Moms Battling the System: Fighting for Their Children Lost in the Mental Health Crisis
It began with a spreadsheet. Barbara Vassis—like countless other heartbroken mothers—created it to track the dizzying cycle her daughter was trapped in: hospital emergency rooms, mental health facilities, homeless shelters, jail.
It wasn’t unusual to spend 106 days out of 365 caught in this agonizing loop, a reality so common it spawned “Mad Moms"—groups of mothers across the nation driven by love and desperation.
In Colorado, Kate Rawlinson spearheaded a group inspired by Arizona’s tenacious “Angry Moms,” a movement advocating for change. Their advocacy began after witnessing inaction or, even worse, harm, from the very systems meant to help their children thrive.
Vassis’ daughter, struggling with schizoaffective disorder, goes off her medication, descends into psychosis, and often ends up incarcerated. "The costs of this cycle are outrageous", Vassis says. "It’s not just me, and it’s not unique to beg for help that’s just not there.”
It’s a story echoed across the country. Mad Moms aren’t asking for handout; they demand radical change, an end to the systemic failures engulfing families like theirs. Colorado’s legislation designed to divert people with mental illness from jail to treatment is structured on paper wonderfully. In practice, the wait for
psychiatric beds is years.
"It breaks your heart the first time, and then the second,” says Amanda, a mom whose son cycles through attempts at getting care: “We were told there’s just ‘nowhere for him to go’."
But that doesn’t make him any less real. He’s not alone.
Clozapine, a powerful antipsychotic, had been a glimmer of hope. Rawlinson’s son, struggling with schizophrenia, finally stabilized on the medication and was able to work part-time. The FDA process surrounding clozapine is too complex and too restrictive to be effective researchers whose kids fight this match
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