Summary Of Crazy By Pete Earley

Summary and Evaluation
Pete Earley, a seasoned investigative reporter for the Washington Post, wrote about criminal justice system for a living. However, it wasn’t until his son was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and experienced a manic episode, that he began investigating Americas mental health system. Earley’s book, Crazy, walks us through his investigation of the mental health system and his own personal story of living and overcoming the mental illness his son lives with. Earley talks about how Mike, his son, had his first psychotic break when he was a senior in college. On a particularly bad night, Mike’s older brother called Earley saying that Mike was getting bad again, and that Earley should come see him. When Earley arrived in

New York to get his son from school, he brought Mike back to their hometown, and to an emergency room there. Earley was told that because his son was an adult, they couldn’t treat him unless he was a threat to himself or someone else, or if he agreed to the treatment. When asked, Mike said that he wasn’t planning on hurting himself or anyone else. Mike refused his medicines because he believed that they were poison. A little while later Mike was released without any treatment. A few days following this event, Mike broke into a house, and took a bubble bath; this caused severe damage to the interior of the house. Mike was arrested and charged with two felonies. It was this event that led Earley to take a deeper investigative look into Americas mental health system.
A yearlong investigation into the mental health system in Miami Florida opened Earley’s eyes to an epidemic much larger than Earley could have imagined. Earley found that fifty years ago there were more than half a million Americans in state hospitals for mental disorders. Today, there are fewer than 55,000 patients living in state mental hospitals. Instead of the majority of patients residing in state mental hospitals, 300,000 are in jails or prisons, while another 500,000 are on a form of court-ordered probation.
Earley finds himself in Miami because of its large percentage of mentally ill residents. He is given wide access into the Miami-Dade County jail psych ward; there he talked to patients, advocates for mental health, doctors, family and friends of those who suffer from mental illness, lawyers, and the founder of a halfway house. Throughout this year he investigates the pharmaceutical changes and breakthroughs, legal changes, and changes in society.
Since deinstitutionalization began in the 1960’s there is a revolving door of mentally ill patients. A large potion of the homeless in the country are mentally ill, and have found that they have no where to go since being kicked out of where they had always lived and were given treatment. Today mentally ill are often going back and forth between streets, jails and courts, and mental health centers. Those with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or schizoaffective disorder are almost guaranteed to receive the proper treatment and have their pharmaceutical needs met, when they are in custody or under supervision. When the jail or judges see that they are fit to be out on their own, this is usually when their mental illness begins to get worse again, they often think that they are fine and no longer need to be on their medications since they were doing so well in treatment. Within a couple weeks of release, they are often arrested and brought back to jail again. This is something that is seen time and time again in the book with the patients the Earley has been studying. Deinstitutionalization has led to a revolving door for mentally ill patients. Earley had a personal reason to begin this investigation, but what he found was that things are worse than what he could have imagined for those living with a mental illness.
Throughout the book there were many things that I liked and disliked.

I loved how we were able to see the evolution of Mike’s mental illness, and see how the charges that were pressed against him affected him in many aspects of his life, such as getting a job. I loved that we were able to see him “recover” and decide that he was going back to school as well as that he knew he had to be taking his medication. I wish we could have seen more of the stories of the patients that Earley talked to. While we got a large overview of their lives and how they ended up where they were, I wish we could have seen more of what happened after they were released, or moved other places. There were also many things that surprised me; I didn’t realize how many people in America were affected by mental illnesses and how a majority of them were homeless. I also didn’t realize how many times that they were brought back and forth from jail to the streets. There was one lady that was talked about in the book, who has been awaiting trial for 3 years because she is still not competent enough to stand

trial.
One of the strengths of this book was how thorough Earley made all of his information throughout the whole book. At the end he made sure to touch on almost everything he had been talking about through the whole thing. A weakness throughout the book was that it could be hard to keep track of who was who, and what their stories were, I found myself having to go back multiple times to remember who the person was and what they were suffering from. Something that would have been helpful would have been a little cheat sheet of the patients that Earley was working with so that when a different patient was being talked about, the reader could easily check and remember what their story was.
Examples of Sameness and Difference
Mike suffers from bipolar disorder; this is a mental disorder that thousands of people suffer from every year.

There are many ways that Mike is similar to someone who doesn’t have a disability. Like thousands of students a year, Mike went to college and earned his degree, and is going on to earn his masters degree. While Mike had to take a break in-between his bachelors and going to get his masters, he went back, just like thousands of Americans do. He was also planning for his future ahead of time. In American culture we are very future time oriented, we like to know what we are doing weeks, months, and sometimes up to a year in advance. Likewise, now that Mike is on his medication and thinking clearly, he is beginning to plan for the future. He is also having a similar outlook on life similar to those who don’t have a disability. There are also several ways that a person like Mike, who suffers from bipolar disorder, is different from someone who doesn’t have a disability. With bipolar disorder you suffer from severe mood swings, which is something that a person without a disability don’t have to suffer through. While everyone has different moods that they feel, they are in no way similar to how a person who suffers from bipolar disorder has them and how they affect their decisions and mental state. A person who has bipolar disorder will often live in fear, which is also something that people without disabilities don’t suffer from. If you are suffering from bipolar

disorder, you live in constant fear of when your next “episode” is going to be. There are many similarities and differences between a person who has a disability and those who don’t. Sometimes they are easy to see, and sometimes they are hard to see, but they are there.
Missing Information
I think that something that would be really interesting to “finish” this story off, would be an update on how all the patients that Earley worked with, along with Mike, are doing. Towards the end of the book we have a small recap of what the patients were doing the last time we heard about them in the book. Many people went to live with family, one moved to Ohio to live with his mother, and one girl and her boyfriend moved in with her mother, so that the mother could keep an eye her daughter and make sure that she continued to take her medication. And then there were some who were still in jail when Earley was done with his investigation. We learned that Mike was planning on going back to graduate school. I think that it would be really interesting to see how their stories are playing out now. See how many are still on their medications and are doing well, as well as how many people are still in jail. If someone who was still in jail at the end of the book, were out of jail now, and see how they are doing if they are out of jail. A big issue throughout the book was the medicine, and how much Medicare would cover, and what types of medicine they were paying for. The change in dose and medication would very quickly affect many of these patients. It would be interesting to see if their medicine and dosage did change at some point, how they are doing now, about 10 years after the book was originally published. Mike had a goal following his recovery and I would love to see if he achieved that goal because he was so excited about his future. It would be interesting to learn if he ended up receiving his graduate degree and if he was able to find a job following getting his degree. 10 years can change a lot and I think a follow up story would be interesting just to see how they are all doing.
Quote Supporting Point Made in the Text
Deinstitutionalization was a movement in the late 20th century. In the 1960’s and the 1970’s there was a large effort to move people out of the institutions and into and back into closer contact with the community. This led to the closure of many institutions regardless of the problems that the institution specialized in. Living in an institution meant that no matter the problem that the institution specialized in, the basic needs of the patients were met. In the 1950’s inhumane conditions were exposed which ultimately lead to the movement. However with this movement, there was little thought about how the patients did not have any domestic training or skills to be brought into a community. Instead when the institution was shut down, they were thrown out, and expected to make everything work for themselves. “In 1955, some 560,000 Americans were being treated for mental problems in state hospitals. Between 1955 and 2000, out nation’s population increased from 166 million to 276 million. If you took the patient-per-capita ration that existed in 1955 and extrapolated it on the basis of the new population, you’d expect to find 930,000 patients in state mental hospitals. But there are fewer than 55,000 in them today. Where are the others? Nearly 300,000 are in jails and prisons. Another half a million are on court-ordered probation. The largest public mental health facility in America is not a hospital. It’s the Los Angeles County jail. On any given day, it houses 3,000 mentally disturbed inmates”.