Mental Illness the Ills of Racism and the African American Experience

By Ruby L. Johnson

Mental Illness, the Ills of Racism, and the African American Experience tells of one mother’s depression and the effects it had on her life, while also walking with her son through his journey with paranoid schizophrenia. This book tells of the heartbreak of a mother who lost her only son, first to mental illness and then to death. Paranoid schizophrenia took away her son’s life and what he could have been due to his high intelligence. Her son suffered not only from his illness but from the disease of racism that is out of control in this country. Her son spent one-third of his life incarcerated not because he was some big-time criminal but due to racism. He spent a year in prison in isolation without being given his medications, and upon his release, he had a complete psychotic breakdown, which was past inhumane. She really did not know the extent of the hate and racism in this country toward African Americans until walking with her son through his illness. She knew she experienced hate through her nursing career, and it is something she has dealt with. Family members would pass her up and ask White nurses about their loved ones, and they would have to come back to her. Racism is a serious disease that has to be dealt with because she does not want future generations going through what we are going through now, and the only way to do this is to start working hard now to eradicate this disease now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781649520579

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Mental Illness the Ills of Racism and the African American Experience

Ruby L. Johnson

Copyright © 2020 Ruby L. Johnson

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books, Inc.

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2020

ISBN 978-1-64952-056-2 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64952-057-9 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

September 14, 2014

Myths and Lies

Character Matters

Is There Any Hope?

The God of All Comfort

Breaking News

Grandmother

In loving memory of my beloved son,

Rodney Lynn Fellows

November 9, 1966–September 24, 2014

Introduction

I wrote the book, Mental Illness, the Ills of Racism, and the African American Experience, to make people aware of mental illness and clinical depression. I pray that this country will come to the realization that mental illness is a disease; the same as heart failure and cancer. When this country gets to this mindset, it will go a long way in helping our mentally ill to get the proper treatment they need to live as normal life as possible. It takes not only the mental health professionals but family as well. The majority of the mentally ill can’t speak for themselves by the very nature of their disease. They need their families to act as their advocates. The stigma of mental illness is why a lot of people with mental issues don’t seek help. This is the main reason we must start treating mental illness the same as we would any other illness.

People with mental issues, or their families, should be able to openly seek help without reproach. Over fifty years ago, when I was a young mother, if someone had seen what I was going through and intervened, I would have had a better outcome. If anyone saw what I went through, they did not seek help for me. I also walked this journey with my son, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and what he went through as a young Black man with a serious mental illness.

I also wrote about the blatant racism in this country because it affects our mentally ill, as well as the rest of us. Some of our mentally ill have been shot and killed by White police officers when they should have been taken to a hospital emergency room. These officers need to be trained to see the signs and symptoms of mental illness. To me, it is not hard to figure out when someone is carrying on a complete conversation with himself and saying he is seeing things that are not there, you should be seeing someone with a severe mental illness and not a criminal. With the hate that is going on in this country, it is getting more and more dangerous for our mentally ill. It affects their way of life because the government is cutting programs that our mentally ill need. A lot of them that are on the street need to be in a hospital setting. God is judging this country on the way they treat the poor and the mentally ill, and America is not going to measure up.

September 14, 2014

The above date is one that I will never forget. It was a usual Sunday for me. I got up, started my Sunday dinner, and got ready for church. After church, I stopped and picked up my son at his home, then brought him home with me for dinner. After dinner, I took him to the grocery store, bought him groceries then took him back home. What I thought was a usual Sunday routine turned into a nightmare for me. It wasn’t until later that I realized I would never forget this day. It was the last time that I saw my son up, walking, and talking. His last words to me were, Thanks Mom. I love you.

And I said, I love you too, babe.

The next time I saw my son, it was in a hospital intensive care unit on a ventilator. The doctor on duty said my son had no brain function and they would take him off the ventilator on Monday, this was Friday, early Saturday morning. They took him off the ventilator and he died on Wednesday morning. The doctors said his cause of death was an accidental overdose of drugs.

I received a copy of the autopsy report stating my son’s cause of death was Respiratory Arrest Due to Mixed Medication Toxicity and was ruled an accident.

I know that was my son’s official