AOT for Allegheny County

February 19, 2013:

On this day, my son Levi killed my mother, Connie Johnston, while she ate breakfast with my father, David Johnston. Levi wasn’t angry, and he didn’t have a normal reason for doing it. He believed that his grandmother was a witch whose soul had been removed, and he was trying to protect us from being hurt. On that day, a voice he knew as the Archangel Michael told him that it was time to kill her. He changed into the clothes that he thought of as his Angelic Army uniform, took a large knife he had been using to chop raw cabbage, and walked into the kitchen. In the next minute, I lost both my mother to death and my son to prison.

Levi clearly had paranoid schizophrenia – but the disease itself blocked his brain from realizing it. The law that might have forced medication against his will would not let us act until there was “clear and present danger.” And until that day, there was no danger. The law was useless.

That’s why I want to use our story to explain to the people of Allegheny County that DANGER is the wrong measurement for brain/behavior disorders. Brain disorders cause people to do many things that don’t make sense. They cause disability, sometimes profound, before they cause danger. If we want to stop before the DANGER part, we need to respect and measure DISABILITY level. (Read my recent Op-Ed, “Disability, Not Danger”)

Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) is now an option under Pennsylvania law, if our county opts in by creating a program. An AOT program uses a “disability” standard. It requires participants to work with a medical team to prescribe and oversee medication. AOT is an alternative to hospitalization because it allows participants to live in the community, freed by treatment from both the disability and the danger.

But the state didn’t provide funding, so if we want AOT here, in Allegheny County, taxpayers have to make our voices heard. The cost is offset by savings at jails and hospitals – and in our families not losing loved ones. JOIN ME in asking the county to act!

Personal note: It’s excruciatingly painful to draw attention to my much-loved son at the lowest point in his life. In his arrest mug shot, he looks confused, like he isn’t even sure what he’s looking at or where he is. I know that strangers may read his face as more than confused — as evil — and that pains me more than anything else. But it’s why I have to use the story to help others, and even to help him in some future time. We have to change. It could be anyone’s son next.