Surely I Can't Be the Only One
When Mental Illness Becomes More Than a Family Can Carry
There is something I have been carrying around in my mind for a long time.
And lately, I keep coming back to the same question:
Surely I can't be the only one.
Surely my family isn't the only family that has reached that terrifying place where you love someone deeply, would do almost anything for them, and yet finally have to admit:
We cannot provide the level of care this person needs.
That sentence is incredibly difficult to say.
Because it can sound like giving up.
It can sound like abandonment.
It can sound like saying, “You're too much for us.”
But that isn't what we're saying.
What we're really saying is:
“We love you. That's why we're asking for help.”
I'm Not Writing This From the Outside Looking In
I'm not writing this as someone looking at mental illness from the outside.
I know what it is like when your own mind doesn't always cooperate with you.
I live with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder with manic depression.
I know what it means to need help.
And I know what it feels like to wait.
It took almost a year for me to get the care I needed.
So when I talk about serious mental illness, I am not talking about some abstract problem.
I'm talking about people.
People with names.
People with families.
People with childhood memories.
People who have been someone's little boy or little girl.
Someone's brother.
Someone's sister.
Someone's husband.
Someone's wife.
Someone's father.
Someone's mother.
People who are loved.
People who matter.
And sometimes those people need more help than their families can give.
But What About the Family?
This is the part I don't think we talk about enough.
We talk about the person with mental illness.
We talk about treatment.
We talk about hospitals.
We talk about medications.
We talk about homelessness.
We talk about crisis intervention.
But what about the people standing beside them?
What happens to the wife who is trying to hold everything together?
What happens to the parent who hasn't slept because they're worried about their child?
What happens to the sibling making phone call after phone call?
What happens to the family member trying to understand medications, appointments, housing, transportation and what happens next?
What happens when the family finally reaches the point where they have to say:
“We can't do this by ourselves anymore.”
That's where my family is.
And there is something about our situation that makes this especially difficult.
I am working in Tulsa.
I have responsibilities that I have to meet. I have to work. I have to provide what I can.
But while I'm working in Tulsa, the day-to-day burden falls heavily on my wife.
She's the one there.
She's the one who gets the calls.
She's the one who has to worry about what happens next.
She's the one who has to carry the uncertainty while I'm away trying to work.
And that hurts me more than I know how to explain.
Because I know she shouldn't have to carry this alone.
I watch the burden fall on her, and sometimes I feel helpless because there isn't a simple solution I can give her.
I can't magically create housing.
I can't create a treatment facility.
I can't make the system suddenly have an opening.
And I can't simply tell her:
“Don't worry. Everything will be okay.”
Because I don't know that it will.
And neither does she.
Loving Someone Doesn't Give You Unlimited Strength
This is something I wish more people understood.
Love has limits.
Not because love isn't real.
But because human beings have limits.
Loving someone doesn't give you medical training.
It doesn't make you capable of providing 24-hour supervision.
It doesn't give you the resources to manage a serious psychiatric illness.
It doesn't create a safe place for someone to live.
It doesn't make the fear disappear.
And it doesn't mean you can sacrifice every part of your own life indefinitely without eventually breaking.
My wife loves our family.
I love our family.
We would do almost anything for the people we love.
But sometimes almost anything isn't enough.
Sometimes someone needs more care than a family can provide.
And admitting that doesn't make us bad people.
It makes us honest.
“I can't do this alone” is not abandonment.
Sometimes it is the most loving thing a family can say.
Oklahoma's Numbers Should Bother Us
The numbers are staggering.
Mental Health America estimates that approximately 665,000 adults in Oklahoma experience mental illness.
Think about that.
665,000 people.
Those aren't just numbers.
Those are someone's children.
Someone's parents.
Someone's spouse.
Someone's brother.
Someone's sister.
And then there are the people living with serious mental illness.
But statistics have a strange way of making human beings disappear.
A statistic doesn't show a wife sitting awake at 2 a.m.
It doesn't show a mother crying after making another phone call.
It doesn't show a father wondering where his son will sleep.
It doesn't show the person with mental illness sitting alone wondering whether they have become a burden.
It doesn't show the spouse who is exhausted but afraid to admit it.
It doesn't show the family whispering:
“What are we supposed to do?”
Then There Is Housing
This is where the problem becomes even more frightening.
Oklahoma City's 2026 Point-in-Time Count found 1,867 people experiencing homelessness on January 23, 2026. The count found that approximately 20% reported serious mental illness, and the report indicates that 30% of those experiencing serious mental illness were unsheltered.
Those numbers should stop us.
But even those numbers don't tell the whole story.
Because a Point-in-Time count is exactly that:
A snapshot.
It is one day.
One moment.
It doesn't capture everyone sleeping on someone's couch.
It doesn't capture someone moving from relative to relative.
It doesn't capture the family desperately trying to keep their loved one from becoming homeless.
It doesn't capture the person who has a temporary place tonight but no idea where they will be next month.
And it doesn't capture the family that is one crisis away from saying:
“We simply cannot do this anymore.”
The numbers are real.
But the human suffering behind them is much larger.
America Isn't Doing Much Better
And Oklahoma isn't alone.
According to SAMHSA's 2025 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, approximately 18.2 million American adults experienced serious mental illness in 2025—6.9% of the adult population.
Eighteen million people.
Try to comprehend that.
18,200,000 human lives.
And every one of those people exists somewhere inside a family, a community or a circle of people who care about them.
Some may be able to live independently.
Some may have excellent support.
And some may need something that is incredibly difficult to find:
A safe place to live where they can receive ongoing support without being locked away.
Where Does Someone Go When They're Too Sick to Live Alone—but Not Sick Enough for a Hospital?
This is the question that keeps haunting me.
What happens before the crisis?
What happens when a family knows something is wrong?
What happens when someone is deteriorating?
What happens when someone cannot safely live completely independently but doesn't meet the criteria for involuntary hospitalization?
Where are they supposed to go?
That is the gap I'm talking about.
Because our system can be very good at responding to emergencies.
Someone becomes psychotic.
We respond.
Someone becomes dangerous.
We respond.
Someone ends up in an emergency room.
We respond.
Someone becomes homeless.
We respond.
Someone gets arrested.
We respond.
But what about before all of that?
What if we helped before rock bottom?
What if we didn't wait until someone was standing in the ashes before we offered them a place to stand?
I'm Not Asking for a Mental Hospital
I want to be very clear about this.
I'm not asking Oklahoma to lock mentally ill people away.
I'm asking for something I believe is much more compassionate.
Housing.
Safe housing.
Supportive housing.
Supervised housing.
Places where someone with serious mental illness can live while receiving the level of assistance they actually need.
Places where someone can receive help managing medications.
Places where somebody can make sure they are eating.
Places where somebody can recognize when their condition is deteriorating.
Places where professionals can help them maintain stability.
Places where families can visit.
Places where the person can still have dignity.
And places where their family can walk through the door and say:
“I love you.”
We Need Something Between "Take Them Home" and "Commit Them"
There has to be something in between.
There has to be a middle ground.
A place for the person who is too ill to safely live completely independently but doesn't need to be locked inside a psychiatric hospital.
A place where they can have independence where possible and support where necessary.
A place where families can breathe.
A place where someone can wake up in the morning and know they are safe.
A place where they aren't treated like a problem that needs to be moved somewhere else.
A place where they can still feel like a person.
Because I don't want the person we love to believe:
“My family doesn't want me.”
I want them to understand:
“My family loves me so much that they knew I needed more help than they could give me.”
There is a tremendous difference between those two things.
My Wife Shouldn't Have to Become a Full-Time Mental Health Caregiver
This is the part that is difficult for me to write.
Because I know what this is doing to my wife.
I'm working in Tulsa.
She's carrying so much of this while I'm away.
And there are moments when I wonder how much one person is expected to carry.
She shouldn't have to choose between being a wife and becoming a full-time caregiver.
She shouldn't have to sacrifice her own peace, sleep, health and stability because there isn't another place for someone we love to go.
And I shouldn't have to sit at work wondering what she's dealing with while I'm hundreds of miles away.
This isn't what family support was supposed to mean.
Family should mean love.
Family should mean showing up.
Family should mean doing everything you can.
But family shouldn't mean being forced to become an entire mental-health-care system because there is nowhere else to turn.
I Can't Believe We're the Only Family Saying This
I refuse to believe we're unique.
I refuse to believe we're the only family making phone calls.
The only family searching for answers.
The only family wondering what happens next.
The only wife carrying a burden that has become too heavy.
The only husband sitting at work feeling helpless because he can't be in two places at once.
The only parent wondering:
“What happens when we can't do this anymore?”
There have to be other families.
Thousands of them.
Maybe millions.
Families who love someone deeply but have reached the limits of what they can provide.
Families who are terrified that asking for help will somehow make them look like they are abandoning the person they love.
Families who are desperately trying to prevent homelessness, hospitalization or another crisis.
Surely I'm not the only one.
I Want My Loved One to Feel Loved—Not Like a Burden
That's really what this comes down to.
I don't want someone with severe mental illness to believe their only choices are:
Be a burden on your family—or be locked in a hospital.
There should be another choice.
A home.
A safe place.
A place with care.
A place with dignity.
A place where someone can receive the help they need while still being loved by their family.
A place where they don't have to wonder whether their family has given up on them.
Because sometimes getting someone help isn't pushing them away.
Sometimes it is how you keep them close.
The Statistics Don't Show the Tears
Statistics don't show the wife sitting alone at home.
They don't show the phone calls.
They don't show the sleepless nights.
They don't show the fear.
They don't show the guilt.
They don't show the person working in another city wondering whether their spouse is okay.
They don't show the family member staring at a phone waiting for it to ring.
They don't show the question:
“What are we going to do?”
They don't show the person with mental illness quietly wondering:
“Am I just a burden?”
And perhaps that is the statistic that matters most.
Because if someone we love starts believing they are a burden, we've already failed them in some way.
They shouldn't have to feel that way.
It's Time for Somebody to Stand Up
I believe it is time for Oklahoma to stand up.
And I believe it is time for America to stand up.
Not against people with mental illness.
For them.
For the people who cannot always advocate for themselves.
For the families who have reached the end of what they can physically and emotionally provide.
For the spouses carrying burdens that should never belong to one person.
For the person who needs somewhere safe to live before they become psychotic, homeless, hospitalized or incarcerated.
We keep saying people with mental illness have rights.
Then let's make sure those rights mean more than words on paper.
Let's make sure there are places where people can actually receive appropriate care.
Let's make sure a person doesn't have to hit rock bottom before somebody reaches down a hand.
And let's stop expecting families to completely collapse before someone finally says:
“Let us help you.”
So Please Tell Me I'm Not Alone
If you've lived this—
tell me.
If you've watched your family struggle to find appropriate care—
tell me.
If you've called places and been told there is nowhere for your loved one to go—
tell me.
If you've wondered what will happen when your family simply cannot do it anymore—
tell me.
You don't have to share everything.
You don't have to give names.
You don't have to explain your entire story.
Just tell me:
“You're not alone.”
Because I need to know.
My wife needs to know.
And I believe there are thousands of families across Oklahoma and America who need to know the same thing.
Maybe if we start talking about this openly, we can stop treating these families like isolated cases.
Maybe we can show our elected officials what the statistics don't show.
The statistics don't show the tears.
They don't show the exhaustion.
They don't show the phone calls.
They don't show the fear.
They don't show the guilt.
They don't show the spouse carrying more than one person should have to carry.
And they certainly don't show the love.
Because underneath all of this—
there is love.
That's why we're still fighting.
That's why we're still making phone calls.
That's why we're still looking for answers.
That's why I am writing this.
Surely I Can't Be the Only One
I don't want my loved one to feel abandoned.
I don't want my wife to feel abandoned.
And I don't want any family to believe that asking for help means they have failed.
We need something better.
Not abandonment.
Not incarceration.
Not waiting until someone reaches a breaking point.
Care.
We need safe places for people with serious mental illness to live.
We need supportive housing.
We need somewhere between a family's living room and a psychiatric hospital.
We need somewhere between “Take them home” and “We have nowhere for them.”
And we need it before tragedy forces our hand.
Because people with mental illness are not numbers.
They aren't diagnoses.
They aren't problems to be passed from one system to another.
They are people.
They are someone's child.
Someone's spouse.
Someone's parent.
Someone's brother.
Someone's sister.
And they deserve dignity.
They deserve safety.
They deserve care.
They deserve to know they are still loved.
And the families who love them deserve help too.
So I'm asking one more time:
Surely I can't be the only one.
Because I don't think we can keep waiting for something terrible to happen before deciding that somebody is worth helping.
It's time to do something.
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