When I was 11 years old and living in a small town in Oregon, my mother came downstairs one day holding a gun. She told me, \u201cMen are coming to rape you and chop you up.\u201d She planned to end our lives herself.<\/p>\n
I said, \u201cOK, Mom, let\u2019s just think for a minute…\u201d She put the revolver down on the dining room table in front of me. My aunt burst in and told me to walk down the street to the police station. She said later that she threw the pistol in the Willamette River.<\/p>\n
I was used to navigating my mom\u2019s psychotic episodes \u2014 but this was the first time she had a gun. It wasn\u2019t the last: My family has counted at least six firearms over the years. We have spent decades trying to keep her from using them to hurt herself, us, and other people.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m 54, and this task has shaped my life. Twenty years ago, I had to leave my publishing job in New York so I could be in Oregon, ready to help at all times. I have spent days in hospitals and courtrooms, hours on the phone, pleading with social service agencies for help that almost never materialized. For a long time, I gave up hope of having a husband and children, convinced it wouldn\u2019t be safe for anyone.<\/p>\n
And at the quiet suggestion of police officers, I have gone into my mother\u2019s house \u2014 twice \u2014 to take her guns away. Once, that meant flying cross-country to break in while she was out running errands.<\/p>\n
The officers didn\u2019t suggest that lightly. They knew it was not legal for me to steal a gun, even from a dangerous family member. They knew it wasn\u2019t legal for me to enter her home without her permission, or to do anything about her mental health or her guns without her agreement.<\/p>\n
But they also knew the urgency \u2014 and that there isn\u2019t much help available for families like mine.<\/p>\n
After shootings at schools, stores and other public places, families often get blamed for not stopping violent incidents before they happen. But my experience shows that even trying their hardest, relatives of adults suffering from severe mental illness are not equipped to keep weapons out of their hands. Police, courts, the healthcare system and social service agencies don\u2019t seem to be able to do the job, either.<\/p>\n
Too often I\u2019ve been told, \u201cOur hands are tied.\u201d My mother would have to be caught committing a crime to qualify for actual help.<\/p>\n
Studies show that most people with mental illnesses are not dangerous or violent, and I worry that talking about my family\u2019s plight will stigmatize people who already face so many problems. But we need to recognize that there are degrees of sickness, and that a single remedy won\u2019t work for every situation \u2014 or every family.<\/p>\n
Mom is definitely on the extreme end. But she is very smart and off-the-charts talented. Collectors treasure her \u201cwearable art\u201d jackets, which galleries sold to celebrities and socialites back in the \u201880s and \u201890s. She taught me many things: to cook, sew, and refinish furniture; to work hard; to speak up for those who have less in life. She sang to me and told me to \u201cStand tall with what you\u2019ve got,\u201d as I was a tiny late bloomer.<\/p>\n
But her co-occurring mental illnesses can involve terrible symptoms, including delusions and hallucinations, anger and impulsiveness. She cycles rapidly through mania and depression, sees demons, hears voices in cupboards, fears that terrorists or the government are spying on us. I get why she wants protection from what haunts her. Thus, the guns.<\/p>\n
As far as I know, my mother has never actually shot anyone. (According to family lore, she fired at my stepdad once.) But she has harassed and threatened to kill almost everyone in her family, as well as neighbors, roommates and countless strangers. She once phoned me 45 times in a row until I called the police.<\/p>\n
The officers in our small town know her. Thick stacks of police reports document her acting badly or claiming people were after her. She\u2019s been taken off in squad cars and ambulances. In spite of all this, county mental health officials told me they consider her \u201chigh functioning.\u201d<\/p>\n
She has told me that the only place she\u2019s ever felt safe is in a hospital. Until recently, I think she had spent a total of about a year in psych wards. Stays of a month or two helped her most.<\/p>\n
But the psychiatric hospitals that people like her need were mostly closed decades ago, with no backup plan. Short stays at local hospitals were bandaids \u2014 but as soon as she was semi-stable, she wanted out, because of the cost for uninsured patients like her. Mom excels at \u201cturning it on\u201d for 5-10 minutes, long enough to fool busy mental health evaluators into thinking she is OK for release.<\/p>\n
Because she had involuntary stays in psychiatric wards, federal law (and Oregon\u2019s statutes) say she can\u2019t legally buy guns. But that has not stopped her from getting weapons. She has inherited them, borrowed them and persuaded friends to give them to her. In my part of the country, like much of the United States, guns are everywhere.<\/p>\n
I distanced myself from Mom after I married a wonderful man and had children whom I was determined to keep safe from her. A therapist assured me that agencies out there should be able to do this work, so I don\u2019t have to anymore. I wanted to believe.<\/p>\n
From afar, I helped support her financially, sometimes getting reports from my aunt and brother, Dylan, who live in our hometown. And I knew the police had my phone number.<\/p>\n
In late 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, I had to go back. According to my brother, Mom decided the student she rented a room to was going to attack her, so she started carrying around a loaded shotgun. After my brother hid the gun in the attic, she filed false reports about him, claiming he stole from her and physically abused her.<\/p>\n
Then my 75-year-old mother left her house to wander around town in her car. We couldn\u2019t find her. I later learned she spent a week in a nearby hospital. After being discharged, Mom got into a neighbor\u2019s house and wouldn\u2019t leave, complaining about \u201cdemons in the walls.\u201d Before the police arrived, she took off. \u201cToo bad,\u201d an officer said to me. \u201cIf we caught her in the act, we could\u2019ve finally gotten her real help.\u201d<\/p>\n
I called every agency I could think of and learned of new ones. Adult Protective Services, Senior Services and volunteers from the National Alliance on Mental Illness tried to be helpful. Police officers have been our most reliable allies over the years.<\/p>\n
But the primary agency in charge, Adult Behavioral Health, treated me like a pest \u2014 and an adversary. Even when I said, \u201cI understand privacy laws won\u2019t let you tell me about her case, but please let me tell you her history and recent behavior. Do you know about the guns?\u201d<\/p>\n
A police officer told me about a new \u201cRed Flag Law\u201d petition I could try, which, if granted by a court, would at least require my mother to turn over any guns to the police. I got the name of a qualified lawyer from a state referral line (there were just two in Mom\u2019s county). But the law was so new in Oregon \u2014 it took effect in 2018 \u2014 that the attorney said he wasn\u2019t familiar enough with it to advise me.<\/p>\n