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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.
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 Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me, embracing autism and mental health worldwide.
Before we jump in, if you haven't already, I invite you to tap follow. It only takes a couple of seconds and it helps this show reach more families who need to hear these conversations. Thanks for being here. Welcome to our special event, Crafting Justice, Empowering Autism and Mental Health Through Legislation.
Joining us today is John Nutting, a former Maine State Senator who has spent time on the front lines of government helping craft legislation that impacts mental health services and the system families rely on.
We're going to talk about the realities of serious mental illness, the challenges policymakers face in addressing it, and what meaningful change could look like if we truly prioritize mental health in our communities. It's going to be a great conversation. Thanks for joining us today.
That's all right.
No, no problem at all. If you would, give us a little information about yourself and your background.
Well, I used to be a dairy farmer slash state legislator. Looking back, I don't know how I did both, but I was young and so was my wife. And the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Maine Supreme Court, years ago told me, said if a family tells me that there's no brain disorders in their family, I know they're lying because it's biological. It's in every family.
And that's one of the points we're trying to make here in Maine is that if you have a disorder of any part of your body, it goes without saying that you're going to treat that disorder. The same should be true for the brain. Absolutely.
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Chapter 2: What is the Progressive Treatment Plan in Maine?
Yeah, that's really good to hear. Now, when I started my podcast, I named it Why Not Me? Basically, what it means is that there's an individual type of situation here where one voice can matter. What would you tell a listener that decides they want to be an advocate? They want to believe that their single voice can make a difference and start something very positive.
Where would you tell them to start? And then what would you tell them to do?
Probably the first, most difficult thing would be to not ridicule and laugh behind the person's back that's acting differently. Try to research what your laws are. Groups like the National Shattering Silence Coalition in Maine, the Brett Staples Foundation website. Research what are your laws in your state? What legislators in your state have sponsored brain disorder laws in the past.
And so you can begin to know who to reach out to to speak about making things better. We're better than we used to be 15 years ago in Maine, but we're in the process now. It's not done yet, but this is a list of 35 tragedies that have happened in Maine from people off their treatment plans. Every one of them, you can see they're unnecessary.
We had a young man in Maine last year, started going to emergency rooms, begging for help, begging to be put on a treatment plan. All they did was keep him for two days, calm him down, dump him back out on the street. Eventually, he got so bad last fall that he attacked some people and broke a woman's jaw, and so now he's in jail. Now, this is somebody who was asking for help.
had been on a treatment plan previous and had done very well, wanted that again. Things like this just make the hair stand up still in the back of my neck, that unnecessary. If you were suffering that bad with a disorder of your stomach or your bones or your skin, bang, you know, let's get that person help. And this here, somebody has to beg for help, they still don't receive it.
And so we've made a presentation in Maine to all the district attorneys have made about what the law is and how it can be used more effectively and used more than it has been in the past. And that, I believe, will bring about some positive change going forward because it's better for them to step in early in somebody's history
especially if they've been in a hospital previous, get them the help they need or may not realize they need, but get them help before something bad happens that costs society millions and millions of dollars.
Yeah, and that's a huge amount of money. In closing, what is one of the things that you would like to let our listeners know that gives them an insight of you as an advocate and, of course, you as a representative on what you're trying to do to make things better for those that need the help?
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