Send us a text Denise Paley shares the harrowing story of her son's sudden onset schizophrenia at age 18 and his subsequent five-year imprisonment without sentencing, revealing critical failures in how our justice system handles mental illness. • Son Ellis was an honor roll student with a bright future before experiencing first-episode psychosis • Police dismissed parents' concerns when Ellis disappeared, missing critical intervention opportunity • Ellis has been incarcerated for nearly five years, remaining unsentenced with his case continued 48 times • He spent 3.5 years without proper treatment for psychosis while in prison • When finally transferred to a facility that properly treated his condition, his symptoms completely remitted • Denise successfully advocated for mandatory crisis intervention training for Connecticut police officers • People with serious mental illness are 10 times more likely to end up in prison than in hospital • Contrary to popular belief, 50% of people with schizophrenia recover within 10 years with proper treatment • First episode psychosis requires immediate treatment - early intervention dramatically improves outcomes • Breaking stigma and sharing family mental health history can help others recognize symptoms earlier Join us in spreading awareness about mental health in the justice system by sharing this episode and telling everyone everywhere about Why Not Me? The World. https://tonymantor.com https://Facebook.com/tonymantor https://instagram.com/tonymantor https://twitter.com/tonymantor https://youtube.com/tonymantormusic intro/outro music bed written by T. Wild Why Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI)
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Welcome to Why Not Me? The World Podcast, hosted by Tony Mantor. Broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will make you laugh, some will make you cry. Real-life people who will inspire... and show that you are not alone in this world.
Hopefully, you gain more awareness, acceptance, and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me? The World, Humanity Over Handcuffs, The Silent Crisis special event. Joining me today is Denise Paley. She will share her son's experiences with the legal system, which inspired her to advocate for legislative reform in her state. Thanks for coming on.
And can you tell us a little more information about your son?
Okay, so almost five years ago to the date. So it was January in 2020. My son had previously been an honor roll student in high school. He had already, you know, been accepted to college. He was living a very normal, seemingly high school senior life. Had a lot of friends, was on the varsity lacrosse team. He volunteered for unified sports. On the surface, everything was going very well for him.
He was in this international baccalaureate program that we have at our high school. He had to go to the library. I think we were still on break. We were still on the Christmas break. It was the talent event. And he had to go to the library to work on a project with some friends. They do a lot of collaboration. There were only 20 kids in the school that were in the program.
He left for the library, which was very typical to go work on this project before they went back to school. And he never came home. He's also very much a wolf follower. If our son didn't come home for dinner without telling us, as his parents, we consider that very unusual behavior. He didn't come home for dinner. He didn't call.
His dad and I started to call around to see if anybody knew where he was. His brother was looking for him. At the time, Snapchat was very popular, trying to figure out if anybody knew where he was. We drove by the library. We drove by some friends' homes. We called some people. No sign of him. We found out he never showed up for the library for the group.
Wow, that's pretty scary. What did you do?
So we went to the police. He was in high school, but he had just turned 18 a few months before. So we went to the police and said that they would look for him, that they would put out an alert to locate his license plate. Everything's hindsight, right? So now I have all of the recordings from the police interactions and all our phone calls. They completely dismissed.
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