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(May 17, 2013) I have two boys, both are adults and both suffer from severe mental illness. But one has accepted treatment and turned his life around while my other son has refused treatment and continues to live on the streets.

My youngest son is in his forties and finally accepts treatment. He is now on highly effective medication, receives therapy and is no longer homeless. I worked for 10 years to get him the help he needed.

Those ten years were the most difficult of my life. I wasn't able to sleep through the night and each time I woke all I could think of was my son and what I needed to do to get him the treatment he needed. He was in his own world. He was incoherent, paranoid and unable to sleep through the night and walked aimlessly through his childhood neighborhood. He lived on the streets.

Finally, after years of phone calls and attempts to get my son into treatment, he was taken to the psychiatric hospital where he was diagnosed and given medication. At this time my son was in denial about his illness and didn't want treatment nor did he want anything to do with me. I was the enemy who wanted him locked up, as far as he was concerned. He spent three years in a facility, following which we worked with social services to find him a place to live.

He has been living there over three years now and we have rebuilt our relationship, thanks to the medication and treatment he is receiving. He regularly visits me and we speak by phone frequently - he is no longer suffering. He is happy again and I have my son back. Thanks to treatment, he's a helpful and compassionate human being with a positive outlook on life.

But we are not a complete family yet. My oldest son is nearly fifty years old and also suffers from severe mental illness. Like his younger brother, he also does not believe he is sick. But unlike his younger brother, he has never been treated or diagnosed and is now homeless after living on the fringes of society for most of his adult life.

While I've contacted crisis and mental health agencies in the town he is in, they cannot provide me with information. It's so difficult, when you feel your hands are tied due laws preventing family members from obtaining information about adult children. I pray for him and hope he will someday get treatment and we will once again be a complete family.

My children have suffered immensely because of the way our system abandons people with severe mental illness. I want to live country where that treats everyone with dignity and laws don’t prevent people from getting the help they need.

We all suffer, when just one person is suffering.

Barbara Williams is the mother of two men with severe mental illness.

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(May 16, 2013) A storm is brewing over the most effective way to implement California’s Laura’s Law so that services reach those who need them most. We recently celebrated legislative efforts to amend the life-saving mental illness treatment law, but these legislative strides were halted by California Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg.

While we consider it progress that the Senate Pro Tem eliminated funding hurdles by clarifying that money from the Mental Health Services Act can be used to implement the law, this does not mean services will reach people with the most severe mental illnesses who need them the most.

The Sacramento Bee published today three letters that demonstrate how passionately people feel that Steinberg’s amendments gut the core of the law, which makes treatment possible for people who are too sick to realize they are ill.

“Steinberg's plan will eliminate the funding hurdle but misses the opportunity to make treatment more accessible to the sickest and most vulnerable Californians by removing other barriers to implementing Laura's Law” (“Steinberg’s mental health care plan doesn’t go far enough”).

“His new proposals are for voluntary services and do not help the seriously ill who are too psychotic to know they are ill. To help people living under lice-infected clothing, who are eating out of dumpsters, screaming they are the Messiah requires implementing Laura’s Law” (“Steinberg would make caring harder for seriously mentally ill”).

“[I]deological arguments keep getting in his way. That is the is the battle between those who believe acceptance of mental health treatment must always be through a person's free will decision and those who recognize psychosis robs some people with mental illness of the ability to realize they are ill and need treatment” (“Steinberg should let counties pick mental health priorities”).

We commend Steinberg on his plan to make it easier to fund assisted outpatient treatment (AOT), but he is missing an opportunity remove other barriers that would make treatment more accessible for the sickest and most vulnerable Californians.

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