Jerri Clark: A Mother's Journey Through Loss and Advocacy
Episode description
Geri Clark, Resource and Advocacy Manager at Treatment Advocacy Center, shares her devastating journey of losing her son to severe mental illness while navigating a broken treatment system that wouldn't help until it was too late. She reveals critical gaps in our mental health system and explains how legal barriers, misunderstood medical conditions, and insufficient family support create deadly consequences for those with severe psychiatric disorders.
• Son experienced his first psychotic break at 19 while attending college on a debate scholarship
• After a four-year struggle with severe mental illness, her son took his own life in 2019
• Anosognosia is a neurobiological symptom where the brain cannot perceive its own illness
• Current mental health system requires evidence of harm before providing involuntary treatment
• Treatment standards based on legal criteria rather than medical need lead to preventable tragedies
• Insurance companies create "ghost networks" of mental health providers who aren't actually available
• Families are often excluded from treatment decision-making despite being primary caregivers
• Prolonged exposure to untreated psychosis causes brain damage and reduces recovery chances
• Some states now include psychiatric deterioration in their criteria for involuntary treatment
• Treatment Advocacy Center works to develop grassroots advocates pursuing legislative change
• Mental health crises receive far less urgent response than medical emergencies like strokes
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intro/outro music bed written by T. Wild
Why Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI)