Crazy: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness

Meanwhile, Freddie Gilbert has been in treatment for nine weeks at Jackson Memorial Hospital Mental Health Center near the jail. Earley doesn’t recognize Gilbert when he first sees him because he is clean, shaven, and talking. He can hold a conversation but still hears voices and does not know what year it is. Gilbert believes the common misconception that hard drug use can cause schizophrenia, and he believes his delusions began because of his use of marijuana and other drugs as a teenager. When Earley asks if he’ll continue to take his antipsychotic medication after he leaves, Gilbert says he will. He also says he will no longer live on the streets.

Earley calls Ted Jackson. He describes how a social worker once told Earley that Jackson was an “on the brink” case (249), meaning that while he took his medication and sought treatment, his bipolar disorder still makes life difficult for him. Jackson has stopped hiding out in his apartment and agrees to meet Earley. He is energetic and seeks Earley’s advice about how best to pay off his growing debts, mentioning a scheme in which he would marry a foreign woman to help her get a green card in exchange for cash.

Jackson also gives Earley a tour around his apartment, showing him paraphernalia from his time in the army (where it is believed that stress exacerbated his mental illness during his early twenties). Earley then follows Jackson out to a club, where Jackson claims he has plans to meet two Belgian tourists who never show up. Jackson, who is seemingly unfazed by being stood up, then begins to dance.

Realizing he’s only spoken to men with mental illnesses, Earley shadows a woman named April Hernandez who is the same age as Mike. Hernandez lives with her boyfriend, Jason Gilly. She tells Earley her own story, beginning with her brother’s death at the age of 15 and including her subsequent drug use and suicide attempt. Despite her fears that the nurses in the psychiatric unit she was checked into were secretly poisoning her, Hernandez eventually began taking her medication. For several years, she found herself in a constant cycle of stopping her medication, hearing voices, being hospitalized, and recovering while taking her medications again.

Her symptoms and hallucinations worsened each time, and she began to take hard drugs like cocaine, eventually getting arrested and spending time in prison. Any time her mental health was under control, Hernandez would find herself struggling with drug use, never finding relief. Upon release from jail, Hernandez was unhoused, resorting to sex work to support her drug use. She was gang-raped twice by strangers and ended up pregnant. Her mother used the Marchman Act, a law that allows a family member to have their relative forcibly treated for drug use, to have her daughter committed to a hospital. Hernandez got better, had an abortion, and qualified for federal disability income. She met Gilly, and they quickly moved in together.

Earley realizes that Gilly has encouraged Hernandez, who is now pregnant, to go off her medication, claiming he can treat her delusions through a high-protein diet. Earley weighs his ethical obligations as a father and journalist in deciding whether to tell Hernandez’s mother, Jackie, that her daughter has gone off her antipsychotic medication. In the end, he decides not to reveal what he knows.

Earley accepts an invitation from Judge Leifman to attend a Partners in Crisis meeting, where 60 people from various organizations and agencies that work with people with mental illnesses in Miami occasionally gather to better coordinate their services. After a discussion about changes and monitoring at ALFs, Judge Leifman announces a new grant that will enable the creation of a digital database for people with mental illnesses who are on parole. Representatives from the state Department of Children and Family Services respond that their office is already overwhelmed and that they aren’t sure they can instate all of Judge Leifman’s changes.

Earley is surprised to hear that the city government has stepped in to take on roles that the state is supposed to help with. Judy Robinson, who was also in attendance, tells Earley she doesn’t agree with Judge Leifman’s weighing in on how ALFs are run. The scattered priorities leave Earley feeling unsettled.