“My passcode is Michigan,” my son, 27, said to me today over the phone, in a voice that sounded sedated and unusually quiet. “Passcode for what?” I asked, trying to discern whether he might be experiencing delusions, a symptom of the bipolar disorder he was diagnosed with years […]
Advocate for H.R. 3717 now.
Welcome to Treatment Before Tragedy’s online magazine. We are a journalism advocacy project established to chronicle the challenges and solutions for America’s broken mental health system. This is not an easy topic. It is filled with pain, trauma, disappointment and struggle, but we intend to discuss it with […]
Join G.G. Burns this week as she goes to Washington during NAMI’s national conference to join kindred spirits as they lobby Congress to support H.R. 3717, “The Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act.” Follow her movements here, as Mrs. Burns goes to Washington. On Tuesday, before getting […]
by Joe Bruce CARATUNK, Maine – On June 20, 2006, I opened the door of our simple home here on Main Street in western Maine to find the limp, bloody body of my beautiful wife Amy, my closest friend in the world and the love of my life. […]
We asked, and you responded with an outpouring of love and devotion, capturing your loved ones before their health was overtaken by mental illness and a mental health care system so broken it has caused us to literally feel as if our loved ones have died while still […]
Join us in a campaign to send our congressional representatives our #TBT photo on Thursday. Some of our thoughts as we look at the photos that make up the “Throwback Thursday” of our lives before serious mental illness emerged: 1. No mom wants her child to suffer. Treatment before Tragedy […]
Editor’s Note: This video might be disturbing to viewers. Juanita Lopez gave birth to her son, Christopher Lee Lopez, in the summer of 1977 in Portland, Ore. She could never have imagined the way that he would take his last breath on this earth. The life and death […]
On Monday, July 14, 2014, in the Orlando suburb of Tavares, Fla., another family was slain by the tragedy of violence from serious mental illness not treated, underscoring the need for a reform of Florida laws so that families can get treatment for loved ones when they are […]
July 20th, two years ago, shots rang out in a theater in Aurora, Colorado. That night, a young man, James Holmes, killed and injured innocent moviegoers, out to watch “Batman: Dark Knight Rises.” Last week, District Judge Carlos A. Samour Jr. ordered that Holmes’ court case be delayed to Dec. […]
So many of us live with an anguish that very few people witness, as we watch our loved ones in sickness. This photo comes from a member of Treatment Before Tragedy. Our #Tb4T friend tells us: This photo is of my sister, just after she endured a two-day […]
Mother Amy Bruce of Caratunk, Maine, had a note in her purse to her son, Will. In it, she wrote, “I love you more than life itself.” Her husband, Joe, and she had been trying to get treatment for their son, who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. […]
Last week, Ron Haskell impersonated a Federal Express deliveryman to kill his ex-wife’s family in a shocking and tragic murder spree. In court last week, Haskell’s court-appointed attorney Doug Durham offered a window into Haskell’s psychiatric history: According to an account by KHOU in Houston: Haskell’s court-appointed attorney […]
In a moving front page story, “Behind the yellow door, a man’s mental illness worsens,” by national reporter Stephanie McCrummen, the Washington Post chronicled the story of so many families who struggle in private agony to get treatment for a loved one. The article made the “yellow door” a metaphor for […]
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