Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome to Why Not Me? Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide. Hosted by Tony Miator. Broadcasting from the heart of Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join us as our guests share their raw, howlful stories. Some will spark laughter, others will move you to tears. These real life journeys inspire, connect, and remind you that you're never alone.
Chapter 2: Who is Rachel Streiff and what motivates her advocacy?
We're igniting a global movement to empower everyone to make a lasting difference by fostering deep awareness, unwavering acceptance, and profound understanding of autism and mental health. Tune in, be inspired, and join us in transforming the world one story at a time. Hi, I'm Tony Mantour. Welcome to Why Not Me? Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide. Joining us today is Rachel Strife.
She is the co-founder of Arizona Mad Moms, a fierce advocate for transforming mental health care for those with serious mental illness. With her background as a chemical engineer, she brings a unique data-driven perspective to her mission, fueled by personal passion and a relentless drive for systemic change.
Her work has rallied countless families, influenced legislation, and sparked hope for better mental health support in Arizona and beyond. Today, we'll dive into her inspiring journey and her advocacy. So before we dive into our episode, we'll be back with an uninterrupted show right after a word from our sponsors. Thanks for joining us today.
Thank you. Yeah, thanks for having me.
Oh, it's my pleasure. If you would, give us a little background on how you got involved in what you're doing.
So initially I had a family member that developed serious mental illness and made a very good recovery. And the medication that took years to access was called clozapine. And it's a really important antipsychotic medication. That family member's doing great. That was many years ago. At the time when all of that situation happened, I had really no idea about serious mental illness.
I didn't know much about those disorders. I had taken maybe a psychology class in college that talked about schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, but I had never really known anyone. And I just didn't have any experience with anything like that. And if serious mental illness is not on your radar, you... Really have no idea. Like, I really didn't know what a psychiatrist even did.
And I had never even visited one.
With all this happening, what changed?
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Chapter 3: What challenges exist in the current mental health care system?
Well, the angry moms actually came first. So we didn't pick any of these names. The Arizona Mad Moms was, I think, the most recent. And there's Mad Moms chapters in other states. But the angry moms started, I want to say, 2019, 2020. A little frustrated caregiver in Michigan couldn't get clozapine, a critical medication for her loved one. She got upset. They called her angry.
But she and a lot of mothers that joined us succeeded in getting FDA regulations removed surrounding access to that very important antipsychotic. That was the start. So then when other groups started forming to address other issues outside of clozapine and issues with policy and laws with treatment, and access to care, they said, well, you're not the angry moms.
I guess we'll call you the mad moms. That's the term that has really stuck. So we're the mad moms. And maybe there's a double entendre there. I don't know, because it's hard to live. It's hard to live that life.
So with those two organizations, you are actually working with people that have to live with this on every single day. Yes. And I think you also work with senators and legislators to work on bills to actually make some change.
Yeah, so once our group solidified, this was at the end of 2023, and Crystal Fox, who you interviewed, her son passed away after he hung himself on December 23rd, 2023. That generated outrage in our community who had been fighting for Joshua to have access to care.
So we started the Arizona Mad Moms, and we got some attention from lawmakers in our state on both sides of the aisle, Republicans and Democrats. Through our efforts at our state capitol, by showing up, by our testimony, we succeeded in passing several laws. Among them was John's Law, named after Joshua's dad, John Fox, who I knew from a parent support group that I was in.
Yeah, that's just so tough. But it was really impressive that you got it done.
That really just exploded our movement. You know, there was news coverage over those laws being passed. There was news coverage highlighting some of the tragic stories. We had stories read by a state senator on the Senate floor. We just started sharing the truth about serious mental illness and not sugarcoating it. And our movement
In Arizona, that started out with about a dozen moms at that point. In two years' time, we're now about 550 families. And that's not a success statement. That's a tragedy. Because what we are finding is families and these very sick individuals are being failed by the system.
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Chapter 4: How does education influence mental health legislation?
I know families whose loved ones have plucked out their eyes. And that is complication that is not uncommon from someone experiencing severe visual hallucinations. that they can't discern from reality. So they pluck out an eyeball. And the social media comments on that news story were incredible to me. Wow, what an idiot.
I can't believe he plucked out his eye and taxpayers have to pay for this now. That was the attitude. There is no understanding that these are serious medical conditions and that behaviors can be caused by these types of problems. I attended a sentencing hearing for a young man, who is currently in prison for killing somebody. The cause of this tragedy was poorly treated schizophrenia.
A psychiatrist made a mistake on a diagnosis, gave him a wrong medication, It made the problem worse and the results were tragic. The prosecution's argument was schizophrenia doesn't cause violence. So, I mean, that's just a blatant lie and misinformation. And the family was just under the belief that this person was an evil monster.
and not to take away anything from their terrible loss and hardship. But I wish, I could wish I could turn that anger and that heartache for the real problem that was a lack of treatment and a lack of access to care and a system that has failed this family. And we see caregivers, we've had families die, parents especially die because of this terrible lack of care in their loved one.
Crystal Fox is a great example, but there's others. There's a young man, Alejandro Gonzalez, in Arizona. You can look up the headline. Had serious mental illness, was discharged from jail, probably with a day of medication and very likely no support. Runs out of his medications, kills his mother. And who's to blame there? It's not the young man that got a no-fault brain disorder.
So education is so desperately needed at the society level. Again, we understood this in the 1960s. We understood not guilty by reason of insanity. And we took care of these individuals. We understood the danger. Somehow that's gotten lost, gotten lost for a lot of reasons.
Yes, I cannot disagree with you there whatsoever. It seems like everyone is just so out of touch now.
Everybody's out of touch.
Yeah, it goes from the people that make the laws all the way down to the people that supposedly uphold the laws. Then you add in the medical system and all the other entities that deal with it on a daily basis. There's just no continuity at all.
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