Is anybody yet convinced that southern New Mexico requires a mental health facility? It is not a matter of whether southern New Mexico would benefit from a facility, but the state of affairs within Las Cruces alone implores us to act and advocate for dedicated, in-patient mental health services in our area. Currently, several mental health providers are doing their best with limited beds. Waiting lists abound and waiting for a bed can stretch past a time when a voluntary, self-committer reneges on the promise they made to themselves a week or a month prior in a moment of lucidity. And some of those providers take Medicaid... and some don’t. Costs for mental health or drug abuse treatment can cost tens of thousands of dollars, with the bill due, understandably, up front.
Two weeks ago, a gentlemen assaulted officers near my work place such that he was removed from the premises. I drive a similar vehicle as him, apparently, and so my arrival each morning spurned, according to several of the officers, anxiety before realizing I wasn’t him. He then proceeded to walk in front of traffic on Highway 70 and was committed. But commitment means 72 hours. Three days. I am not convinced that three days is enough to cure a severe mental health condition.
The road rage murder of a child can only be attributed to someone whose brain is addled by anger, blinded by rage that can only be described as mental illness over an apparently minor infraction of the young man’s mother driving him home.
The death of a local bus driver, too, reeks of a mental disorder on the part of the perpetrator. Who walks up to a man outside his workplace to execute him? A severely deranged individual, that’s who.
Last night, a man jumped from the bridge over Interstate 25 at Lohman Avenue. He was obviously not well enough to know that the fall probably wouldn’t kill him, but would likely be incredibly painful. Suicidal, which is, in itself, unwell, but also so unwell as to cause great bodily pain, which I don’t think anyone desires, unless they are extremely sick.
We’ve all seen the folks wandering around town, gesticulating wildly and angry at things and people that aren’t actually there.
Of course, if you’ve been following along for a bit, you’ve heard me lament the repeat offender situation in our criminal justice system. And while I still believe most of them have become experts at gaming the system, playing off of our pity and the loopholes that soft-on-crime policies and cultures have delivered to us, some people really are very ill. Dangerously so, to either themselves or others in the community.
And so what happens to them? They are left to wander the streets, wearing filthy pajamas with pink hearts for six months straight, until crimes of necessity and a broken brain, usually fueled by drug psychosis, deliver them to the criminal justice system, where Russian roulette is played with their safety and ours. The best they, or we, can hope for is that they are committed to a facility 350 miles away. Out of sight and out of mind, so that local politicians can claim success in cleaning up the mental health and drug abuse situation in our area. But if a facility existed here locally, if just one person were able to walk in and self-commit, it would be worth whatever is spent on the facility. The state and city, apparently, have millions to spare on other pet projects – make the next one actually worthwhile.
Shawna Pfeiffer is a guest columnist for the Bulletin. She is a life-long Doña Ana County resident, graduate of NMSU, small business owner, hobby farmer, dog-lover, outdoor enthusiast and mother to two young children. She can be reached at srpfeiffer1@gmail.com.
