A Mother Committed Herself to Help her Son

Lacey Lipe, a mother in Columbia, S.C. has an exceptionally difficult job. Even after she was forced to quit her day job, her job as a mother had her working over-time. Her strong 18-year-old son, was physically and mentally too much for Lipe to handle, especially on her own. As a single mother to a child with bipolar disorder and autism, she grew afraid of his strength and violent tendencies.

South Carolina has an underfunded state mental health system, that would not help treat Lipe's son. After years of Lipe attempting to receive care for her son, she placed matters into her own hands. She committed herself into a hospital complaining of post-traumatic stress disorder in January, which was a year after her son's house-based services ended. Lipe knew if she committed herself into a hospital, the state authorities would help provide her son with one of the state's residential treatment beds. Lipe knew the only way to have her son committed was if she committed herself first.

This article reveals the severity of the affects that the cuts to mental health budgets have on families who have children with mental illness. In the past two years, mental health budgets have been down $1.8 billion across the country. Lipe, who lives in a state where the mental health budgets have been cut by 23 percent, knew committing herself into a psychiatric ward was her only choice.

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"Superman Shanahan"

Everyone loves a visit from Santa Clause. The only bad part about Santa is that he's only on duty once a year. However, a man named Michael Shanahan dresses up like Santa multiple times during the holiday season and supplies gifts to children in his home time. In suburban Oak Park, a few days before Christmas Shanahan propels down from a helicopter, and screams an authentic "Ho, Ho, Ho," and greets hundreds of children from the area. Shanahan, a taller more muscular Santa but with equally rosy cheeks, arrives at various family events and holiday functions. Even though his own children are now grown, he continues to bring his cheery self to the PACTT (Parents Allied with Children and Teachers for Tomorrow) group home.

The Oak Park group home is home to six special young men, one being Shanahan’s own son. When Marty was two years old, he was diagnosed with autism. He has been living in the home since he was 17 years old. And even though he is soon to be 21 years old, he is just as excited to see his father in the white snow-frosted beard. This blonde haired, well groomed young man lights up the room with his enormous ear to ear smile as his dad approaches the PACTT home. Marty appears to be a clone to his father, built like a football player with broad shoulders and a muscular physique.

This physique was the central reason that Marty starting living at the group home. His large stature of 250 lbs is double the weight of his mother. This significant difference made his mother’s job physically demanding and became a vital concern.
While the group home is located only a few blocks from their home, the decision to move Marty weighed heavily on the whole family. Shanahan’s eldest daughter, Claire, was in shock as she and her younger sister could not imagine being able to adjust to not seeing Marty every day. Claire said she was “entirely unfamiliar with what group homes were about” but warmed up to the idea once their parents educated them on the benefits of Marty living in a group home. She said, “To cope we saw Marty on a regular basis as a family” and felt comforted by the fact that Marty now had someone his age to hang out with at the group home.

A Different World

Karen McDaniel and Charles Jordan after a church service

 Mornings have become a lot more exciting for breakfast, Magnolia Jordan smiles and cheers as her son, Charles Jordan, successfully pours himself a bowl of cereal. “He can do it,” she says. “He’s afraid of wasting the milk but its okay. The more I make him do it, the more careful he becomes.”

Charles suffers from a mental health disorder known as autism. Jordan first saw signs of the disorder in her son when he was just a baby. “I thought he was lazy,” she says. At 2-years-old Charles didn’t walk and abstained from activities at home and at daycare.  “I had my daughter a year after Charles,” Jordan said. “She was walking at seven months and playing and he’d just sit and watch her.” Jordan allowed her daughter to hold Charles’ hands and lead him, but he feared that he’d fall. It wasn’t until Charles was almost four-years-old when he’d learn to walk without aid.

One day the director of Charles’ daycare asked Jordan if she found it odd that Charles wasn’t developing as the other children were. She suggested that Charles see a doctor and Jordan knew the director was right. At Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, tests showed that Charles had brain damage and doctors diagnosed him autism, warning that his development would be slow.