It is not hard to have a child hospitalized if you have money. It is very difficult if you do not have resources. I have a child who has Bipolar. He has been hospitalized several times. The hospital is comfortable and well-staffed. There is coping-skills training and therapy and group therapy. Bipolar kids sometimes have tantrums. He becomes defiant and aggressive. He will make threats and physically attack us or else start banging his head or punching himself in the face. We can call the police and they are well-trained and kind to him. An ambulance comes and brings him to the hospital. Then they decide if he should be inpatient or outpatient. Outpatient is all day coping skills and therapy. If we, the parents want him to be inpatient, we tell them.
Presently our son is in residential treatment. It is wonderful. It is not at all scary or traumatic. He will be home in a few months. He's there to get more intensive therapy. We are not as rich as the Rodgers, but we make a good income. And yet, even with our good income we are getting tons of help from medicare. We pay for half of one month--it's not cheap, but it's doable. We will pay it off with a payment plan. The rest of his stay-- as long as we need it--is paid for by medicare entirely.
I'm sharing all of this to say that in many communities it is not hopeless at all. It's absolutely true that in many, many communities mental healthcare access is horrible--especially in rural communities. When we first had our son diagnosed it did feel overwhelming and it sometimes felt hopeless because we didn't know what was available to us. But with two educated parents, we hit Google and got to work. We live pretty close to Mayo clinic and that's where he was diagnosed. It wasn't cheap, but we didn't go bankrupt.
Where is the actual evidence that ER was being seen daily by a therapist when he was 8? This seems to be just referring to the school counselor? I haven't seen any evidence that he was actually getting any real treatment as a youth. But I could have missed it--I cant keep up!
I also didn't hear that he had been on any meds as a youth. It is imperative to start meds early to decrease the symptoms (how great it would have been if ER's obsessive/intrusive thoughts had been under control when he was in high school through meds) and to teach compliance so that when he became an adult he would take his meds. ER was supposed to take risperdal. That was the first med my son was prescribed and it worked wonders (he had intrusive thoughts, bloody/violent visions)--but my son needed more than just risperdal. Taking riseprdal alone when you're in your late teens with these kinds of symptoms is not intensive intervention.
I am not blaming the parents. I am a parent with a kid who has scary symptoms. BUT it's just hugely important if you have a kid like this, not to be in denial. I don't think my child would ever do something like this, but the minute I find a violent picture in his journal or the minute he shares that he's had some recurring bloody image in his head--I am on it! We don't ever dismiss these symptoms. ER was definitely sharing his symptoms with many people. How often did he express his hatred for so many others? If my kid was repeatedly expressing hatred or entitlement I would be on it. In fact, one of the dangers of having a child with a mental illness is that sometimes families will tip-toe around the child and cater to them and then create a secondary problem with narcissism. This happened to my dad who is also bipolar and narcissistic because everyone always gave in to his tantrums.
I bring up these things in hopes that if there are families struggling they will be encouraged to seek resources just as soon as it becomes evident that there is a problem. There is help out there and often the hospital is the way to get it fastest. Early intervention is super important. You can have your older child hospitalized for "tantrums"--screaming, biting, hitting etc. (I'm not talking about age-appropriate younger child tantrums). ER describes having tantrums as a teen and could have been hospitalized for that. JMO
