric facility for their own safety or for the safety of others, all with the hope of getting them the treatment they need and deserve. It's called involuntary admission and treatment, and it's a key part of the B.C. Mental Health Act.
The B.C. Mental Health Act provides guidelines on how to admit and treat people who are experiencing a serious mental health crisis. Untreated mental illnesses can cause a person to experience any nausea, which means they lose insight into the fact that they are ill and will not accept voluntary treatment even when their illness may be causing harm to
them or to others. My name is Faydra Aldridge and we're kicking off the third season of Look Again: Mental Illness Re-Examined, a podcast about mental illness brought to you by the B.C. Schizophrenia Society and other B.C. partner organizations. Today we are speaking with Vanessa Nelson. Vanessa is a regional educator for the BC Schizophrenia Society in the Okanagan and she has
a very personal connection to this topic. Vanessa's daughter, Mira was diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of 18 and is now 22. And during these years, Mira has been involuntarily detained under the B.C. Mental Health Act multiple times. Vanessa, thank you for being here today to share your story with us. Welcome to the podcast.
Thank you very much.
So, Vanessa, let's talk about Mira and how mental illness has affected her life and your life.
To say that it's been a nightmare is an understatement. It's affected us at every level. This is truly one of the worst illnesses that I've ever witnessed. And it's been embarrassing. It's been heart wrenching and life changing. It's been a constant emergency situation for the last three years. The amount of hospitalisations that have happened, the very public breakdowns. Everyone in the community knows that something's wrong. And it's
been horrible for her. Horrible for the whole family. There really are no words to describe the confusion and how unrealistic it seems that all of this happened. And I think it's so taboo to tell members of the community that, oh, she's got schizophrenia. It's a very feared term when a family gets a diagnosis of cancer. They're wrapped up in blankets and brought casseroles. And when schizophrenia happens, nobody wants to talk to you. Nobody wants to discuss it.
Like you said, there are no words. So thank you for sharing that. I know you could never summarize what it's like to see your daughter experiencing psychosis, but can you just give us a picture of what some of her symptoms were and what you saw your daughter go through.
At the onset? She wasn't even diagnosed at the time. We had no clue what was going on. It was so far outside of my experience that I didn't even know what to do and the hell that erupted. She really was not in her right mind. She was in a completely delusional state and had to call the cops. She waffles between different personalities and different moods like lightning.
So one second she'll be very manic and squealing. You can actually hear her laughter blocks away and it makes the hair on your body just stand up because it is so undeniably unhinged. She gets very angry at the drop of a pin. Often times in conversation, she's so scattered that she's jumping between all of those different emotions all at once. A lot of religious jargon just spewing out of her mouth and just wild accusations against everyone. She did not know she was mentally ill. She had
an a signature. She started drinking heavily. Really coping with marijuana. Just the cleanliness, the change in her hygiene. She started having hallucinations, accusing family members all around her of atrocious crimes. She thought we were trying to kill her. The paranoia was so confusing to have to hear because she's always been very smart, very concise with her speech. But she started getting very disorganized, not understanding what was going on around her.
Let's go back. And how did she finally go from that psychotic state and being placed in a hospital?
Well, she had a suicide attempt, so they took her to the hospital. Then she was in there for a couple of weeks that time. There were so many emergency calls that had to be made at the onset of her illness that it's hard to even remember sometimes because it was all so filled with trauma.
Wow. So your daughter was taken into hospital. She didn't want to go. How did she respond to that?
Oh, it was hard. I mean, throughout the hospitalization, she tried to escape. They had to lock her up in solitary confinement in what essentially was a cell. So there were lots of moments where she wasn't treated with the care that somebody who was very ill should receive. And that's not on any of the lovely professionals that have worked pretty much around the clock to try and save her life and to get her healthy. What else do you do? So I understand why she tried so hard
to get out. It varies, right? Sometimes she knows she needs to go to the hospital and has been very willing to check herself in if she feels unsafe. But a lot of times she's definitely taken and against her will. And those times have involved police. They've involved community members, too. So a lot of times when she had her breakdowns, they would have been in public places. The shop owner has called in on her and have gotten calls from restaurants saying, hey, we had to call the ambulance for
your daughter. It's been a community wide endeavour to get to keep this kid safe. I'm super lucky because she does have a lot of people watching out for her who do care.
It takes a village, doesn't it, Vanessa?
Oh, definitely.
Now, some provinces don't allow for involuntary treatment. Obviously, things didn't go as you would hoped or your daughter would have hoped. But what do you think would have happened if your daughter had not received involuntary treatment?
She would not be alive. Flat out without the involuntary treatment, without the medication, without having her kept in a safe place, she simply wouldn't be alive. And in this past psychosis that she's had, she was just recently put under the Mental Health Act again. We almost lost her so many times. I can't even count how many times she was in the hospital and how many phone calls I received from the police in the middle of the night. How many
texts from her mental health team. And it's been terrifying. And the reason that she went into psychosis the second time to such an extent was because she was taken off of the Mental Health Act and so was no longer required to take her medication. And as soon as she went off that medication, she went into an immediate, deep, terrifying psychosis.
Now, you had said that you were receiving texts from the police and the mental health team and other organisations within the community. What did they tell you in those texts?
Very little because of confidentiality, Right. I got a lot more information when she was younger. So during her first psychosis, people were still giving me information. Now, when she's ill, she doesn't want anyone to talk to me. They're very bound by confidentiality, at least with the mental health team in the hospital. The community members are not so bound by confidentiality. So that's how I've been getting my information.
It's been terrifying. And it's terrifying for her, too. She doesn't know what's happening to her a lot of the time right now.
If she doesn't recognize she's ill, why would she voluntarily get treatment for something in her mind she doesn't have?
Oh, exactly. Trying to get her to accept treatment or accept medication when she's in that space, when she won't even talk to anybody is impossible. I'm deeply grateful for the fact that the Mental Health Act exists and that she has been put on it, because otherwise I would never see my daughter as who she is beyond the illness.
Now, when your daughter is taken in, receives treatment, what happens when she gets out of hospital?
Typically between February and now, I would say she's probably been taken in and released 20 times. They don't keep her for long because she refuses treatment. And it took a really long time to actually get her put back on the Mental Health Act. So she would just be
released right into the streets. And because she went into such a severe psychosis, she lost her jobs, she lost her apartment, nobody would take her in because once again, schizophrenia, she doesn't qualify for any of the community housing situations
because of her mental illness. So it's been horrific. When she was released from the hospital, medicated the first time and started doing well, building her life back together, making about a million apologies, it's very hard when she comes out of a psychosis because all of the guilt and shame and tough conversations that she has to have with everybody she knows and everybody she's encountered has been such a tough road for her. And this time, especially because
she ended up going viral on TikTok. We were walking down the street the other day and she was looking beautiful for the first time in a very long time. And some jerk rolled down his window and started laughing and pointing at her. And it was just the most heartbreaking moment. And she has to live through that on a nearly daily basis. So it's having those tough conversations with her. Like, yes, people have seen you at your worst. You can either run or you can stick around and
show them your best because she is amazing. She's one of the most gifted poets I know. She works hard. She is incredibly resourceful. I just have to have faith that she's going to come out of this again completely and hopefully not get so sick again. To tell you the truth, I didn't think she would get so sick again. So my hopes were quite dashed when she went into this psychosis because she was doing much better.
And where is your daughter today, Vanessa?
She has temporary housing at a family member's home while they're away for summer. I know she is supported by a 24 hour mental health team and they check on her every day.
You're listening to Look Again: Mental Illness Re-Examined a podcast brought to you by the B.C. Schizophrenia Society and by partner organizations. I'm your host, Faydra Aldridge. This podcast would not be possible without the support of the community. From the bottom of our hearts, we want to thank you for caring about serious mental illness and everything that's around it. Together, we truly can make a difference. Welcome back to Look Again.
Mental Illness Re-examined. In this episode, we're talking to Vanessa about her daughter's experience with involuntary psychiatric treatment due to schizophrenia. But before we continue and talk more about the B.C. Mental Health Act, let's listen to this clip between two people sharing their experiences with involuntary treatment.
And you kind of treat it like someone that that can only wear hospital clothes. And it's kind of hard. But at the same time, too, every time I had a psych admission, I come out doing much better. The key part for my recovery was that I had to get sober, that I can't keep telling myself that dropping the Xanax, dropping mushrooms, dropping pot and hash and all
these drugs and alcohol that was really helping me. So involuntary admissions to psych was a godsend for me because that got me to get stable again.
For me, it was I think it was my first time when I was deep in psychosis. So I was 23 and yeah, I don't really remember a whole lot, but I do remember they handled it quite well. The involuntary admittance. I was pretty easygoing. Like I, I kind of knew that I had to go, but I didn't want to be there in any way, shape or form. So they kept me for quite a while. I wanted to leave every single day. It's like prison. It really feels like prison. I mean, I've never been to prison,
so I can't necessarily say, but I've been to prison. It's. Yeah, it's like that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's reassuring. Thank you. But yeah, it really is. Is a truly unenjoyable experience.
Whoo! That was pretty powerful. Vanessa So after hearing that clip, how does that compare to your daughter's experience when she was taken into hospital under the Mental Health Act?
Oh, yeah. Very similar. It really is like prison. She was stripped down and sprayed down and put by herself in a cell because she was a danger to herself. It was very difficult because not allowed to visit her. It was so confusing and so heartbreaking.
When you care for someone, it is just so difficult to see them hurting and to know what to do to help them. Based on your personal experience, how do you think we should be balancing this need to protect our loved one and ensure that they get the help that they need while also dealing with a feeling that we could be potentially hurting that relationship with that person? How do we balance this, Vanessa?
Oh, it is such a tough one. Obviously, communication strategies like the LEAP method are so helpful. They have been gold in helping me communicate with my daughter. And as far as services, I just would love to see a more care centered approach that the professionals who are involved be utilized in that manner to offer a more comfort based environment and the recognition that when people are in psychosis,
they are suffering and they are sick. I don't understand how we can separate physical illness and mental illness, and doing so causes so much stigma that our loved ones are not getting the correct type of help for the severity of their illnesses. Right. And I would like to see them safe. There needs to be a safe place for ill people to recover. And it's not on the streets. Honestly, when my daughter is in psychosis, she's not capable of behaving.
She's not in reality. She thinks she is a superhero. She thinks she talks to God. She thinks that she is constantly being raped. She thinks that her family are just even saying it out loud is a terrifying thing. And that's just my case. I talk to people on a daily basis who have experienced the same thing, and their loved ones have died because there was no safe
place for them to go. So when we're talking in voluntary treatment, so many of the people who need to have involuntary treatment are not receiving it, and there's just simply not enough space. The state courts for.
Yeah. Vanessa, my heart not only breaks for Mira that she feels that in her mind that is a reality. But my heart also breaks for you that you as a mother have to witness your baby go through that kind of trauma and that kind of pain.
It's definitely been quite constant heartbreak.
So, Vanessa, there would be a lot of mothers, siblings, aunts, grandmothers listening to this right now. What advice would you give somebody who has a daughter or a sister or an uncle with a serious mental illness and they are debating whether to call police and to get them into hospital to get the help that they need and deserve?
I would say call. Make sure that when you call, you request somebody who is very used to dealing with mental health, because it's sometimes the moments that we've had to make those emergency calls when people weren't trained in mental health. They've gone very sideways. I would say to you got to keep believing in them with all your heart. Even when communication is not always possible because boundaries are important.
You can't put yourself in a potentially violent situation or situation where you're getting hurt constantly or stolen from or taken advantage of. So sometimes you've got to love them from afar and just hope that somebody is taking care of them, Right.
Well, so, Vanessa. Love them from afar when you have to, but ensure that they get the help they need and they may not like you at that moment.
Oh, no. She has been so livid at me for phoning the police or the hospital.
That's a love of a mother, for sure. Yeah.
That's why I wanted to do this, because I have been quiet. When she was first diagnosed, I didn't tell anybody. I was just living in fear that somebody would find out or see her. But this time, it's honestly been so public. She has been banned at restaurants that I go to for running through them, grabbing people's drinks and throwing things. It's like everybody already knows anyway. Everybody's seen my kids. Why not try and reframe it a little bit?
Because she is so awesome. I can't even stress that enough. All of these people who are running around in psychosis on the streets, they're awesome people. There's somebody awesome people and they deserve just as much care. Somebody with cancer and I am tired of her not getting it.
Well, thank you so much for joining me today. And I just truly appreciate you sharing all of your experience and sharing and talking about your beautiful daughter. And Vanessa, you were just one of the many families struggling to find ways to cope and to help their loved one who lives with schizophrenia or another serious mental illness. And the Mental Health Act, as we know, is a very important resource and tool that families need access to. So it's there when they need it. We need to keep
talking about this very important topic. So, Vanessa, thank you again for sharing your thoughts on this issue and for being so courageous to share your personal story.
You're very welcome.
Thank you. And a huge thank you to you, our audience, for joining us for this episode. Together, we can change the narrative around mental illnesses like schizophrenia and put an end to the many myths and stereotypes that we were talking about today. If you have any questions or comments, tweet us at b c schizophrenia. And to get our latest episode, be sure to hit follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. We hope you can join us next episode. Talk to you soon.
This podcast is brought to you by the B.C. Schizophrenia Society and the B.C. Partners for Mental Health and Substance Use Information. We're a group of non-profit agencies providing good quality information to help individuals and families maintain or improve their mental wellbeing. The B.C. Partners members are Anxiety Canada, B.C. Schizophrenia Society, Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research, Canadian Mental
Health Association's B.C. Division, Family Smart, Jessie's Legacy, The North Shore Family Services Program and Mood Disorders Association of B.C., a branch of Lookout, Housing and Health Society. The B.C. partners are funded and stewarded by B.C. Mental Health and Substance Use Services, an agency of the Provincial Health Services Authority. For more information, visit here to help dot B.C. dot ca.