By Elaine Rassel
It is Easter Sunday as I am writing this article_a time of celebration of life for Christians. However, as of the last two weeks, there have been shootings in grocery and other stores as well as another death resulting from a “deranged” person ramming a car through a barricade at the Capitol and striking a policeman (who died), then emerged from the car, wielding a knife. There have been too many of these cases where someone has gone off the deep end because of a personal problem with someone where hatred runs high, or maybe be laid off or losing a job, or the pandemic causing a financial problem, or maybe no foreseen problem at all_where there seems to be no answer. Not all these cases involve the death of the person having a problem but have involved others _too many others that were innocent victims.
When someone has a physical problem, whether it be a sore throat, gall bladder attack, or an unexplainable headache, they are taken to a doctor to be treated. I pulled, from my files, one of Dr. Phil’s programs that dealt with a problem, not physical, but rather mental. Even at the time of this program, the government had cut back on mental health treatments that have left people to “deal” with what is wrong with them.
The family interviewed on his program was a father, mother, and two daughters. This whole awful event happened following a Thanksgiving dinner with other family present. Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful for what we have and to pray for those who do not have it as good as we have. This is what this family did but later on, this day turned to a tragic moment.
The mother, Betty, had had two heart attacks in previous years that had left her “not the same”, according to Rachael, her younger daughter. Rachael now says that she couldn’t bear the fact that her mother wasn’t the same mother. After midnight on that fateful day, Stan, the father, went to a local Walmart to do some Black Friday shopping early, not knowing what was going to happen at his home while he was gone.
About 1 a.m., Rachael went to her mother’s bedroom carrying a shot gun. Rachael woke her mother up and told her she was going to help her die so she didn’t have to suffer. (But, was the mother really suffering, or was it all in Rachael’s head?) Yes, she did shoot her mother_dead. Then she called her father on the phone and told him that Betty was dead and that she had shot her. At first he thought it was a cruel joke but soon was given a picture Rachael took on her phone and sent to him. He immediately called the police to report what had happened. Then he called his other daughter and the two of them reached his home before the police arrived. They didn’t know how the police were going to take Rachael into custody and wanted to be there if she needed any help.
Arriving at the home, they found Rachael like they had never seen her before. She had a look on her face that just wasn’t her. They just couldn’t seem to able to talk to her to find out what had happened. (Dr. Phil later said that this is common when the person “snaps” and it is called “disassociation” when they can’t take a situation any longer.)
She was sentenced to 50 years in prison but in a few years she could be available for parole. She was now 19 years old and would be 38 years old when she could leave the prison. She had had a mental evaluation before she was sentenced where she was found not to have any mental problems that could have led to this murder of her mother.
She is presently at the Hampton Roads Regional Jail in Portsmouth, Virginia serving some of her sentence. Dr. Phil was given the right to talk to her with no glass between them. To look at her, you would think there was nothing wrong with her. But, there is and has been for quite some time. She told Dr. Phil she had tried twice to commit suicide. The first time was when she tried “cutting” herself and gave up on it. The second time was when she was going to leave the world as her mother had, if her family hadn’t come when they did.
She had had this gun in a closet for years. She didn’t know exactly why she had it but when the moment came, she knew. She said the day hadn’t been all so cheerful for her as the others had at that Thanksgiving table. She knew her father was out of the house and decided it was time to take the suffering away from her mother. (No where in this story was it mentioned just how the mother was supposed to have been suffering.)
She said her mother didn’t have a chance of living when she pulled the trigger. She felt she had done her mother a favor and felt no remorse. That is how her father and sister found her before the police came—someone they didn’t know.
When questioned by Dr. Phil, she now knows that she had been depressed for many years and had covered it up very well so her family didn’t know it. “Do you feel you deserve to sit here until you are 38 years old?’ he asked her. Her answer was, “Yes”.
Now we come to her father and sister. They had not seen her for almost two years. Did they carry a grudge against her? This wasn’t like a drunk driver that had run into their mother and killed her. They could hate this driver. However, this was a family member that they have found out couldn’t help her action. Could they trust her if she was ever to come back home?
The family was spoken to before they were allowed to see Rachael. Dr. Phil asked the father just why he insisted on doing the cleaning up of the bedroom rather then have a professional cleaner do it. He answered that somehow it was a “closure” for him. In the process, he had found that Rachael only had two bullets in the gun but there were several more found far away from the closet where the weapon had been for years.
He told Dr. Phil that he had reprimanded Rachael that day for not helping as much as she could have in getting the meal ready. He had taken some of her privileges away. Now, he could see that this action was what brought the whole affair to a boiling point with Rachael. Would he have known what was going to happen, he never would have left the house. (Would he have been a victim, also if he had been at home?) The sister said time after time that she couldn’t believe what Rachael had done. She never was in trouble. Her school grades were good. She had many friends and did not associate with the wrong crowd. There was nothing that gave her sister a clue as to what Rachael was suffering—mental illness.
The family was allowed to see Rachael with no glass between them. It had been over two years since they had been this close to her. They were allowed to hug her and speak to her as to how they felt about her. Dr. Phil told them that they didn’t have to love her but just try and understand her. He also said, “It has been said that time heals a death, but it is what you do with the time that matters.”
He is working with the court system to see if he can help Rachael. According to him, she has progressed a long way since two years ago. She has been given some help while in this facility. He is going to work with the father and sister and give them help, as well.
How sad, that Rachael couldn’t tell her family of her need for help. Mental illness has been “something you don’t talk about” for too many years. Not many families want to have anyone know that a family member is in need of help. Most of the time they are taken to a physician who prescribes a pill to help them when this isn’t really the answer.
Maybe it is time to start “carrying signs” for mental health instead of protesting other things. It is said that “unless you wear the shoes of this person, you have no idea what it is like to know there is no/ not much help available.”
All the shootings that have occurred, just why did these happen? Some say the person/persons doing the shooting person have had mental health problems for years. Yes, drug usage could have brought some of this on, but there are other reasons. No one wants to admit they have a mental problem and be talked about. There are those that can hide it so well that no one has any idea of what the person is going through. Suicide rate is high for these people that cannot find a solution to their problem. When places that work with mentally ill people have their funds cut as well as the professionals helping them, there seems to be no hope for those needing help.
In December 24’s Sioux City Journal (2019), Senator Charles Grassley had an article on “Let’s break silence and talk about mental health on the farm.” I wonder how many people have ever thought a farmer could be at risk for mental health. In this article, he writes on how farmers’ livelihoods are at the mercy of Mother Nature. There are times when it is tricky getting crops out before the snow comes due to unplanned machinery repairs, the high-moisture content of corn and wet field conditions.
He went on to say that this year (2019) because of excessive rain and snowmelt in April, the farmers had to plant late. October brought on a snowstorm that delayed getting crops out. The nature of a farmer’s profession is an occupational hazard and it can take a toll on mental wellness. Prosperity requires sound care-taking of Earth’s natural resources and conservative stewardship of financial resources. Pinching pennies comes second nature because history teaches us that it’s often feast or famine for farmers.
Besides natural disasters, there is a shortage of LP gas needed to dry harvest grain, a five-year decline in farm income, tariffs on U.S. Ag commodities, stalled trade agreements, and disrupted renewable biofuel policies that weighs heavily on a farmer’s mind. There are pressures to pay bills in addition to getting the crops out and still make ends meet that can overwhelm mental wellness, even when times are good. When this is bottled up and left unchecked, despair can have deadly consequences. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s research has stated that suicide rate is 45% higher in rural America than in urban areas. Farmers are the ones that have higher rates than the general population. There may be many factors that contribute to rural areas_distance from health care services, geographic isolation, financial pressures due to the farm economy and stigma associated with obtaining mental health care services.
There has been an increase in farmer suicides that parallel the farmer suicides in the 1980’s farm crisis. Farmers just can’t bear losing a farm that has been in a family for generations. The loss of life and livelihoods echoes throughout farming communities decades later. It is just something that doesn’t go away.
Grassley is one of U.S. Senators that has been working with rural America for decades and that includes protecting expanding access to health care services. He is using his voice to break the silence on mental health for America’s farmers.
Another Senator, Jon Tester of Montana along with Grassley have introduced the Seeding Rural Resilience Act to help curb the rising rate of farmer suicides. This bill would empower people who are in a position to identify farmers who need help to get them help. There would be a voluntary training program within the USDA to educate government employees who work directly with farmers. This bill would provide training to flag potential warning signs and risk factors and direct the USDA to develop best practices to respond to mental stress impacting farmers.
With rates of suicide on the rise across America, Grassley knows we must do more. Stigma has overshadowed this public health risk for decades. Something must be done about it.
He stated, “Like an old-fashioned barn raising, let’s join our neighbors to end the old-fashioned stigma. Let’s build acceptance to access mental health services. Reaching out and seeking support will help distressed farmers and rural families count their blessings for more harvests to come.”
These aforementioned articles on mental health issues are not meant to bring politics into light. Finding more help for those in need of mental health issues should not make a difference in what “party” professes to do something about it. Help should come from “both” parties by working together to try and break the stigma of mental health.