Horrible story - Child hospitalized and drugged against parent's will

[_TJ_]

When authorities screen your children for mental illness ...
by Rob Waters, Mother Jones

April 26, 2005

Aliah Gleason is a big, lively girl with a round face, a quick wit, and a sharp tongue. She's 13 and in eighth grade at Dessau Middle School in Pflugerville, Texas, an Austin suburb, but could pass for several years older. She is the second of four daughters of Calvin and Anaka Gleason, an African American couple who run a struggling business taking people on casino bus trips.

In the early part of seventh grade, Aliah was a B and C student who "got in trouble for running my mouth." Sometimes her antics went overboard -- like the time she barked at a teacher she thought was ugly. "I was calling this teacher a man because she had a mustache," Aliah recalled over breakfast with her parents at an Austin restaurant.

School officials considered Aliah disruptive, deemed her to have an "oppositional disorder," and placed her in a special education track. Her parents viewed her as a spirited child who was bright but had a tendency to argue and clown. Then one day, psychologists from the University of Texas (UT) visited the school to conduct a mental health screening for sixth- and seventh-grade girls, and Aliah's life took a dramatic turn.

A few weeks later, the Gleasons got a "Dear parents" form letter from the head of the screening program. "You will be glad to know your daughter did not report experiencing a significant level of distress," it said. Not long after, they got a very different phone call from a UT psychologist, who told them Aliah had scored high on a suicide rating and needed further evaluation. The Gleasons reluctantly agreed to have Aliah see a UT consulting psychiatrist. She concluded Aliah was suicidal but did not hospitalize her, referring her instead to an emergency clinic for further evaluation. Six weeks later, in January 2004, a child-protection worker went to Aliah's school, interviewed her, then summoned Calvin Gleason to the school and told him to take Aliah to Austin State Hospital, a state mental facility. He refused, and after a heated conversation, she placed Aliah in emergency custody and had a police officer drive her to the hospital.

http://www.unknownnews.org/050426mentalhealth.html

[deacon2]

1. "Compulsory" psychiatric care

was a cornerstone of oppression in the Soviet Union. This sounds like a more localized case of authoritarianism, but with all the other tangents of "friendly fascism" going on in this country, it certainly allows for some frightening extrapolation.

[wakeme2008]

2. they are pushing this "testing" in a lot of States, Florida for one

Funny how the Repugs can find money in the state budgets to help out their drug company friends.

[liberalhistorian]

3. My teenage son has Asperger's Syndrome,

a type of high-functioning autism, and I can very easily see this kind of unbelievable shit happening to him; that terrifies me. What's truly amazing is that Bush and Company love to prattle on and on about lesser government and individual freedom and "family values" and they love to rail against public agencies and how public schools have too much control over kids and parents, etc., etc. Yet THEY are the ones responsible for devising and attempting to implement this fascist, Orwellian, Soviet-type program. And how much you wanna bet that they will call any disagreement at all with repuke policies or leaders a "mental illness." That's what the Soviet Union used to do, and they'd institutionalize them to get them out of the way.

[DELUSIONAL]

4. Kids are preached to about not taking DRUGS

and this girl is drugged -- with no real diagnosis -- the drugs were NOT approved for used with children.

What happened to this child reminds me of the claims about the old USSR and how opponents to the communists were rounded up and drugged.

Her body is developing, her brain is still "under construction" . . .

What sort of hell are children being put through by the right wing zealots?

SUE the bastards and keep suing them -- this seems to be the only language they understand.

Had the parents drugged this child they would be in jail -- and yet this was done under the authority of the STATE.

Every child who is mouthy is at risk apparently.

Sickening ----


Nominate this --

So far we've only heard what would happen if "testing" progresses to drugging -- well apparently Texas has taken the next step.

Sue the bastards -- what sort of "tests" were these bastards using anyway??

[uppityperson]

5. I hate this shit, could happen to us too

This sort of crap makes me feel sick. Sounds like she could use some support, but forcing it like this is totally inappropriate and the system should get their asses sued off by the ACLU.

My teen could be taken from us too. He is a very bright, caring teen active in the arts and teen peace groups who has self control and happiness issues also, manifested in some yucky ways. However, he's not drinking or drugging, gets 3.0+ in school and has friends of all ages. He has been told he has "oppostitional disorder", with this described to me as teenage uppitiness, sometimes taken to the extreme. So we figure out ways to work with him, rather than trying to challenge and force our legal authority (as parents) upon him. Sometimes it works better than others. And yes, he needs to figure out that he can't always get his way. However, he also needs to figure out that his parents are his advocates and are trying to work with him to figure out how to function more happily in the world.

We are working with him, trying to help him figure out more positive ways to deal with his stresses, his acting out, his impulses, and how to deal with the world especially since he'll be out on his own in a couple yrs. I got started in counseling this wk, he'll go with me in a couple wks and perhaps on his own, if he'll agree. If he won't go on his own, forcing him will only make him resistant, so we'll work on having him go with me occassionally as this will help me figure out how to deal with him.

One of my fears is that how he is will be misunderstood by those who say "you're his parent, make him do this or that" and don't understand that everyone is not capable of fitting into that box. They try forcing him, he revolts, into the cycle and no one is better off. And if the state were to step in as they did the young woman in the story, well, I'm glad I don't live in Texas, or Florida.