 In this piece: NSSC Senior VP Kerry Martin shares a raw, unfiltered look at surviving Bipolar I psychosis, exposing how the catastrophic division between mental and physical health has normalized the state-sanctioned abandonment of our most vulnerable. Backed by hard forensic data and personal survival, this essay issues a powerful call to shatter the current Standard of Neglect and replace it with a true National Standard of Care that treats no-fault brain disease with the dignity of any other medical emergency.
As my colleague Carmen Facciolo recently laid bare in the opening installment of our In Justice series, America does not possess a psychiatric treatment system for those with severe mental illness (SMI). We possess a crisis containment system. We have designed a bureaucratic system that intentionally waits for a human to be in crisis before it will offer a shred of medical help. . But while policy experts, legislative committees, and institutional gatekeepers debate the philosophical nuances of civil liberties, my SMI brothers and sisters are paying for those theories with their lives. They are paying for them on freezing sidewalks, in overcrowded emergency rooms, and inside concrete jail cells. I have sat before legislative committees and said what most in the advocacy space are too terrified to whisper: "Please, take away my rights if I ever lose my mind again—because I don’t want to die; I want to live."
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