Stephanie Beilin
Appearances
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
Perhaps people that live in more urban environments, the police have a higher tolerance for some of the behaviors. From what I have observed in these smaller communities, there's a lot of intolerance. What's happening to this generation who are being hit pretty hard with these neurological conditions?
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
And just by the way, Tony, so you'll know that from what the research has shown with each generation where there's a pre-existing genetic situation like bipolar or schizoaffective, it gets worse through the generations.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
It doesn't improve because the societal norms have much greater expectations and there's so much more stress and anxiety of just being able to live one's life in such a fast-paced culture. So this is something that is not going away.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
I mean, more children are being diagnosed at younger ages, having worked in a school system for 32 years and having a lot of close connections with community-based treatment centers and hospitals. We can do much better. And I think even the Department of Mental Health needs to step up and really call serious mental illness what it is. It's not like situational anxiety.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
It's not something that you can like breathe through. It's a neurological condition that needs sort of a medical model, interdisciplinary approach.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
There needs to be a lot more education around mental illness and autism for sure. You bring up a really good point about treatment issues. One of the key components, there's a group of medical students and a psychiatrist who are trying to get this particular cluster of symptoms into the new like diagnostic statistical manual, the one that's I think in the fifth revision or something.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
Well, on a professional level, it's kind of interesting. I'm a licensed independent clinical social worker with close to 45 years experience. For 32 years, I worked in a public high school, kind of coordinated services for those individuals who had social, emotional challenges, including neurological challenges and kind of psychological
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
It's a term called anosognosia. And anosognosia is a neurological condition where one actually loses the ability to kind of like self-reflect
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
on one's individual behaviors so you know police may come over to someone and say you know what like who do you think you are doing this that or the other thing and the individual may have no genuine understanding of how a problematic behavior is perceived by others because that individual can't link in to themselves and see themselves as an inner resource that's like hey what are you doing you know you got to reel yourself in you've got to change this behavior
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
That is a neurological condition that people really don't understand. I'm a social worker, you know, clinical social worker. I've had a wonderful career for so many years. This is something that I've had to become familiar with myself. I think that even clinical training has to focus more on those individuals with serious mental illness and autism.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
and not more like the classic anxiety and depression and situational stress sort of thing. We need to be better trained and educate others around this.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
I wholeheartedly agree with you for sure. I think that, you know, I mean, children are being diagnosed at record breaking numbers with autism. I mean, you know, when I was growing up in the 50s, 60s and 70s, I maybe knew one person that struggled with communication skills. Now, you know, having, you know, autism and someone being nonverbal is not unusual at all.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
And families having to learn sign language to communicate with their loved one. And also, I do want to say medication is not easy. As much as psychiatry is a science and neurobiology is a science, finding the right balance of medication has, you know, from what I have observed in my own family, has been less than ideal. There are side effects, there's weight gains, sort of like mental fogginess.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
There's a whole host of symptoms connected with psychotropic medication. I think that from what I've observed, you know, once someone accepts their condition, which, you know, in my son's case has taken close to nine years, nine years of a lot of up and down, you know, during a very pivotal time of his life, he seems to really get that now and look back and say, what was I thinking?
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
Like, what was I thinking? What motivated me to get into these confrontations He never had a discipline report in high school, never had an incident, incident free. And all of a sudden he had to integrate like, you know, who was this person? And that's a pretty scary thing. I mean, that's hard to understand within oneself.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
It just doesn't happen by you get on medication because the risk of getting off medication is so high. It's almost as if in a sad way, sometimes individuals have to go through all this pain and difficulty to accept their health condition.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
set up teams to support teachers and support staff to take care of these vulnerable, you know, population that is very much integrated into the public school. It's kind of interesting that given my background and then prior to that, I was a medical social worker actually at Beverly Hospital, which is an acute care medical surgical hospital. So that's my professional background.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
That's an excellent point. Thank you for making it.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
I think it's important to talk about educating people in the community. I think that these illnesses are not going away. They are getting more enhanced through the generations given the environmental and sort of societal norm pressure connected with it.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
I think it's really important that our leaders get involved, our leaders in each individual state to recognize that their own residents are struggling and
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
You know, there needs to be programmatic changes and there needs to be policy changes within these states to give people the treatment that they are entitled to in a humane, knowledgeable way where dialogue is encouraged between patient and care providers so that individuals can share, you know, what their needs are too without it being sort of like a hands down approach to, you know, health care.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
Thank you. It's a hard thing to do. You know, I have to say I never thought that I would be in this situation. And actually, I discussed it with my son because he is very intelligent. You know, his competency is restored. He's medication compliant. And I told him about this and he thinks it's great. He thinks that more people has to know.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
He feels like maybe at some point he will have a voice to be able to express, you know, which is even more important. But he did want to make sure that others are, you know, that there is a public awareness about the role of law enforcement in the individual's communities, because that can be like a driving situation to what path someone gets treatment versus punishment.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
Well, thank you. I hope that this has been helpful.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
And right now I'm still practicing. I provide clinical services to individuals who are dealing with depression, anxiety, life transition, stress in the family, kind of all of the above. Given all of that 16 years ago,
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
almost 17 years ago my son came to my husband and i describing some symptoms of having racing thoughts and some anxiety he was having a lot of difficulty managing inwardly not outwardly inwardly some of his experiences in life where objectively no one really saw it he was you know in the top five percent of his class highly regarded football player was a
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
Rotary International student was super successful, but that did not translate to what was going on with him internally. And he was having a lot of hardship managing some of the racing thoughts and some of the sort of intrusive thinking that was going on inside of him.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
To let you know, my husband, he's a clinical psychologist. So we felt like we were pretty well equipped and had access to good quality services in the Boston area. Took him right in to see a health professional.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
Given the genetic predisposition on my husband's side of the family with bipolar disorder, the psychiatrist felt it was indicated to get him on a variety of medication to manage some of the racing thoughts and some of the issues of the anxiety and depression.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
You know, when it did take some time to manage the medication, I mean, that is never easy. We felt like he was doing great. He was highly functional, had friends, was really very, very successful in many different areas. Being from New England, he went to one of the NESCAC goals, played football for four years, traveled the world, studying international studies, worked as a teacher, coach, mentor.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
Then he decided to go to social work school. and an Ivy League school, did really, really well. And even though he was doing really well with all of these areas, one thing that I may have overlooked is how he felt about having a diagnosis and how he felt about always having to manage his medication and some of the side effects around that medication. So what he did, he took himself off medication.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
And when he was 29 years old, kind of like at the peak of career, not the peak, but certainly an entry point of having of what could have been a very successful career path, took himself off medication, had his first psychotic episode. which was frightening for him, frightening for my husband and I. He was not living in the area. We drove right down.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
We managed crisis teams, doctors, police intervention, all of the above to get him hospitalized because we were that fearful for his safety.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
So that was the beginning of being in and out of hospitals, periods of being super compliant and having a lot of success around that and living independently and managing his life. But whenever he started playing with his medications, eventually coming off the medications, it has wreaked tremendous havoc. And the sad part is that you know a little bit about the town we live in.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
There's very high standard for how people should function and how they should behave. Kind of like that very staunch New England expectation. Every Everyone has to function at a thousand percent, a thousand percent of the time. And he had to come back home to get some support and regroup and all of that.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
And he did well for a while, as I said, moved out, had his own apartment, but eventually had to come back in because off medication. There were just so many encounters with various police departments that happened. did not display sensitive behavior and mindful behavior around someone with a neurobiological medical condition. They really weren't interested in hearing that.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
All they wanted was the behavior to stop. That was the entry point of police intervention, which did not go well. And it just led to one arrest after the other. And, you know, currently my son is at a state hospital right now. He's competent. He's on medication. He's doing great. But at the same time, now he has to reconcile some of these court issues.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
And the sad part is that in Massachusetts, we're one of two states that does not have an outpatient assisted treatment program. I don't know whether you're familiar with that. You probably are.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
If we did have that in our state, he would have gone down a path of treatment versus the criminal route and the incarceration, which doesn't do anyone good who has a clear-cut, diagnosable medical condition. In fact, all it really does is deny access for individuals who are in that situation by not having the appropriate treatment and the appropriate medication.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
It did not go well. I think that if the police were better trained in the areas of mental health crises, if there had been a clinician connected to the police department, which did not happen at all in the case of my son, I think the outcome would have been very, very different. I know that some police departments have greater knowledge of the impact of mental illness.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
Living in the sort of town that we do, there was just zero tolerance for that, despite the fact that my husband and I did our very, very best to try to educate them. Arresting someone who is in an acute medical crisis is not the solution. It only induces more illness. It induces more paranoia, you know, psychotic thinking. It's just a very unhealthy environment.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
We did. I think things could have been handled much, much differently. When my son was in court, it was clear that he was not mentally stable. It was clear cut. And rather than connect with the medical community, the immediate response within the court environment was to arrest him, send him off to jail. And I feel like the attorneys could have advocated in a much different way.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
I know that some have become more well-versed in areas of mental health because so much of criminal behavior, shall we say. I'm just talking about things like disturbing the peace and misdemeanors just can escalate to a point if someone is in a medical crisis. So I personally feel very disappointed in law enforcement, in the legal system.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
You know, with all due respect, I'm sure it's hard to expect judges, if you will, to be up on mental illness. Although I think it's something that people really need more training about, more sensitivity about. You know, to say to someone, I don't want you ever back in my court again.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
I mean, that's like telling a diabetic the physician never wants to see them in the ER again if they go off their insulin. That's a really, really important point. It's not bad behavior. It's not a personality disorder. It's a medical condition that certainly has behavioral offshoots, similar to any neuroatypical condition.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
That's an excellent question. Basically, the forensic psychologists or clinicians get involved when someone comes to the court and is like overtly psychotic or overtly disoriented, perhaps doesn't know where they were born or what day it is or who the current president is. I mean, I think that those are the more obvious situations for sure.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
And I think that court clinicians can intervene and are able to kind of deal with the obvious symptomatology. I think when someone goes in and out of, you know, kind of like a pre-psychotic, pre-mantic state, they can seem pretty articulate. I mean, for someone who is intelligent, good-looking, is well-educated, I think immediately there's bias.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
in the criminal system and i've seen it play out time and time again it's as if someone with that kind of a background should know better they should know better not to say inappropriate things to strangers or they should know better to know how to manage their internal sort of like self-regulation So I think there's the obvious cases for sure.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
And I think individuals in those situations probably tend to do better. From what I've observed in the court, that there is bias against people who are well-educated, you know, again, should know better. You know, there's a lot of judgment around that. And I think that that can also work against those individuals.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
I could not agree with you more, and I am baffled why in the state that I live in that has access to so many world-renowned healthcare organizations, how that doesn't translate to other institutions like police departments and the court and prisons themselves, because as we know, I think the latest statistics, 70% to 80% of individuals who are incarcerated suffer from serious mental illness.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
So I think there's a huge gap in the system. And that's what many of us are advocating for. We're advocating for change in legislature, number one. We're working tirelessly to get Massachusetts passed as a state that will support assisted outpatient treatment.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
And we're also working tirelessly to try to get a state hospital out of the hands of the Department of Correction and into the Department of Mental Health, which it absolutely needs to be.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
Yes, I'm connected to the National Shattering Silence Coalition, and I'm also connected to other advocacy groups that are working closely and collaborating with medical students and a whole coalition to try to support these two change of policies.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Stephanie Beilin: Mother's Journey Through Mental Illness and Incarceration
I could not agree with you more. I mean, you talked about sort of like how people are responding as how they responded in the 60s and 70s. And I can certainly relate to that mindset for sure. I feel honored to be able to reflect on that quite truthfully. We need to do better. We absolutely need to do better.