Jerry Large / Times staff columnist
Family struggles to keep mentally ill son from falling through the gaps

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What do you do if your son urinates on the bathroom floor, if he refuses to take his medicine, if he is afraid that someone, maybe aliens, are trying to hurt him? Books and parenting classes are full of helpful tips, unless your son is 39 years old and mentally ill. Then you are on your own.

Thousands of families in King County have loved ones who are mentally ill, but even in this new century, society hasn't fully committed itself to helping them cope.

Mental illness is off the beaten path, hidden in the woods. Raul Munoz, a businessman who lives in Redmond, didn't know what to do eight years ago when his oldest child began to act oddly. This month he helped start a support group for Latino families dealing with mental illness so that fewer people would have to grope in darkness, even as his own struggles continue.

Munoz asked that I not name his son, so I'll call him John.

John, who is 39 and the oldest of Munoz's three children, wasn't born with schizophrenia, but he was born with a difference.

"We noticed when it was time to start speaking that his language was not clear." Kids don't always progress at the same rate, so there was no alarm.

John's IQ is low, but a couple of points too high to qualify for disability payments. John can barely read. He has a large vocabulary, but he can't put whole sentences together. He'll say, "Go to store," or "Wants something." He has a sense of humor. When his stepmother, Katie Munoz, came home with a new hairdo, he said, "220." His father explained to her that he meant she looked as if she had been shocked by a 220-volt outlet.

More information Where to go: A support group for Latino families dealing with mental illness will meet the first Monday of each month. It is a partnership of NAMI Eastside and Consejo. For details contact, Raul Munoz, raulemunozrem@aol.com, or NAMI Eastside, (425) 885-6264.

Throughout school, John was in special-education classes. He graduated, then completed a two-year horticulture program and got landscaping jobs. He was slow, but he worked hard and worked well.

"His jobs, he got on his own," Munoz says. "We never had to help him."

It's easy to see Munoz admires that in his son. It is the kind of grit he showed himself when he came to the United States from Guatemala in 1958 to study physics at the University of California at Berkeley. He didn't know any English when he arrived, but he learned quickly and he earned his degree in 1963.

He worked for an X-ray repair company in California and came to Redmond when the company opened a branch here in 1979.

Twenty years ago he started his own company, selling and repairing medical X-ray equipment.

And, now, when he should be contemplating an easy retirement, he has a new quest.

John's behavior began to change after his parents divorced. "He had to choose between living with her and living with me." He stayed with Munoz and Katie but never stopped debating with himself about the choice. "I think it was too much pressure."

In June 1996, Munoz and Katie came back from a trip and were met at the airport by Munoz's younger son, who said, "John's gone crazy." He thought there were ghosts in the house. He dragged his mattress into the back yard and set it afire.

"I'd never had any experience with a mental-health problem," Munoz says. "I spent a lot of time trying to reason with him. There was no real help getting me to understand what he was going through."

Families dealing with mental illness have much in common, but for immigrants there are matters of culture and sometimes language that need to be taken into account, Munoz says. That drives the need for the new support group.

John never accepted that he had a mental illness, and after less than a year, he stopped taking medicine. That's common, says Michael Rynas, executive director of the East King County Chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI). "People with serious mental illness don't like to take their meds. They don't think they need them."

It's also not unusual for a person to have periods of relatively normal behavior.

For four years, John functioned well without medication, then he developed an obsessive crush on a woman at work. When she rejected him, his behavior became increasingly irrational and paranoid. He lost his job, and when he threatened a family member last June, the family decided to seek an involuntary commitment order.

Since last June, John has been in and out of custody. Last month he was committed to 90 days at Western State Hospital, but he walked away after a few days. Western didn't know where he was, and police agencies didn't seem interested. He hadn't committed a crime. Munoz showed me lengthy logs of calls to police and to Western trying to get a search going.

After nearly a week, John drove home in a rented car. Having John driving around doesn't seem safe for the rest of us, but he is back in Western for the time being.

John is a grown man. The state says he can make his own decisions, but the decisions are distorted by his illness. How does a family or community deal with that?

"Eventually," his father says, "if he keeps being sent to the hospital, he will lose everything he has. He will probably be on the streets."

As hard as that is for him to contemplate, Munoz says maybe then, if John hits bottom, he will accept that he should take the medication. Even if he never accepts that he is mentally ill, at least to avoid the hospital and losing his freedom, he would take the medicine and be able to function.

That's assuming a lot of clear thinking for someone in John's condition. It would be more clarity than the rest of us have shown in leaving so many holes in our social structure for people like John to fall through.

Until a more comprehensive social structure is in place, volunteers are trying to fill the gaps.

Munoz eventually found support through NAMI. The Eastside chapter is only 3-½ years old. It wasn't there when his troubles began.

"The social-service network has emergency housing and therapy or counseling, but no support for people with serious mental illness," says Rynas.

He and his wife got involved because their daughter was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

People will help when the situation becomes clear to them, but most of us are still in the dark.

Jerry Large: 206-464-3346 or jlarge@seattletimes.com. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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