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Speaking with my oldest granddaughter, who is currently incarcerated, is painful. She is there because of behavior caused by mental illness. She shouldn't be in jail, but for reasons I won't go in to, she cannot live with her mother or me. I am the only person she has access to "on the outside."

She wants out, but there is no where for her to go. It is excruciating. My daughter and I have spent countless hours talking to different agencies and the courts and everyone says sorry but there is nothing they can do. Not enough funding. Not enough room. So we have made the painful choice to keep her locked up where she is relatively safe. Where she is forced to take her meds. Where she has a bed to sleep in and food to eat. Where she is getting at least some sort of counseling. But she has no freedom while she waits in the backed up judicial system to undergo competency testing before she can be sentenced.

And so I find myself wrestling with a moral issue. She is like the caged bird who has the desire to leave it's prison and fly but has none of the skills needed to find food and shelter or to stay safe from predators, and none of the social skills needed to coexist with other birds. I have the power to either open that cage door, knowing full well that there is an overwhelming chance she will not be able to comply with the terms of her release, that she will end up in a worse spot than she is in now - or to watch her thrash against the bars in an attempt to escape or die trying.

I wake up in the middle of the night, heart pounding, praying for guidance.

And paintings like this emerge from a sleep deprived subconscious.

My heart pounds now as I prepare to hit send. What will you think? Is it Too Much Information? Perhaps for some. And yet, I feel like there needs to be a light shone on the darkness of mental illness. The quiet desperation families go through when they watch a loved one struggle and there is literally no real help out there. Our healthcare system is not structured to care for those who need lifetime support. For those not "fixed" by pharmaceuticals. For those who aren't able to modify their behavior by learning coping skills. For those who need months and years in a mental health hospital instead of days or weeks.  Our prisons are filled with mentally ill people who are being punished for being ill, because they have proven themselves to be a danger to themselves and others. 

Like so many things in our fractured, distracted society, the plight of the mentally ill is largely ignored, until we have a mass shooting. Then it becomes a political football, until the next thing comes along.