Missippi Woman “Found” In Virginia Hospital

Mother’s prayers answered when missing daughter calls from hospital

http://www.cdispatch.com/news/article.asp?aid=546

March 5, 2009

Tim Pratt

STARKVILLE — It’s been nearly 16 months since Priscilla Rogers woke up one morning, packed herself an overnight bag and walked out of her West Main Street home in Starkville.

Her mother, Minnie Rogers, hasn’t seen her since.

In the time that’s passed since Nov. 6, 2007, when Priscilla Rogers left the house she shared with her mother and sister, the Rogers family has been on a roller-coaster ride of emotion, feeling everything from hope and optimism to frustration and fear. All the while, they’ve never known if Priscilla, who is 45 and schizophrenic, was alive or dead.

Minnie Rogers has spent a lot of time praying since Priscilla disappeared in November 2007, and says she never lost faith she would one day speak to her daughter again. Last week, Minnie’s prayers finally were answered.

The phone rang in the Rogers household and, when Minnie answered, she heard a very familiar voice on the other end of the line: It was Priscilla, calling from Eastern State Hospital in Williamsburg, Va.

Minnie can’t help but smile as she recalls hearing her daughter’s voice for the first time in more than a year. And she laughs when recollecting how she jumped for joy when she realized it was Priscilla on the other end of the line.

“I just said to her, ‘Priscilla, I’ve been crying, I’ve been praying, and God has finally answered my prayers,’” Minnie said Wednesday morning, a big smile on her face.

Cross-country traveler

Although the Rogers family is glad to know Priscilla is alive, what is still unclear is how she got to Virginia.

The morning of Nov. 6, 2007, Minnie awoke just like it was any other day. Only this time, she discovered Priscilla already had left the house.

Priscilla normally left in the morning to go to a nearby convenience store, so, at first, Minnie wasn’t worried. Hours later, when Priscilla still had not returned, Minnie called the Starkville Police Department.

Minnie believes Priscilla’s schizophrenia got the best of her because of a “mix-up” in treatment at Community Counseling Services in Starkville.

During the evening hours of Nov. 6, 2007, Minnie got a phone call from a friend in West Point, who said he had just seen Priscilla. The friend said he spoke with Priscilla and the woman planned to travel to Tupelo, where she intended to board a bus to Virginia. It is unclear why she wanted to travel to Virginia.

“It just started from there,” Minnie said. “She just kept going and I haven’t seen her since.”

There were other reported sightings of Priscilla, as well, but Minnie still isn’t sure exactly how her daughter made it halfway across the country. Priscilla didn’t even have any identification when she left, Minnie said.

Eventually, Priscilla was arrested on a beach in Virginia, Minnie said, and without identification, she was put in jail. She told police she was an immigrant, Minnie said, and didn’t know her real name.

Priscilla was in jail in Virginia for six months before being sent to Eastern State Hospital — a mental health facility in Williamsburg. She has been in the hospital since December under the name Esta Colums.

After months of treatment, Priscilla made progress in recent weeks. And just last week she was able to give hospital officials her true identity. Then she called her mother.

Reaction

The news about Priscilla has spread quickly through Starkville and Minnie says her phone has been ringing off the hook.

“People have been calling me from everywhere,” Minnie said. “They’re praising God; they’re shouting. It really is wonderful how many people have prayed for me and prayed for Priscilla. I just thank God and my family and my church family for all their support.”

Minnie has talked with Priscilla on a daily basis since the first phone call last Wednesday. She said her daughter sounds “good” and upbeat.

“She sounds just like the old Priscilla,” Minnie said.

Minnie would like to see Priscilla transfer to a similar hospital or facility in Mississippi, but said Priscilla is content for now to remain in Virginia. Minnie said she is still in talks with Eastern State officials, and no decisions have been made on whether or not Priscilla will return to Mississippi.

Tim Pratt is the Starkville Bureau Reporter for The Commercial Dispatch.

Celebrating Failure

What I was going to post, I decided not to post. I don’t want to give anybody the idea I believe any of the bunk about serious mental illnesses circulating near and far. It is a religion that I personally choose not to buy into. It sure as hell is no science. I feel sure I will not be missed. Other people can pursue the career mental patient path to their heart’s content. Mental health facilities are full of the recovery resistant. I have better ways to use my time.

Friday, October the 10th, has been dubbed World Mental Health Day by the World Federation of Mental Health, and celebrated around the globe since 1992. I prefer to call it World Mental Illness Day. Why? I refer to it as World Mental Illness Day because conventional mental health treatments are failing disastrously throughout the world. Not only are people not recovering from the labels they have been given, but the population of labeled people is growing.

Now in the USA as a part of the federal government mandate to transform human services, consumers of mental health services are being employed by the mental health system. These peer support specialists, as they are called, are supposed to help other consumers who are perceived as not being as far advanced in their recovery as the peer support specialists are to advance in their recovery. I’m wondering when these people will actually recover rather than just talk about doing so. There’s the door, and here’s the labyrinth in your head that keeps you from taking it.

If 95% of the population were mentally well, and 5% of the population were mentally ill, some of the 5% of the population could enter the 95% by recovering, or no longer needing treatment. I’ve written recently about how the population of people labeled mentally ill has been rising steadily since around 1900. This means that some of that 95% of the population would be capable of entering the 5% of the population labeled mentally ill. More to the point, if the percentage of people labeled mentally ill is rising, the percentage of population thought to be mentally well is declining.

I know that some people will attribute this to the complexities of modern times but still, it must make you wonder sometimes whether or not we might not be taking the wrong approach to this matter.

Nature Good, Drugs Bad!

Fact number 1: A person can be harmed by taking a neuroleptic, better known as an anti-psychotic, drug.

Fact number 2: The longer a person is maintained on a neuroleptic drug, the greater the likelihood is that such a person will be harmed by the drug he or she is taking.

We are currently experiencing an epidemic of iatrogenic, or physician caused, diseases in the mental health field.

Neuroleptic drugs can cause a progressive and often irreversible neurological disease, affecting motor function, known as tardive dyskinesia, as well as other related neurological diseases.

The newer atypical neuroleptic drugs, developed to have fewer side effects than the original neuroleptic drugs, have been found to cause a slew of health problems ranging from obesity to diabetes to heart conditions.

Recent findings showing the death rates for people labeled mentally ill occur on average 25 years earlier than those for the rest of the population have been attributed to the introduction of these newer atypical neuroleptic drugs.

The older neuroleptic drugs kill people, too, only not nearly as efficiently.

How can the health be improved, and the lifespans be lengthened, of people in mental health treatment?

If doctors stopped prescribing these neuroleptic drugs, not only would the health of patients improve, but their lifespans would be lengthened.

The new omnibus law on the books in the Commonwealth of Virginia, after bringing up drug treatment, also mentions “other appropriate treatments”.

I see an opportunity here that any astute attorney should be able to exploit to good advantage.

We need here in the Commonwealth of Virginia what we don’t have right now. We need more treatment options for people in mental health treatment than the option of being drugged into an early grave.

Duh!

Virginia Wants More Mental Patients

The numbers of people labeled seriously mentally ill have been steadily rising since the turn of the century. According to the findings of Robert Whitaker, investigative medical journalist and author of the book, Mad In America, the facts are as follows. By 1903, 1 out of 500 people in the USA were labeled seriously mentally ill, by 1955, this percentage had risen to 1 out of 300 people; by 1987, it was 1 out of every 75 people; and today, it is close to 1 out of 50 people.

 

Somebody once said regarding the state hospital system, “If you give them more beds, they will fill them.” Well, with deinstitutionalization you don’t need beds. Once there were approaching 3000 people in the nearby state mental hospital, now that number is down to 250 people. Where are the remaining 2750 people? They are, by and large, being served by the communities where they reside. They are a relatively invisible population that hasn’t stopped growing, but they are there.

 

The Virginia General Assembly just passed laws lowering the standard for civil commitment. Why? Our legislator’s were reacting (Yes, reacting.) to the tragedy at Virginia Tech. Seung Hui Cho killed 31 students at Virginia Tech before turning his gun on himself. Seung Hui Cho, if he had been caught before killing himself, could not have used the mental illness excuse effectively to escape the death penalty. Not having a live body to hold accountable for the killings, our state legislature, aided and abetted by the Virginia Supreme Court’s Commission on Mental Health Reform and the Governors Panel on the V-Tech tragedy, decided they had to make a scapegoat for Cho’s crimes (Get it!) out of people in the state’s mental health system.

 

Lowering the standard of civil commitment in this state, the reasoning runs, we will be able to catch the next Cho before he commits his crimes. Alright, maybe we will, and maybe we won’t. You might have as much luck deciding such a matter by flipping a coin over it. If we didn’t get Cho, it must be too difficult to lock up crazy people. Uh huh, and there aren’t innocent people in the federal penitentiary system either. One thing is certain though, there will be more people labeled chronically mentally ill in the mental health system in Virginia in the future than there had been in the past.

 

 

Getting more people into the mental health system is not operating on a recovery model of mental health treatment. If we were operating on a recovery model of treatment, we would be trying to get people out of the mental health system. The more people there are in the mental health system, the more indicative that fact is of some failure of that mental health system. When people leave the mental health system, they are recovering; when people don’t leave the mental health system, they aren’t recovering. Our politicians have gotten this matter wrong, and the thrust of their recent legislation can only come back to haunt us all.

North Carolina Governor Signs Bill Into Law

 The governor of North Carolina, Mike Easley, announced yesterday, Saturday, August 9, 2009, that he had signed 16 new bills into law. Among these new pieces of legislation was one bill denying weapons to people who have been involuntarily committed for mental health treatment.

“One bill, approved in the wake of last year’s shooting massacre at Virginia Tech, denies weapons to people who have been involuntarily committed for mental health treatment because they pose a threat to themselves or others.”

“Starting Dec. 1, court clerks will be required to put their names in a national database used in gun background checks.”

“Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho was able to purchase guns in Virginia despite being involuntarily committed to outpatient therapy by a judge.”

“Federal law prohibits those who have been involuntarily committed for treatment to buy or own guns, but states have struggled to enforce it because many do not report residents’ commitments to the database. North Carolina had fewer than 500 records out of 450,000 in the database because until now reporting was optional.”

“A campus safety task force led by Attorney General Roy Cooper recommended the change in procedure.”

  

http://www.wral.com/news/state/story/3356102/