05/10/2026
Moms & Mental Health Awareness Month
May 2026
By Mazie Malone
It is Mother’s Day again, Mental Health Awareness Month again, and honestly with all the knowledge and understanding I have gained over these past several years regarding serious mental illness, homelessness and crisis response, I never expected to find myself in yet another place with a huge learning curve trying to navigate and understand the judicial system and processes and how poorly they are set up to provide appropriate care, intervention and understanding for people living with a Serious Mental Illness.
And the truth is there is very little help for families trying to navigate those situations either. You are expected to somehow understand complicated legal processes, psychiatric issues, court procedures, competency evaluations, custody decisions and fragmented systems while simultaneously trying to hold yourself together emotionally and protect the person you love.
This week, someone I care deeply about lost her son after years of trying to navigate systems that so often respond too late, or not at all.
At the same time, my own son sits in jail.
So this Mother’s Day feels very heavy to me, not just personally but collectively. Because despite all the conversations about Mental Health Awareness, despite all the committees, programs, funding, “collaboration,” and promises of change over these past several years, too many families are still living in survival mode while the people they love cycle through homelessness, crisis, hospitals, jail, abandonment and despair.
And the truth is, many mothers become the unpaid case managers, advocates, crisis responders, protectors, witnesses and emotional lifelines for their adult children while quietly falling apart themselves.
Many of us are also the first people recognizing when someone is slipping into psychosis, decompensating or becoming unsafe long before systems choose to intervene. We are expected to monitor, assess, call for help, explain histories, try to prevent escalation and somehow hold situations together while often feeling like the lead interventionists that no one listens to or even acknowledges until something catastrophic happens.
There are times families provide detailed information about serious mental illness, psychosis and dangerous behaviors happening in real time and still the response is delayed, minimized, misclassified or passed from one agency to another. I have personally called the Crisis Line and waited for callbacks that never came while trying to manage dangerous situations alone. I have called dispatch explaining mental health concerns only to later realize the seriousness of the situation was not even properly reflected in the call itself.
Families are often discounted even when we are desperately trying to prevent things from deteriorating.
Our personal histories shape how we respond to pain, crisis, abandonment and survival, but I also think systems develop their own kind of history and conditioning too. Certain phrases, beliefs and assumptions get repeated so often that people begin operating from them automatically without questioning the harm they may cause.
Things like “homeless by choice,” “at least he’s safe in jail,” or “there’s not enough beds anyway” become part of the culture of response itself.
And while there may in fact be a shortage of psychiatric beds, repeating those realities over and over can quietly lower expectations for intervention and appropriate care in the moment of crisis. It can create an atmosphere where people stop believing meaningful help is even possible before a proper psychiatric evaluation or intervention has fully occurred.
That is dangerous.
Because the role of a crisis worker, law enforcement officer or first responder should not be to decide whether someone is ultimately “fixable” or whether the system has enough resources. Their role should be to recognize the seriousness of the situation, respond appropriately and help get that person to a place of safety and evaluation where trained professionals can make those determinations.
Yet here we still are.
So I am resharing this piece again because while systems, programs and policies may continue to change on paper, the thinking, responses and outcomes in moments of real crisis remain deeply lacking in action, understanding and appropriate intervention.
That is the heartbreak.
Happy Mother’s Day, May the month that seems to be ironic in its celebration of Mothers and its dutiful recognition of Mental Health Awareness.
Mothers like me, being moms to adult children with a Serious Mental Illness are so often the main source of support, physical, mental and emotional, the rock and the witness, unpaid undervalued heroines navigating enormous hurdles on behalf of their loved ones.
Our Mental Health is directly influenced by what our family members experience, however we are not afforded a kind hand or a listening ear to understand or care unless we are fortunate enough to make friends that are rowing in the same turbulent waters.
The lifeboat, “the system” only makes room for 1, carried about in very choppy swells then they tip the boat & push the person out into the crashing waves thrashing about hoping they make it to shore without drowning. You are on your own, tough love, tough luck!
Mothers standing in the sand watching in horror, all the while yelling, cheering, flailing their hands crazily hoping to be seen & heard so their kid can hone in and make it to shore safely.
We must validate the experience of families, let them on the lifeboat and recognize providing support is tantamount to effective Mental Health Care.
The most effective tool for cultivating understanding is speech and language, not a declaration that this month we will bring awareness to Mental Health but actual real conversations that are meaningful.
And what about the Mental Health of the community at large? Humans are interdependent creatures who need each other to survive and evolve. If we can acknowledge the level of street homelessness that is taking a toll on all community members and businesses we are bringing a level of awareness to Mental Health. Yet it is not enough unless we act to provide the necessary accommodations for resiliency in Mental Health outcomes which will not be accomplished without treatment, housing & support on a continual basis.
For many people Mother’s Day is a very difficult holiday, very emotional & bittersweet yet hopeful while also filled with sadness.
I am glad I do not watch TV because all the commercials would make my ability to cope much worse.
You see when an adult child is estranged this day kind of has you at the edge of your seat, expectant that it may finally be the day they decide to reach out.
Now acknowledging you after years of abandonment sounds lovely but it is also frightening because you no longer know them, who are they? Then if they choose not to mend the relationship you are left continually afflicted with grief for a living person, no closure it leaves you empty and sad.
This is significant within the personal history aspect because abandonment runs in my family, my mother abandoned her 5 children, 2 of my brothers abandoned their siblings and my older son abandoned me and his brother.
Sadly, there are probably more people in my long lineage that have done the same.
So rather than follow suit this girl man’s up, does not jump ship or abandon her post. If I had not been abandoned by my own mother I would not be able to write or speak with conviction about how as a society, we neglect some of the most vulnerable people among us, many living with Serious Mental Illness and suffering out on our streets. So, I suppose we could say that is a gift from my mom, my ability to stay with it regardless of the odds, thanks mom!
I hope that all moms are lovingly celebrated for their selfless contributions to their families on this Mother’s Day, and for those that are grieving I am with you, and I wish you peace and comfort.
mm💕
